After 25 years of piano teaching, I’m reflecting on how studio size shapes everything—from scheduling and group classes to communication and materials. Whether you teach 12 or 45 students, this episode explores five key areas where size matters—and how to adapt your studio to match your life and teaching goals.
Items Mentioned and Other Related Content
- Episode 001 – Organizing Student Materials
- Episode 029 – Simplify Your Studio Communication
- Episode 066 – How to Not Give Makeup Lessons
- Episode 078 – Fall Scheduling: Don’t be Afraid
- Episode 120 – A New Teacher’s Journey with Gretchen Steffen
- Episode 149 – Auto Payment Processing Options
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Transcript
Over the past 25 years, my journey as a piano teacher has taken me through many seasons of life, offering a wide array of studio teaching experiences.
I’ve taught as few as 2 students to as many as 45. I’ve taught 30, 40, 45, 50, and 60-minute lessons, solo and group lessons in settings ranging from my parents’ home to a community music school to a dedicated business location, and more.
As someone who can’t do the same thing for years on end, I began scaling back a few years into teaching over 35 students. As I started to do more work for you all in this realm, and my husband and I moved into our mid-to-late 40s, I’ve felt the need to downshift again.
These shifts have painted a rich picture of the different challenges and benefits that come with running studios of various sizes. Teaching 45 students is not the same as teaching 25, and running a studio with 25 is a very different experience from managing one with just 12.
It’s been interesting noticing these contrasts, and I want to share a few key takeaways with you today.
I’ve identified five core areas where I’ve seen the biggest differences in studio management based on studio size:
- Policies & Payment Options
- Scheduling
- Group Classes
- Communication
- Organizing Student Materials
Policies & Payment Options
Let’s start with policies and payment options.
For the most part, I don’t see a lot of change between smaller and larger studios.
Regardless of studio size, what is most important is to have clarity and consistency.
The biggest difference for me was that when I had a larger studio, I felt it was good to offer more payment options, such as annual, semester, and monthly payments, and more than one payment avenue, such as taking checks, cash, Venmo, or setting up regular monthly payments from an auto-processor.
In the end, try to keep it as concise and simple as possible for you (and, in turn, for them as well), such as accepting payment through no more than two or three different avenues.
As my studio has gotten smaller, however, I’ve removed many of those options and gone the route of no options. Everyone pays a flat monthly fee, and everyone has to sign up for autopayments using my tool of choice, which are taken out the first of every month.
For more on that, check out episode 149 on auto payment processing options.
Scheduling & Group Classes
The next two, scheduling and group classes, I have to kind of weave together in our conversation here.
Obviously, scheduling becomes more complex as your studio grows. There are three parts to this: putting together the fall lesson schedule, handling missed lessons, and scheduling classes outside of regular lesson times, such as group classes.
As for the fall lesson scheduling, I feel like my process hasn’t changed with studio size. I survey requests, plug in those with the trickiest schedules first, communicate one at a time rather than all at once so I can shift around as needed before notifying everyone, and take my time. It’s worked pretty well over the years for me that way. Listen to episode 078, Fall Scheduling: Don’t be Afraid, for more scheduling advice.
I have noticed a big shift in how I schedule group classes, though. For many years, I held group classes in lieu of private lessons every six weeks. Just as families put in a lesson time request and were given a set time at the beginning of the year, I would do the same with group classes for the entire year.
These past few years, however, since my studio was under 25, I found it easier to just text families the week prior and ask for their general availability the next week for group classes, then I would schedule the classes according to when the groups that I wanted to put together had times that jived. I know that sounds crazy, but it really wasn’t as bad as I would’ve thought.
The third part of scheduling has to do with how you handle missed lessons – otherwise known as whether or not you allow makeups.
My personal policy has been no makeups—basically, I am not responsible for rescheduling a lesson you can’t make. However, if I have an open time and another student has cancelled, I will offer it, but I do not go out of my way to reschedule outside of my set teaching times.
I think it is absolutely reasonable – especially with a larger studio – but even for any size studio – to say absolutely hands down no rescheduling. For more on that, listen to episode 066 with Samantha Coates on how to not give makeup lessons.
As my studio has gotten smaller, I do feel I have a bit more flexibility to accommodate when possible but I am strick with my personal mental game on not letting myself feel any kind of obligation. So it has lightened up a bit with less students.
To give a flip side, I was recently chatting with my former student turned piano teacher, who joined me for a teacher talk in episode 120. She recently shared with me that since she started teaching a few years ago, she has become a little more lax in her policies because all her studio families are friends, and she doesn’t feel comfortable being too business-like with them.
And you know what? I told her that as long as you feel comfortable with your situation and don’t feel like you’re being taken advantage of, do what feels right for you.
She did say, though, that starting with a strict policy in place from the get-go helped her have more confidence to see her policies through when she needed them to protect her. And that, my friends, is exactly what they’re there for.
Group Classes
OK, so we weaved a little into the group class conversation as part of the scheduling conversation, but now I want to talk about different ways group classes might fit into your lesson calendar. This is one place where I noticed a big difference when having a larger vs. smaller studio.
I’ve always held group classes in lieu of lessons every six weeks during the school year, but this past year, I got a bit burned out and wanted more consistency in weekly lessons.
So, I moved from group classes that were similar in age and level, scheduled in lieu of lessons every six weeks, to holding bonus multi-level musicianship and performance classes at four points in the school year, which occurred on top of their weekly lesson that week.
While I think these variations work equally well in either the small or large studio setting, in general, group classes are just all around harder to get good attendance and balance with when you have a smaller studio. They’re much easier to run and you have more options when you have a larger studio. You might disagree, though – that’s just been my experience.
I’m at a point where 75-80% of my students are at an intermediate level right now. I only took on one new beginner last year, and he wouldn’t have really had anyone to do a group class with if I were still running groups with kids the same age and level. So it worked well for me to move to more of a multi-level format at least for this season in my studio.
While I enjoyed changing it up and trying the multi-level class thing, I felt like it was a lot harder to get people to come to the extra bonus group classes when they also have a private lesson the same week.
The thing is, there’s just no perfect situation – there’s only a perfect situation for what your current studio looks like and what you need as a teacher.
I will say that part of the reason I used to do the group class in lieu of a weekly lesson was that it gave me some breathing room to catch up on other little things, like cleaning up the studio, catching up on finances, or putting together a new resource.
I thought I wouldn’t miss that with the studio being smaller this year, but I could still tell a big difference still. It took me until well into the second semester to realize it, but it was a good reminder of why I used to do group lessons that way in the first place.
Communication
The fourth area in which I noticed differences between small and large studios was in how I communicate with my studio families. I’ve definitely noticed this more over the past five years, little by little. Some of it has to do with the times we live in, and some of it has to do with studio size.
For one thing, I never send formal studio newsletters anymore. Communication has become much more concise and includes as few items as possible in one go.
I text families much more frequently, to the point that it feels like a lot to me, but most express that they don’t mind—they like the reminders.
I sit down and do the bulk of my studio-related planning and management work on Monday mornings. I try to send an email once a month with no more than 3-5 highlights, including one practical tip for practice or something fun to check out, and then I will text reminders roughly every other week for upcoming things.
I don’t group text at all – I copy and paste and edit for that person as needed.
I think if my studio got above 25 again, that might change, but for a smaller studio, it’s definitely been more conducive to today’s families and how they like to communicate—and me as well, honestly. it just feels more natural.
If you would like to hear more on studio communication, listen to episode 29 – Simplify Your Studio Communication.
Organizing Student Materials
The last area I wanted to discuss today, which can change when managing a smaller vs. larger studio, is how we organize our student materials.
I first discussed this in the very first episode of this podcast, Episode 1, “Organizing Student Materials.” I have always kept a file drawer with a file folder labeled for every student, where I keep materials I want to use for their weekly lesson, old books that we may have pressed pause on but that I want to come back to, or books that I want to give them in the near future.
This year, though, as I have less students, I have tended to ignore that drawer a bit and kept everything in a pile on my piano lid. I at least try to at least keep a single stack in order of students for the week and pop a post-it with the student’s name on whatever item is in the stack, whether it’s a printout or a book.
It’s been easier to let this organizational strategy go a bit with fewer students, but I don’t love having it all on the piano either, so I am going to try to do better this year with my drawer organizer.
When I had a larger studio, it was much more important to keep things segmented and organized for each student. File drawers or tub of some kind
Conclusion
What about you? Have you experienced different variations of studios over the years? What are some of the big differences that you’ve noticed? As always, I would love to hear from you.
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Stay tuned for the next episode where you’ll hear from the teachers who are attending the Piano Pantry digital orgaization retreat in my home the week this episode drops.
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