Traditional VS. Simply Music -Cost
Found in: Fees Rates & Cost, Studio Management
Terri D.
I am working on my phone sales pitch and was wondering if some former traditional piano teachers could give me some info.
On the average:
How many months did it take to get a student to be playing with both hands, a song equivalent to Dreams? How much money would we be talking about that the parents save at even the first lesson?
I have a former traditional student who was NOT playing with both hands after six months. Is that reasonable? This would be a selling point as to how much money they save – spending a little more – but saving so much more in the long run. Not to mention the likelihood that traditional students will quit over time and ALL of their money will have been wasted.
Carrie L., Michigan
In my experience teaching traditional lessons (average 20-30 students a week) for five years is that after three years of taking lessons the average student was not able to play songs comfortably on their own without some help from the teacher. There was no instruction with composition, improv or anything creative.
My focus with phone calls is to get them to a Free Intro Session for which I go through the difference with Simply Music.
If I have students come in that play for me with prior traditional experience I’ve found I need to be very careful with what I say about how their child plays. If they play for me, I kindly say… that’s a great sounding piece or something ‘nice’ even if the piece is not nearly as far along as my students are at.
Terri D.
Can you tell me how long, on the average, it was traditionally, before a student could play a song similar to Dreams with both hands(BH)? Six months? A year? Just looking for numbers such as $80/month for nine months before a student played what we teach in one or two weeks at $40 or so.
Claire C. Pennsylvania
I still have the books that my children used. One was a book with notes but no staves by Jane Smisor Bastien and the second one was Alfred d’Auberge Piano Course book 1 that was used after the Bastien book. The end of the Bastien book introduces the C major chord and some songs that are in the Five Steps of Sound form. I’ve used a couple of these in the first week or so for younger students but I just teach them by rote in order to make Five Steps of Sound a little more like a song. The Alfred d’Auberge book’s last song is Chopsticks that is hands together but not chords(just single notes). The song before that is Musette by J.S. Bach (a shortened version of the org.) which has a left hand similar to the left hand of Dreams sentence 1.
I often tell parents that SM starts where traditional methods leave off at the end of book one and progresses beyond book 2 very rapidly. I don’t recall how long it took my children to finish the books but at least six months. I think also, some traditional teachers obsess a lot more about getting the notes and technique “right”. So some could make the book 1 process a lot longer. I think this bores the student and this is where many students decide to drop since it takes too long to play interesting pieces. Simply Music is definitely a better value as far as getting more results in less time. I love the smiles on the faces of the kids when they play Dreams HT after a week or two. It would take six months or more with traditional teaching to get that reaction.
Louise H.
I used to teach the Faber series, which is a very popular series for teachers. Both hands playing together aren’t introduced until Lesson 9. There are 10 lessons in the Primer series. I would guess that it would take me three months to get a student through Primer. The hands together parts are very simple.
So here’s brief comparison. If you charge $80/month for lessons and it takes three months to have a student playing with both hands, it is $240. In Simply Music? One or two lessons, if you charge $20 a lesson, $40. Plug in your own rates here.
I had a six year old student visit her grandma this summer. She has been playing for six months. They were amazed at what she could do after only six months.