I am not a member of the local music teachers' association, but I have a few students who would like to participate in piano competitions this year. Previously I focused a lot on beginner students, so I had not had any students ready for competitions. But, now I have a few who are ready and who want to compete.

Do I need to join the association to have my students participate in competitions? Are there other competitions outside of the music teacher association ones?

Help - I know nothing about this LOL, and I really want my students to get the chance to compete. Thanks!

It probably depends!

To enter your students in the Guild Auditions, you only need become a member of that organization. http://pianoguild.com/page/nztl/Membership_Application.html

Your local MTNA association probably has many events to choose from. It's also great to join just to make the contacts and attend the meetings, which usually have interesting programs.

Thank you, Stanny! The Guild looks exactly like what my students are interested in! What exactly does membership in the Guild entail? Does the teacher have to pass a certification or anything, like with MTNA? Are there meetings or anything?

Also, how do you go about choosing repertoire for their performance?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

A lot depends on where you live and the local piano scene.

In Southern California, there are literally a dozen or so piano competitions for young piano students, and about half of them do not require membership to join anything!

But it is definitely worth your time and money to join a teachers' organization that sponsors more events (like recitals and evaluations). Why don't your ask some colleagues in your area for more info?

Many areas have a plethora of competitions. In my neck of the woods the regional orchestras have concerto competitions, many of the metro areas have 'auditions' with substantial scholarships on the line, and local universities sponsor competitions and master classes. And then there are the various teacher organizations that have their own events (Guild, Federation, MTNA etc.)

Our local MTNA only sponsors a couple of real "competitions" (vs "festivals") and I believe only students of members can compete. However, as PD mentions, there are some other "open" competitions in the "general" vicinity (not a great choice, and it may mean driving a ways). Check out the universities and of course the "old" standby, do an online search for "piano competition" in your area (be forwarned though, it's shocking how "not with it" many of these competitions are with regards to technology and providing useful (if any) information online).

It's a bit late in the year for your students to get in on National Piano Playing Auditions for this year, unless they're trained in scales, primary chords and inversions (what many piano teachers leave out).

However, I would strongly urge you to join, get a copy of the Guild Syllabus, and start studying it. You need to develop repertoire in each student, and they must know it well enough to perform it from memory.

MTNA has competitions/adjudications at a slightly less intense level, but you must be a member to participate.

Other music organizations sponsor competitions; I receive many announcements in the mail, and that is mostly because I subscribe to a number of teaching magazines and am a member of MTNA. Just as an example, however, our local symphony sponsors an annual concerto competition. You don't have to belong to anything to compete, but of course, there is an entrance fee.


I will be happy to answer your questions about Guild as best I can.

John

John has a wealth of information on the Guild! It might be possible (depending on when the auditions are in your area) for you to have just a student or two play in them, and just a small number of pieces. It will be worth it to you to learn the ropes. That's what I did my first year, then the next I had 14 students play. This year I hope to have even more!

John - thank you for the guild information. I requested a copy of the Guild Syllabus and have been studying it for the past week. It seems like a great organization. It's obviously too late for us to participate this year (not from the theory perspective - all my students are required to know their scales/chords/etc., so we are good there!) but from the repertoire perspective. I do plan to join in the Fall, though, so we can participate next Spring.

John, would you mind sharing what some of your students are playing for guild this year? Maybe per level? That's where I would need guidance, determining their repertoire for this event.

I also decided to join MTNA. I went to a few meetings and really enjoyed it. The $120 price tag is pretty steep (!) and it was hard to justify the membership to my husband, since I definitely don't need it for marketing purposes. But I love that I will be able to have students participate in local, state, and national events, as well as grow as a pianist and piano instructor.

I think membership in both of these organizations will be great for me and my students! John, I may PM you with some questions about guild in the future, if that's OK!

Thanks, everyone!

You have a big number of junior competitions at http://www.bakitone.com just choose one or two and go! They are ALL outside of the music teacher association...

PianoKitty,

Just a couple of thoughts for you and others concerning professional dues.

These expenses are deducted off the top of your teaching income. The IRS (Congress, actually) considers that dues in professional organizations are part and parcel of doing business. People who are members are generally more productive and add more to the economy and from our perspective, usually become better teachers.

Let's say your studio is nearing capacity at 25 students, a mix of 30 and 45 min students, and your gross revenue from teaching is $22,000/yr. All your business expenses are immediately deductible from this figure.

Professional dues, books on teaching or music which you purchase so that you can prepare it for teaching; the cost of tuning and maintaining your piano(s); new equipment, such as an adjustable foot pedal stand and adjustable piano bench, etc.; depreciation on your pianos, etc., etc. etc.

Postage you use to send material to your students; recital hall rentals; expense of taking students to special concerts; mileage (be sure to keep a really, really accurate record - I use the little mileage books you can buy at Office Depot); paper, envelopes, dedicated computer and software used exclusively by your studio, etc., etc.

To be really honest, I was a bit put off by your comment: Does your husband run his office expenditures by you for approval? Then why would you run your expenses by him for approval? I sympathize, as my wife sometimes forgets and thinks that items I purchase for the Studio are joint property!

We're way OT here, so if we want to continue on this subject, we should probably start another thread. However, I didn't want you to feel I was ignoring your comments.

John

Check out my repertoire guide here and if you can lay your hands on a set of Keith Snell's Classical Piano Repertoire, either series, you can get a wealth of ideas beyond this listing.

The Preparatory Level (Salmon color books) spans Elementary B & C; the Level One (violet color) spans Elementary D & E; Level Two (light blue books) spans Elementary E & F.

Level Three (green books) begins at Intermediate A and into Intermediate B; Level Four (yellow books) span Intermediate C & D; and Level Five (grey) spans Intermediate D & E; Level Six covers Intermediate F. Levels 7 to 10 pretty well cover Preparatory A through D for you.

By this time, I am using composer/single piece editions rather than collections, but I can see how this would work well for teachers having only occasional students progressing to this level.

I hope this helps you out!

John

John, to be really honest, I think the comments above came off pretty condescending and rude. I am fully aware that professional dues, as well as my other studio expenses, are tax-deductible. But that is NEXT YEAR that I would get that money back. I would have to pay $120 out of my pocket right now for this membership, finding it somewhere in our already tight budget. I'm sorry if $120 is chump change to you, but to most people in this economy, it is a lot of money for a non-essential item. And I don't blame my husband for initially thinking this was an extraneous expense, especially since I already run a very successful, large teaching studio, so technically it's not a "necessity" in his view. Would it add a lot of value to me? Yes. But is it necessary? NO.

And as far as our budget, yes, we do run professional expenditures by each other IF they are going to come out of our pocket. He has a conference coming up that his company is not going to reimburse him for, and we mutually decided that the $600 fee to attend this conference was not worth it if we had to pay it out of pocket ourselves right now at this moment. If that offends you, I am oh so heartily sorry. We obviously have very different lifestyles; kudos to you for being able to throw money around willy nilly! Must be nice!

I do thank you for the Guild information. That non-judgmental portion of your post was quite helpful. Thanks.

Ouch! Let's all be nice, okay? I certainly get the impression that John's post was trying to be helpful rather than being rude. In fact, I don't think what John wrote was offensive at all.

Sorry, because I'm not part of this, but I saw this thread on the list of active posts.....and my eyes popped out at a couple of things.

AZN -- of course you're right that we should be nice. But I'm surprised you're not more sympathetic to Pianokitty. If you were going to address anyone on this, you picked the wrong person.

The comments about taxes and deductibles and husband were off the subject and totally out of line.

She was right about the comments being condescending, since someone would have to be an idiot not to know that such expenses are deductible and we shouldn't be lectured on our marital relations. Taxes and deductibles are private matters that don't have much place in such discussions. And yes -- $120 is $120.

BTW: I agree that he was trying to be helpful. But sometimes we can make mistakes while trying to be helpful. I've done it myself, many times -- and when I do, I'm glad if someone helps me realize it.

Thank you, Mark. These are my thoughts exactly.

Do I think John was purposefully trying to be rude? Maybe not. But it did come across that way, very much so. Pompous, arrogant, condescending, snobby...pick your adjective...perhaps that is just his personality, though, and how he treats everyone. But the comments were still very off-topic and unnecessary.

I came on here because it bothered me that nobody immediately stuck up for you about the inappropriate comments and there was even a post that was sort of on the other side. John is a terrific member of the site; I think he just made a mistake here. We all make them (as I said, I've made my share). The only way not to make mistakes is if we never say or do anything.

Regarding the "husband" thing.....this is OT but since John implied a pretty strong view about it, I think there's room here for a different view. For what it's worth, I discuss some of my "business expenses" with my wife -- obviously not every nut and bolt and not most things, but certain things -- and the thing being discussed here is absolutely a kind of thing that might get discussed. In fairness to John, I think there is indeed a point in what he said: females, more so than males, perhaps look to others (not just their husbands) more than they ought to regarding certain things. Perhaps. But this thing isn't any clear example of it, and we could say it's a bigger issue that males perhaps don't discuss some such things with their partners as much as they might. In any event, this isn't simple. IMO what you had said about it was fine, it didn't call for a lecture, and I felt bad that there was any implication that there's something wrong with your M.O.

No need to get into much more about this, but I'm glad you found my post helpful.