Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum recital fee/pass on to students?

So, Barb, do you charge your students an "activities" fee at the beginning of the year (or registration, or whatever name?)

This works out to roughly $6/student, but then, there are other costs, such as printing programs, running to and fro to get supplies together, set up, etc., etc.

Slightly tangentially, does the store charge all users the same fee? That is, if a student wanted to give a recital, they'd be charged $150? Or some area musicians wanted to give a concert? If the answer is yes, then I'd also negotiate with the store manager/owner for a preferred teacher rate, perhaps $75 or $100, as you're purchasing music and supplies there all year long. A quid pro quo has to work both ways, not one way. When our local jobber eliminated teacher discounts, they suddenly discovered a huge drop in business. After reinstating the discount, they only recovered part of what they lost. Teachers discovered that music was still cheaper on line and delivered faster.

I would tactfully point out that you "love" supporting local businesses, but it has to be a two-way street, ie, they support you as well.

I think it's niggling to suddenly charge students for chair rentals. If they knew that was what was going on, I'm sure they would rather bring pillows and save the few bucks you ding them.

Maybe there's a church you can borrow chairs from gratis, or a kindly neighbor who plays canasta in her living room.

So is your objection more about charging "suddenly" or charging at all? For the Spring Recital, for example, if we charged would that be OK with the advance notice?

Morodiene, my objection is to both, but that's me and my minority view on that matter. Charging for your spring recital would seem better than doing it now, because there would be reasonable advance notice. If I were you, I'd actually hold off on this fee until the fall of 2013, since most people view piano study on an academic year basis and this year is already underway. If your teaching is year-round, then implementing a fee this coming spring would be fine in my book.

But in the bigger picture as a piano teacher, I don't want to look cheap. Many years ago I was auditioning for a prominent piano teacher in California. In her elegant living room studio. She was having a little master class right afterwards on Schumann, and wanted me to stick around for it and meet some of her students. But then when the doorbell rang she suddenly asked me to please vacate the chair I had been invited to sit in, and move to one of the few metal folding chairs set up in back instead. The upholdstered chairs, she explained, were for her paying customers, and I had not paid her for my audition.

Of all the goofy things we remember.....!

Yesterday I asked one of my adult students about this concept of a teacher instituting a recital fee to cover costs. She thought for a moment and then chuckled: she said she didn't think piano students would want to willingly pay extra money to do something that is so nerve-wracking as play in a recital!