Guitar lessons viable for a living

Barney

I know things are a bit odd now ...but looking to finish work in the near future and wondering how viable it is to make a living out of guitar lessons ....don't have any debt at all...so mainly it will just to get by ....I have some savings I can fall back on but would need something else ....I was thinking Skype as well as one to one .... 

I have done a few lessons in the past but limited them to just a few cos of work ...
Any pointers anybody ...and whether it's worthwhile or better reducing my working hours 

Thanks 

Jalapeno

Use YouTube (private videos) for hosting / replay of recorded lessons/HowTos to save your bandwidth - a lot of people seem to do that

Make a decision about working evenings/weekends - your call

Do you want to be a generalist, or specialist teacher ?  (Think there's a LOT of generalists - Justinguitar's back library is immense ! )

more

 Some People seem  to be able to  make a lot of money from things that others struggle to get off the ground . You will need to start from a low base and see how it goes. If your  lucky  and  clever , your  make a living  

DulcetJones

I teach at a local music store that operates it's teaching section like most music schools do.  This means they charge X amount per lesson, they provide the teacher with a room and the school gets some of the money, the teacher gets the rest.  The upside is high numbers of students, people have a sort of trust in organization and I get a lot of students.  I could make a lot more per lesson if I taught out of my home but besides circumstances that make that awkward at best, I can't.  Plus, past attempts has shown that it is very hard to get high numbers of students this way.  Another factor is the usual window of opportunity for a large section of the general public to fit in music lessons.  Here I find Monday to Thursday between the hours of 3pm to 8pm is the "busy" period.  Fridays and Saturdays are iffy, you could set aside the day and end up with 3 or 4 students, maybe.  In my opinion and experience this doesn't pay enough to live on.  I am lucky to be collecting some early retirement money so that's not an issue, I spend most of my teaching money on guitars, gear in general, online courses in aspects of playing I've not explored before etc...,  The aspect of teaching via zoom or skype doesn't appeal to me but I know some people have done well with it.  Maybe someone else here can add some light on that (with a shorter post...).

guitars4you

I know of one or two who dabble at it with appropriate results

I know of a few teachers who can make it pay

One of the biggest issues is those that don't turn up for a lesson at an agreed time - So no income - You'll need to look at this with some form of advancement facility - Don't turn up and they loose out - Often more appropriate to those who are less committed

Can you sometimes do 2/3 in a class to maximise time/income -  Plus usual one to one

You'll need a diverse program of styles etc about what you teach and to whom

Key thing is to make it user friendly + interesting so they want to come back

Musicwolf

What are your teaching skills like (rather than your guitar skills)?

Good guitarists are two a penny (that's why I've never bothered to get too good, the market is saturated ) but guitarists who can teach...........well that's another matter.

Barney

Musicwolf said:

What are your teaching skills like (rather than your guitar skills)?

Good guitarists are two a penny (that's why I've never bothered to get too good, the market is saturated ) but guitarists who can teach...........well that's another matter.

I have taught people for about 30 years  but on my terms really as in how many I do ...cos with work I don't really want to be rushing in and right to lessons. ...also I'm still learning myself so need to carry on with that ...just thinking iff I finished my normal job I would have a lot more time on my hands 

BahHumbug

It can be difficult.  I would have to admit to having struggled to make a living out of guitar teaching.  I started in 2016 and spent 4 years very slowly building my client base.  This year I decided it was make or break....then covid happened.  I’m now looking for a full time job.

What went wrong?  Lack of self confidence for starters.  Anyone with a guitar can try to teach, and I don’t think that I really convinced myself that I was a professional rather than a hack.  In turn I didn’t have the confidence to try to get work in a school - a proper educational establishment.  So I was dependent upon private clients, which means advertising, marketing etc and waiting for them to come to you.  But in 4 years I didn’t get near enough for it be sustainable.  It was growing but not quickly enough.  I live in a rural area so it’s possible that the population density isn’t enough.  

Not that I’m writing this for a whine.  I really enjoyed quite a lot of the teaching.  I coached some of my pupils to good exam results and have had great feedback from pupils young and old, so there has been some reward there.  But I couldn’t live off it.

For the OP I would say you need to have a clear plan of what you want/need to earn and some reasonable expectations about where the pupils are going to come from.  As others have said teaching well is a different kettle of fish to playing well.  It’s likely that you will be teaching a lot of beginners, so you need to be very encouraging, you need to have good insight into the very fundamentals of technique and you need to remember back to when you were a beginner and how glacially slow initial progress can be.  Did I mention encouraging?  Then there’s materials prep.  You’ll be able to use books for some pupils, but you can find yourself preparing bespoke materials for others - I did quite a bit of this and I know there are others in these parts who do.

Lestratcaster

Been a tutor for 12 years now, its gone ok and I can pay myself a monthly wage but as far as "viable" I would need a second job to really support my income especially when it hits quiet periods during the year, which are usually July-August time when everyone would go on holiday and Christmas-New year.

Covid hitting us hasn't been ideal as its forced me to go online via Zoom which I've been doing for 8 months now with improving results. For what started off with a laptop and a usb mic with audio playing out of an external bluetooth speaker the setup was basic. But it got me by. Online lessons are hard to sell for some reason, there's a still a handful of my rota that just refuse to give it a go. They're all quite computer savvy younger learners too who are always watching YouTube videos and have decent enough gear to do it.

I can relate to a lot of points others have written above about no-shows and cancellations. I now charge monthly in blocks of 4 and you'll weed out the uncommitted ones, if they don't turn up for their lesson I keep the money. Simple as. This helps with cashflow as in my earlier days I would just do cash payment after each lesson. This caused problems as people would "forget" the money or would be running to the cash machine 5 minutes before to draw out cash. Then whenever people missed weeks it left a gap.

The most sought-after times for lessons will be weekday evenings unfortunately, between 5-9pm as most people are working themselves (hence the need for a day job). Weekends can be hard for me to fill as people don't want to break theirs up just for an hour's lesson. I'm quite lucky I have a few retired learners who can do daytimes and some students who can work round free periods in their timetable. 

I've tried the school thing but I think they just look at me as an unmarried bloke in his 30's and automatically think I'm a paedo or something. My face doesn't fit the gig and I never hear back from any interviews. I don't actually teach much children either which is maybe why. The majority if not all of my learners are adults.

I agree there's a difference between just playing well and actually being able to communicate concepts across to a beginner, as that's who mostly your clients will be (although strangely many of my learners can already play a bit before they come to me). You need a lot of patience and a good way or explaining/demonstrating things. What might sound easy to yourself might not be the same for them.

I never use a book as its too "one-size-fits-all" approach or "cookie-cutter". I put my own material together depending on what the learner wants to do and their music tastes. Its more time preparing the notes and stuff but they get more out of it as its tailored to them, not me. The amount of times students have told me "This is exactly what I've wanted to be doing" is pleasing.

I've not had any formal teacher training and have just learnt on the job really by doing it badly and making mistakes. I'm lucky to have some patient and understanding students too.

The guitar tutor market is oversaturated with a lack of demand for the instrument unfortunately. There's more for piano or ukulele lessons, esp for young children. There's so much stuff on YouTube and free online resources that people will try out, but some ultimately seek tuition eventually as having someone else to jam with or get feedback from is important.

Hope some of this helps, sorry its a long post but I think the others have raised similar points above too.

hassleham

@Lestratcaster ;
Interesting to hear about your teaching experiences! I've been teaching for a little over 5 years now and 90% of my students have always been kids.

@Barney
As long as you are good at teaching and you can survive whilst you're promoting and building up a student base then I think you could quite easily get by from teaching, especially with no mortgage to worry about. 

I teach around 22 students a week at the moment between the hours of 4 and 7pm Monday to Thursday. The money is a good hourly wage but I sacrifice my evenings for it, which my girlfriend hates as she works 9-5. I was about 22 when I started teaching and since I built my initial student base have always managed to keep at least 20 students a week. A lot of my new students come from recommendations from my existing students and contacts i've made in my local area, as opposed to online promotion and marketing myself to 'strangers'.  I think it's very important to build a good rapport with the parents when teaching kids, as ultimately they're the ones who will recommend you to other parents. A big thing i noticed from working as a peri guitar teacher in schools for two years was that (as well as the ridiculously short lesson time) the lack of contact with parents had a huge negative impact on the student's progress and was actively discouraged by the music service themselves for some reason.

I know a few people who still work in schools and the money is good (because the music service is charging extortionate amounts of money for a 10 minute lesson in order to pay the teacher and take their cut off the top) but I really didn't enjoy rushing around between schools trying to stick to the tight schedule, lack of communication with parents (as I mentioned) and there was a lot of paperwork that was compulsory and very time consuming. Also as Lestratacaster said, most school receptionists treat you like some sort of criminal who's there to abduct the children when you walk through the door.

As i'm not debt free and need a higher income to cover bills etc. i've also been in a wedding band for the past 5 years and expanded into other areas of music to supplement my teaching income. If i was trying to get by solely from teaching music full time then I would get a job as a peri again during school hours and/or put a lot of effort into marketing lessons for adult students during the day to fill up that free time. I also used to teach on Saturdays from 9am-1:30pm which again was great money but I found it too much when I was doing wedding gigs at weekends as well.

Lestratcaster

@hassleham I don't know why I don't get many young children, perhaps they will all take their lessons via a school? But like you've pointed out they're rubbish as they usually require them to leave their own lessons and are only 20 minutes long so good luck learning anything in that short time frame.
I've had some come off from these lessons to me and they've been pleasantly surprised by how much different it is in my home studio. Proper gear, no crappy cheap nylon acoustics and more up-to-date contemporary music styles i.e. stuff in the charts not some classical piece they never heard of.

Agree on the anti-social hours. Alot of my evenings are dedicated towards lessons leaving the main working hours (9-5) free most of the week. This makes it hard to see friends or in your case, maintain a healthy work/life/relationship balance.

Having said that an hour's lesson if you charge around the £30-35 mark is better than minimum wage so it can prove better for work/life balance if you have the numbers and organise your time effectively.

Been trying to get into a covers band so I can play gigs each weekend for a few extra quid. This would sit nicely alongside my lessons as Friday and Saturday evenings aren't highly sought after for lessons anyway.

Keiko

My old guitar teacher was not short of a few quid. I think it's the same as any kind of self employment really, you get out of it what you put in. Work hard and put lots of hours in you will make a lot of money.

It takes a certain type of person with good self discipline. Not everyone has it, and those are the people that are skint.

I think my old teacher was charging £15 per half hour, and he seemed to be doing about 12 hours per day. Obviously with meal breaks etc. You do the maths.

Danny1969

From an hourly rate point of view it works out well, everyone seems happy with £25 an hour and there's no expense. I really enjoy teaching some people, I have one 13 year old i've been teaching for 2 years that I would teach for nothing as he's so good but then I've had other youngsters  who really are soul destroying to try and teach .... normally because the lessons straight after school, they just want to chill and they resent the lesson but their parents won't let them stop. Luckily covid brought an end to a couple. So personally I wouldn't want to teach full time, it gets a bit boring. 

Playing in covers bands and teaching is what most of us do. About 60% of the guys I play with are full time muso's who supplement teaching with well paid wedding and corporate gigs. 

Barney

Thanks for the advice everybody...I need to get a large cup of coffee and read all these

TeleMaster

Are you up to date on your theory? Major scale, building chords, the modes. Are you able to play lead guitar? 

Barney

TeleMaster said:

Are you up to date on your theory? Major scale, building chords, the modes. Are you able to play lead guitar? 

Yeah I'm up to date with it

TeleMaster

Barney said:

TeleMaster said:

Are you up to date on your theory? Major scale, building chords, the modes. Are you able to play lead guitar? 

Yeah I'm up to date with it

That's good then. I think students deserve to be taught stuff like that. Go for it!

ZenOvertone

It depends on what you are looking for but sounds like you're not looking for the same income as an FTE and looking to reduce hours and ease into it.  Maybe have a USP as a tutor playing to your playing strengths - one chap I know does equally well giving Country lessons as deeper Jazz stuff and has adapted to the current situation well online.  I do get puzzled why so many are being churned out of the music schools with so few real positions on offer at the end, most seem to end up giving local lessons and playing in cover/tribute bands to make ends meet but there seems to be little thought or preparation given to them as to what happens if things don't work out or later in life due to the uncertain income in that business.  

guitarmangler

If you can reduce your hours and then build up the teaching to compensate, that is the sensible way of doing it.

You need to think where your going to teach from (are they going to come to you or you go to them) and the cost that involves. If they come to you, do you have a room to teach and a waiting room?
Also, who you're going to teach and when? After school/work? So 4 until 9 Monday -Thursday ( no one wants Friday night). Saturday morning 8-1 (very few want after 1 on Saturday).
If you can get a gig teaching in a school, during the day, you can bump your hours up.
I teach term time only, so if adults want lessons they have to fit around me. Everyone pays one term in advance, half a term to cancel. 

prlgmnr

TeleMaster said:

Are you up to date on your theory?

Have there been some new developments?

Barney

guitarmangler said:

If you can reduce your hours and then build up the teaching to compensate, that is the sensible way of doing it.

You need to think where your going to teach from (are they going to come to you or you go to them) and the cost that involves. If they come to you, do you have a room to teach and a waiting room?
Also, who you're going to teach and when? 

I have a purpose built music room and plenty of room for waiting area....iff I get rid of some of the guitars