<p>What are some of the rates you've been charged for hourly 'sample' lessons? We're trying to fit a few in this fall, and were surprised by a rate that exceeded $150/hour.... Is that common?</p>
<p>I’ve emailed professors at Eastman asking $200 an hour…I didn’t end up having a lesson</p>
<p>Several years ago, when we went through this, most private lessons were around $60. We did pay one professor $100 an hour, but this was for the talent assessment, and I thought that information, which helped form my son’s choices to some extent, was exceptionally worthwhile.</p>
<p>Hard to imagine that fees have doubled or tripled in three or four years, but perhaps they have. In that case, I would pick and choose those private lessons very carefully. I have heard of some people visiting 10-12 schools for lessons, and that seems excessive, even if lessons weren’t that expensive.</p>
<p>In my experience $200 is not unusual for teachers with top reputations, and it can definitely be worth it. Having said that though, I felt much more kindly disposed to the teachers that didn’t charge me, than those that quoted $200!</p>
<p>From the past:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/771852-payment-sample-lessons.html?highlight=lesson[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/771852-payment-sample-lessons.html?highlight=lesson</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/494658-pay-sample-lessons-after-acceptance.html?highlight=lessons[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/494658-pay-sample-lessons-after-acceptance.html?highlight=lessons</a></p>
<p>Although we always offered to pay, none of the teachers D had sample lessons with ever asked for payment.</p>
<p>My daughter always offered-- I sent her in with a blank, signed check. Most of them we ended up ripping up, but some teachers did request payment. The range was $40 to $200.</p>
<p>Of 11 sample lessons in the course of applying to grad school, I was charged for one; that cost $250.</p>
<p>In requesting the lesson, we always asked what the charge would be: we felt this made it clear that we expected to pay and it also helped avoid any surprises. We paid $100 to $150 per lesson, and I believe there was one lesson for which there was no charge. Some of the better known teachers are besieged by lesson requests and are not paid sufficiently by their schools (where they are often part-time) to offer dozens and dozens of free lessons. On the other hand, a full-time full professor at a public school who gets only a few requests per year primarily from applicants that stand a good chance of attending often has the time and recognizes the marketing benefits of offering free lessons (i.e. it is part of the job description). </p>
<p>I don’t think that rates exceeding $150 are common (probably less than 20% of teachers charging that for trial lessons), but I certainly have heard of teachers in the $150 to $200 range. They are invariably very well-known either as a teacher or performer. If your child is seriously considering the teacher, then I would think that it is money well-spent given that a four-year degree at the institutions at which the $200/hour people teach usually will run well over $200 000. If a student were not seriously considering the teacher, then they would be wasting the teacher’s time. </p>
<p>I believe my dentist gets considerably more than $200 per hour (after all his expenses are deducted) and his skill level is not near that of most of the $100+/hour teachers.</p>
<p>We have had several sample lessons this fall and paid between $100 - $150 for all of them which were all scheduled for 1 hour. It has been interesting to see how these lessons were handled by the various teachers. One of the lessons ended up going on for about 1 1/2 hours since the teacher didn’t have anybody scheduled after our time. The second lesson was what I considered a fairly typical lesson but spent about 10 minutes at the end talking about his quick assessment of our son’s skill level and the type of schools he would recommend (fortunately it matched with the schools he was looking at and the teacher said he would love to have our son as a student). The last lesson was a little strange. For the first 15 minutes, he had my son sing 3 songsand talked a little about them. Then, the teacher spent the next 30 minutes talking about what his technique and philosophy was and why he thought this was the proper technique to help singers maximize their ability. Then, the final 15 minutes was using some of those techniques with my son. Seemed like he wanted to see what the skill level was and then decided to try to sell himself and his philosophy to us. I guess a positive though just not what I expected based upon the other lessons.</p>
<p>Let me heartily recommend asking ahead of time. We went to one lesson and my D took a blank signed check. The teacher did not accept checks and I had to walk around NYC to find an ATM. I will say that the teacher did a great job and she had hired an accompanist for the lesson which was on a Sunday afternoon. Truly my only out of the norm experience. Good thing it was a nice day since we used all our cab money and ATM money and walked back to the hotel.</p>
<p>Not that asking ahead of time isn’t a good idea, but if a teacher wants to maintain a policy like that (which I find highly questionable), he or she really must make it known ahead of time. You can’t expect people to show up to lessons with hundreds of dollars in cash just in case.</p>
<p>I believe that for us it worked out well NOT to ask the price in advance. We always walked in prepared to pay by check. At the end of the lesson I asked (or my daughter asked) how much to make it out for. Of the 4 sample lessons she had, 3 said ‘No charge’ and one quoted a fee. This might vary by instrument - my gut feeling is that the more popular the instrument, the more likely you are to be charged - but I’m not about to do a controlled study! I don’t know for sure that we would have had the same results if we had inquired about the price before the lesson.</p>
<p>Let’s look at some numbers. Say that you are attending a college or conservatory that charges $40K tuition and gives you $10K worth of financial aid (and we are only considering the grants, not the loans here.) The credit hours for principal applied lessons are generally 20% to 25% of the entire curriculum, meaning that you are paying $6000 to $7500 per year for that part of the experience. If there are 30 lessons per year, you are paying $200 to $250 per lesson each week. Of course, the teacher does not get all of that when payment is made through the school, but it does help establish what people are willing to pay for a lesson with a good teacher.</p>
<p>As others have said, some teachers choose not to charge while others, frequently the better-known teachers on the most competitive instruments, ask for a fee that is about what many of their students wind up paying for their lessons each week. Some ask for less, which would be more representative of what they get paid after the school takes its piece.</p>
<p>As others have also said, it is a good idea to ask about fees ahead of time and, apparently, to verify that the teacher will accept a check.</p>
<p>BassDad,
The complaint is not that the rate is unreasonable for one lesson.
The complaint is that charging for trial lessons is wrong, period.
It ought to be possible to spend time with as many teachers as will hear you, and to investigate a teacher in detail risk-free. In any case, most good teachers want the trial lesson to determine the suitability of the student quite as much as the student does.
Excepting for teachers so flooded with requests that teaching free trial lessons would diminish their ability to carry out their regular duties, I am unsympathetic to the practice.</p>
<p>fiddlefrog,</p>
<p>Be that as it may, I was responding to the OP who specifically asked about rates in excess of $150 per hour. That question seems very much concerned with whether or not the quoted rate was unreasonable for one lesson. It was my intention to show that people who are buying lessons in much larger quantities are paying more than that. That fact is not lost upon a teacher responding to the cost question.</p>
<p>It would certainly be nice if this process of finding a teacher and a school were less expensive and carried fewer risks. Unfortunately, making a living as a musician or a music teacher is not an easy job for most people. I think they should be allowed to ask for compensation for their services as they see fit, not based on how you or I think the world should work. Their choices do say something about their priorities, which can be valuable information for a student selecting a teacher.</p>
<p>In the long run, when you factor in the cost of lessons from an early age, instruments, books, printed music, travel, and everything else that somehow gets paid for before the college auditions, a few sample lessons at $150 per is usually lost in the noise. As far as I’m concerned, if that’s what it takes to make an informed decision before committing another $200K and several years of someone’s life, it is a cost I would be willing to pay.</p>
<p>I don’t think lessons for potential students should be a freebie. I value the time and expertise of these busy teachers, many of whom have performing responsibilities on top of heavy teaching loads. The fact that some teachers don’t charge, even when offered payment, is their choice. However, I would never expect to receive a service without at least offering payment.</p>
<p>My son attended a bass workshop this summer purposely to meet and work with several professors from schools he is interested in attending. The going rate for private/sample lessons was $75/hour. Granted he is looking for music ed/performance so we aren’t sampling top conservatories… Also, in our area, the adjunct teachers receive about $75/hr for regular lessons. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Just a comment based on fiddlefrog’s post. We went to one teacher - top conservatory in a metro area - who said ahead of time that the lesson fee was $50. Very reasonable. After the lesson, she said there would be no fee and, in fact, sent my D down to have a lesson with one of the other teachers. She and I chatted for awhile. She said that in the spring she has a big stream of students all wanting lessons and many fall into two categories - those who have no intention of applying but want instruction to go somewhere else and those who don’t have a clue about the calibre of students at a conservatory. She said she had to do something to reduce the number to those who were serious. Just passing her comments along.</p>