Top 5 Reasons You SHOULD Give Make-Up Piano Lessons

[Note: This post is tongue in cheek, but it’s an unusual way to present these issues that tends to speak more clearly.]

You know I advocate eliminating make up lessons (except in extreme circumstances), but here are reasons you should consider makeup piano lessons if you want to do any or all of the following:

Top 5 reasons you should give makeup lessons | composecreate.com

1.  You really want to straighten your house, prep your studio, and adjust mentally at least 1 more time a week.

We all know that on the days that we teach, it takes a bit of prep. Whether that’s straightening up the house, tidying up the studio, making sure the appropriate activities are out for the students, or just changing out of our comfy clothes, every time we open our door to let a student in, we have already spent a number of minutes prepping for them.  So if your student can’t come at the time that they are normally scheduled, not only are you losing that time to spend on other things, but you are also losing an additional 30/45/60 minutes later in the week along with minutes of prep.

2.  You should give makeup piano lessons if you really want to teach for ½ price.

I’ve heard many teachers say, “Well, I can throw in a load of towels or something during that student’s lesson time.” But we all know that when someone doesn’t come for their lesson, the following happens:

  • It takes the previous student even longer to get out the door when there is not a student waiting.
  • We tend to go over on lessons when no one is waiting.
  • We’ll have to use the restroom during that time because we never schedule enough time for that anyway.

So by the time we send a student out the door, our 30 minute slot that we thought we had open is now less than 15 minutes. I don’t know about you, but I can’t do much meaningful work in just 15 minutes time! It takes me about 15 minutes to settle into a book and I certainly can’t workout for less than 45 minutes. So, that “extra” 15 minutes or even 30 minutes becomes dead time for the piano teacher.

Therefore, not only are you losing that initial 30 minutes of lesson, but you’re going to be spending another 30 minutes later in your week making it up which means you are only getting paid the same price for twice the teaching time. Makeup lesson prices are pretty expensive if you think of it that way.

3. You want to shorten your available free time.

I’ve already mentioned that you don’t really have 30 minutes of free time when a student cancels their 30 minute lesson. But, what about those errands you wanted to run on Thursday, but now can’t because you rescheduled a lesson? You certainly can’t run them during that time slot that your student missed! So, you’re going to have to plan your trip to the grocery store some other time in the week since it’s now filled with a makeup lesson. Maybe I’m the only one that doesn’t like to give her free time to the grocery store.

4. You should give makeup piano lessons if you want less time with your family.

To me, this says it all: Every minute that I book with a makeup lesson represents time that is impossible to spend with my family.

5. You want your students to know that your time is not as valuable as theirs.

Now I know that most families asking for a makeup piano lessons don’t have actively think, “My time is more valuable than yours.” And the fact is, one makeup lesson is not a big deal. But we know there are weeks when everyone wants a more convenient time.  The problem is…it is you, your family, and your schedule that is being inconvenienced even if the family that asks for the makeup doesn’t intend this.

The point is, if you don’t protect your time, no one else will. If you don’t guard it, then it will disappear. If you really want these 5 things to happen, then definitely give makeup lessons! But if there’s one thing that has convinced me that I shouldn’t do makeups, it is this:

Every minute that I book with a makeup lesson represents time that is impossible to relax, unwind, and spend with my family.  

How do you get rid of makeup piano lessons in your studio? Well, read more below or take the information rich “The Best Stress-free Business Practices for Your Studio” online workshop. This short post comes from that presentation, given at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, National Federation of Music Teachers, and other conferences.

Read More

*image by Leo Reynolds

19 thoughts on “Top 5 Reasons You SHOULD Give Make-Up Piano Lessons”

  1. I’ve stopped giving make-up lessons entirely, but most of the time, I *still* end up being on the losing side! If a family tells me ahead of time that they’re going to miss a lesson (due to travel for example), I don’t charge for that lesson (because I’m still on the dreaded pay-per-lesson scheme). So, yes, I don’t have to give up my free time to take on an extra lesson, but I do end up losing income sometimes. I’m still happy, though, because make-up lessons used to fill me with dread and worry and anxiety and now that’s totally gone!

  2. Hi Leia,

    This will come out in a later post, but you have to have a “tuition schedule” in place instead of weekly lesson payment schedule in order for No Makeups to work. You have hit the nail on the head in identifying why! You will lose money if you have a no makeups policy and charge by the week. More to come…but I’m super glad to hear that you experience less stress because of the no makeups policy!

  3. Hi Wendy,
    Great thought provoking post.
    Gather that the no makeups policy might work well with the annual fee divided by 4 (per term). “this is your allocated time”. Think we need to place a high value on our time. Suspect the resentment I sometimes feel could be about this area of my time, my value and makeup lessons. Being nice to parents and not wanting to upset them so they won’t leave ultimately doesn’t really work, does it! A parent saying “She has a festival at school and a xxxx that night so she can’t come to flute lesson. And, I don’t want to miss another week.” Well she was grieving for the loss of her pet rabbit last week. So, the mother is saying that I have to accomodate her life and emotional needs at my expense – I am a servant to them!! It’s people pleasing behaviour. Hmmm. Time to adjust my teaching policy. Thank you Wendy

  4. Excellent post! Thank you, Wendy.

    Love this: “Every minute that I book with a makeup lesson represents time that is impossible to relax, unwind, and spend with my family.”

    I have a semester schedule and don’t do makeups. It’s liberated me to not feel guilty about it.

    So true, Pamela: “Being nice to parents and not wanting to upset them so they won’t leave ultimately doesn’t really work, does it!”

  5. Up until now I have a policy that I do give make-up lessons. However, I’m trying to phase it out but it’s hard. I do resent having to make myself available on what would have been down time, in order to accommodate students coming at different times. Although, now that my schedule is quite busy, it’s getting to the point where I’m unable to find time in my schedule for make-up lessons. Ultimately I have students who really can’t come for make-up lessons anyway. I teach Tues/Wed/Thurs. from 2:00 onwards, and from 3:00-7:00 is pretty much booked each day so if little Jimmie had a bad day and mom wants to keep him home, there’s likely not a spot for them to come on a different day unless they want to come later in the evening. My parents are starting to realize that I’m too busy to accommodate make-ups, and I refuse to make myself available on Friday my day off. I’m looking forward to the upcoming article about abolishing the make-ups altogether as I want to adopt a No-Makeup policy in my Fall Registration which I hope to start in the next month or two. But I want to approach it in the right way so as not to upset anyone.

  6. What I like to do is create a calendar for the entire school year and present it to families in August, and I post this information on my studio website for reference. I work in 4 Saturday mornings that are “make-up dates” throughout this school year. I encourage families to swap with each other if need-be, but if not, they have these 4 dates to schedule something with me. I do my billing in quarters so this works just fine for me. This year I have started doing group lessons during 4 points in the year as well that are now during the regular work week, and are paid… So I work one or two days of groups and have the rest of the week off. (I used to do them for free on a Sunday periodically. It didn’t work very well.) I may be saying “NO” to make-ups for these, but this year was pretty experimental with this, so if asked I will probably oblige the family until I put it in my policies. It was suggested by another teacher that you could also make-up individual missed lessons as a group lesson! I haven’t tried that, but that could work too! I will keep my structure of the 4 times a year for make-ups though.

  7. Thanks for the excellent article, Wendy. Yes, these are all exact reasons why clients shouldn’t expect the teacher to give make-up lessons. I went to a no-make up lessons policy (EXCEPT for inclement weather and one summer lesson) and I still find it very hard to say no, especially if a student misses several lessons in a row. I feel like I’m going to run off all my clients. Some of them understand the policy and are completely good with it (yay), but others continually ask for make-up lessons even when my policy is clear and they know it! There’s nothing so frustrating as that. I’m considering that next year I will “offer” make-up lessons only if another student cancels their lesson slot in advance. Then I can hand it off to someone else. I think this will enable me to feel better; like I am offering something; but without any guarantee in that scenario. What do you think of that scenario? And what do you do for inclement weather, Wendy? Maybe I should set aside a week or two for that later in the year? I live in Texas, so not a whole lot of bad winter weather usually. 🙂 Thanks!

  8. I used to offer make-ups, and limited them to 3 per year, but this meant about 100 make-ups per year! it was several weeks worth of extra work, and that was unacceptable to me. In addition I don’t like students showing up sick for lessons, and I don’t like teaching when I’m sick. The other thing that bothered me was that students would decide to leave for the Summer and I’d be stuck with less income. I think that when I accept a student into my studio I need to know how much I’m going to earn from teaching that student. Everybody has to pay the same annual tuition now. I have a tuition schedule that includes 40 weeks of instruction, paid in increments that give me an even income stream, and up to 4 missed lessons (missed by me or student)can be scheduled in July. It is amazing how many students are suddenly available in the Summer when they are going to get a make-up. I factor these lessons into my tuition so it works out.

  9. Dana
    If you open the door an inch, it’s easy for people to want the door open wider.
    If a student cancels or isn’t there for any reason, that’s your ‘back of house’.

  10. Hi April,

    Great job at going to a no makeups policy. I’m glad it has helped, though I understand how hard it is to stick to your policy at times. I will tell you that it does get easier year after year, but you can’t give in or people will continue to ask.

    However, I don’t want anyone to misunderstand and think that I am totally inflexible or that I encourage you to be. Have you tried a swap list? I like to give parents that option so that they feel like they have something they can do if they just can’t get over the issues they have with the policy. There are a number of other things that you can do, but it’s best talked about in person. Do you have any way to get to NCKP this summer? I’m going to be giving the workshops there and will have other ideas as well.

    Inclement weather is one of the “flex weeks” for me! If there’s a snow day, I just call the whole week of lessons off unless there are reasons not to (such as a recital that is 2 weeks away). So, calculate the number of scheduled weeks you want to take off, then add a few weeks to that as your flex weeks. Then, you can use your flex weeks or a flex day for snow days.

    Does that help?

  11. Thanks for sharing about what you are trying to do Debra. It is a little challenging at first to get this into place, but so worth it in the end! Keep protecting that “free time” you have. You need that for your own sanity and to stay happy with your students. I tell my students that if I don’t get my down time, the result is a cranky teacher, and no one wants that!

    Is there any way you can come to NCKP 2013 this summer? I’ll be giving two workshops about these things and it’s so much easier to explain in person. Plus we could chat afterwards if need be. Early registration ends April 15th. The conference is fabulous! https://composecreate.com/guess-what-we-might-get-to-meet/

  12. On the flip-side of this…if you are an adult student who puts in 1.5-2x the daily practice time required, and WOULD consider the make-up lesson a priviledge and make sure you got there on time, is it still not recommended for the teacher to offer you a make-up lesson? I’m interested in your opinion.

  13. There are definitely exceptions to ALL of these things! And I love that each teacher can decide for themselves. The issue is more with the volume of makeup lessons that are requested when there is a large studio. Certainly a few here and there are doable for many teachers and many teachers will decide to offer them on a case by case basis. There is still strain on a teacher when they are giving up what might normally be time for other things for an extra lesson, but again each teacher can decide what works best for them and their students.

    I hope that helps!

  14. So your post is perfect timing for me in NE Wisconsin as the weather is once again playing havoc with our schedules. There is an “ice” warning for this evening and tomorrow AM. I’ve sent a note to parents that if it is too dangerous they should not come. I’m trying to decide if I SHOULD offer a makeup lesson. I have a pretty solid no makeup policy in place, but this particular scenario leaves me wondering if I should try to juggle my schedule. Last week we had the same weather situation, plus 4 students were sick. I’m feeling a bit frustrated as a teacher, as I have these wonderful lesson plans to implement.

  15. Hi Gail!

    I understand what you mean about the weather frustrating things for you! I’d just offer to give lessons via Skype, Facetime, or just the old fashioned telephone! There are lots of things you can do that way including some of these games: https://composecreate.com/long-distance-piano-lesson-games/

    I’d definitely offer this as an option. Then, there’s no reason to even worry about makeups! 🙂

  16. Last year, I included in the Calendar for the term: “Makeup Mondays” (a day I’ve now set aside for lesson prep, Rotary meetings, “my free day-no regular lessos”) I’ve tried to eliminate makeups except for the reasons stated in my Policy Manual (which covers all aspects of lessons for the entire term, September through July): family or teacher illness, death in the family, & inclement weather but none for school activities and vacations.

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