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Posts: 2879
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
startin to teach.
so i finally have a potential proper student. I've taught friends for free or in exchange for somethin. But my best mates boss is buyin his son a guitar for xmas and wants me to teach him. I haven't spoken to him directly but i'm assumin he doesnt want to learn flamenco, so ill be teaching him basic chords, prob pop and rock stuff. My question is.... What should i charge? I pay 30 an hour for my flamenco lessons but understand its more specialised. So what have people paid or charged in the past? Whats a good goin rate for regular guitar lessons? I'm in england but any currency will do i can work it out etc. Stu
My teacher charges my ~14euro for a 1 hour flamenco lesson. I also know a guy who charges ~20e/hour, which is still not very expensive, considering how difficult it is to find a flamenco teacher around here (Warsaw, Poland).
wow, kg's prices would be considered ridiculously low here in sweden.
1 hour for 32euro is probably the low price point for a professional teacher here, and it is the same kind of prices for any sort of music lessons it seems.
Shoot, I always heard the Europe was pricy. I have a teacher in US, chrages 30 bucks for an hour. 32 euros is what about 40 bucks or more? I know, not everyone can teach and is a GOOD teacher but to get good results you have to do about 1 lesson a week or so, maybe more? Ends up being expensive!
More relevant is: a private carpenter or plummer here charges 40E. My bookkeeper charges 45E for simple type work ( his assistant does that ). For the more sophisticated stuff he charges 70E. A car repaircentre charges 90E.
@koella, you're right man. was just excited about getting a student. I'm hoping English people come up with prices really. Still its kinda interesting to see how cheap flamenco lessons are in Poland. 14E? thats like £10!!! jeez.
yeah, the figure i gave is for professionals/specialists. if people would come to me for lessons, i would ask them to pay for dinner and share a glass of sherry.. or if they are skilled guitarists/musicians/flutists etc have them teach me something in return.
Yeah, we get screwed over in the States Not sure why, things seem cheaper out there. I pay $50 an hour for lessons with my teacher, who's one of the best around, and it's pretty tough to find flamenco/classical lessons any cheaper. Then again, in Spain it's very cheap (because it's so abundant I'm sure) - Emilio Maya charges 20 euros an hour which is an amazing rate...even considering the horrible exchange rate!
That's the thing, $15 to $25 for lessons is the usual around here in the music stores. But if it's for a friend, you start them out with free lessons so you can teach basic stuff. I tought a beginner and would not charge, I figured it was a tax problem to keep track without really getting into it and keeping books with out the needed volume of students. That way if he doesn't take hold of the lessons after all he could just quit. But if I were to teach I would definitely have all of the materials and that just doesn't pan out without the numbers in students and in time for preparation of materials. It's not worth it to charge sometimes. The solution? Put yourself out there, and get the students and figure out the overhead and costs, or don't charge and utilize the single student experiance for the future....consider it a gift, and learn as much as you can about teaching as a learning experiance for yourself.
i taught 3 students for free, and it helped me develop a curriculum as much as it helped them learn to play
i even have a whole bunch of lesson plans, outlines and charts/pieces on the computer all neatly typed and stuff lol
thats a realyl good idea. but, i think in this case, it is best to charge. when you cross into the realm of free, its best to do it with peoople you know. in this case you are workign for your friends boss. maintain some sort of ground, if you don't charge he's likely to get pushy.
Yeah I actually had a choice, one was $30 an hour 40 minutes away, the other was actually German immigrant $50 an hour 1 hour away. I went with the first one. That's classical, flamenco is impossible to find in small town USA, there is one not far but they say he's very "by the way". He shows you nonchalantly and you imitate, which is fine if that's for free but to pay money for that?
Here in Tokyo, teachers can charge up the wazoo, but I pay about $45.00 per lesson and consider that fair for a beginner. However, Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities to live in and minimum wage is about $9.00 an hour. When setting prices, I'd first consider what I have to offer rather than what the market will bear. Unless I had extensive teaching experience (and possibly professional training and credentials), I might initially charge near the bottom of the scale or offer a sliding scale based on the student's income. After all, we're not all IT programmers and union-scale tradesmen, and students who have true desire and limited income are just as deserving of proper training as the more well-heeled among us.
From the student's perspective, for me the main determinant when choosing a teacher is not primarily the price. Though price is a factor, it's not always indicative of the teacher's ability, and that is my main concern. I've unfortunately endured my share of incompetent and uncaring teachers who were just in it for the bucks, and it was a waste of time and effort to study with them, as they had no clue how to help me improve.
So my main criteria is not how well THEY can play, but how well they can teach ME to play, assuming I practice correctly and diligently every day. I've finally been lucky enough to find a teacher who is worth his weight in gold. He's patient, intelligent, talented and extremely good at analyzing how to improve my playing, and just as important, he's teaching me to develop the same skills myself.
If you'd like the low-down on teaching philosophy and approach, you may be interested in checking out Jamie Andreas' Guitar Principles. He has a real commitment to seeing his students improve and has some innovative teaching techniques and approaches to offer both teachers and students. I found his website when I "fired" my cello teacher and it really opened my eyes to a new approach to learning how to play. My current teacher uses some of these techniques, too, and it really works in combination with other methods. (This is not a crass commercial plug, by the way. I'm just passing on information I've benefitted from as a beginning flamenco guitar students). Cheers!
ORIGINAL: ramparts Then again, in Spain it's very cheap (because it's so abundant I'm sure) - Emilio Maya charges 20 euros an hour which is an amazing rate...even considering the horrible exchange rate!
The exchange rate is really hard on The US right now. I hope some of you guys are still going to make it to cordoba and sanlucar this summer. 20 euros an hour is cheap in one way if you compare the level that you might get out of Spain but a bar worker here might only earn 6 or 7 euros per hour. Wages are poor here and although you can get the odd tourist, you need to rely on regular students...and as you say, there is no shortage of good guitarists here.
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Not sure why, things seem cheaper out there. I pay $50 an hour for lessons with my teacher, who's one of the best around, and it's pretty tough to find flamenco/classical lessons any cheaper. Then again, in Spain it's very cheap (because it's so abundant I'm sure) - Emilio Maya charges 20 euros an hour which is an amazing rate...even considering the horrible exchange rate!
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