I'm 26, I picked my guitar back up after a few years without playing and it has been somewhat more addictive than ever before! I was in a band while at school and had lessons for a few years. However, I'm enjoying it that much that I'm considering throwing the towel in with my job in the next year, moving to London, and working as a guitar teacher- so that I can be in a location with more guitar opportunities. I currently play as often as possible, every day- sometimes 4 hours a day. Am I going a bit mad? Should I really run away to London- At least for a gap year and some fun
I'm in a position where I can drop in and out of my current career and so would like to experiment with this idea. I just need to really get up to scratch with the 6 string.... it's an enjoyable process anyway
Does there tend to be work where students are allocated a guitar teacher as opposed to the guitar teacher being freelance? Does anyone know of a website that lists guitar teaching jobs, that I would be able to have a look over? The conventional job websites, such as indeed etc, are a bit poor for this type of thing.
Ste
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CRB checks are usually required for schools and more official places and it's always a good thing to have as parents do ask for it. Peripatetic work pays between £27-35 per hour in London and £30 is about average.
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There are a few places at the end of some tubelines where the monthly cost drops to a level comparable with the £750 a month I stuggled to find tenants for when rented out our 5 bed detached house in a very nice Cheshire village 3 years ago
Would you like to buy some magic beans?
So that's about the first £12000 of your gross income on rent.
If you can find a dive for 8k it won't really be London. It will be right at the outside of the tube map. The tube might reach Watford but that's not actually London anymore.
So either your students have to travel to you and there will be closer options or you have to travel to them. Could be an hour travel between students and that means a non paying hour.
You say you need to get your skills up to scratch- most school teaching jobs require their music teachers to be able to teach to a Grade 8 level.
Is there a local music trust near you? There is one near me and they are always looking for qualified teachers on various instruments and have loads of students.
If there is one, talk to them and find out what you would need to be a teacher there.
The head of guitar at my local one is scary. Can sight read Paginini with no mistakes.
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Dont do it.
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The first one I tried had a rather unusual method, he told me we would spend the first 10 hours learning theory before even touching the Guitar. That might work for some, but I think that the Guitar is one instrument where theory is not that important.
The second one was rather strange, we started the first lesson and struggled to play Guitar, he knew chord shapes but couldn't fret properly. It turns out he is a pianist who thought he could teach Guitar because 'how hard can it be'.
After this I gave up, I could only find 4 teachers who could travel to me.
The rate per lesson I found to be set at approx £22
She mentioned that the tax and NI taken at source applies if the school are funding the lessons. Otherwise, the parents pay you directly, by cheque or bank transfer, and usually for the term upfront and you're responsible for your self-assessment tax and NI, so you'll need an accountant if you've no experience of tax returns.
Parents, and students for that matter, do like grades to have some form of benchmark and so be prepared for that and that's usually when the school funds lessons.
30 min lessons are more common in schools and are around £16.50
Privately, and if in your own space, you'll have to think about whether your tenancy agreement allows for using the place as a business and also, depending on the others you plan to teach, whether you'll be disturbing other tenants.
Edit: and that question goes to @stecarey if he/she is still around.
I can't see how anyone can afford to live off that in cheshire, so even scaling that up to London prices I can't see you can have a life on that.
Frankly how anyone lives with London prices is beyond me - not in a snobbish way, but unless even earning £50k - £60k it would be a month by month existence, anyone who can make it work, especially with a family then it's hats off to them!
Renting other than a bin for £8k a year in London is a pipe dream
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Are your kids taught 1-1 for those lessons? I'm guessing its not the case, usually each area has its local music service that most schools use to get their instrumental teachers in. We're not paid holidays as we're all freelancers. How it works is say I go into a school for 1 hour (for example) then i'll have 6 kids for that 1 hour, and it'd be either 2 groups of 3 (or 3 of 2). Essentially you are paying for 10mins worth of tuition, but in a group setting 3 kids will share a 30min session. It is in not comparable to 1-1 tuition, but that's typically how most school instrumental teaching is done.
Parents can have the option of 1-1 lessons but of course they are naturally more expensive and 95% of parents don't bother opting for that. I have 95% of my schools work through my local music service and only 1 school that got me through finding me online and enquiring as a private customer would do. Most of my colleagues have no schools apart from what the music service has given them ie this is the norm. The work I do, pays me my £22 an hour and also a few squids to the music service for their services. Essentially they are a recruitment agency, they do all the vetting and pay for the DBS!
example - 6 kids = 1hr. All paying using your example of £50 for 6 lessons = £8.33 per sesh! So teacher gets his cut, and the rest will go to the local music service. They're like all recruitment agencies make money off it to...as you can see as none of us get anywhere near £50 per hour in schools. I think where I am the kids are paying less than £6 a lesson though but still you can see quite a profit margin!
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