Hello,

I currently teach from a privately run music school where I hire a fully equipped room in a prime location of a major city. I love working there, but the room hire charge is a third of what I earn per half hour lesson!

I would love to set up a practice on my own, and possibly hire out a second teaching space to a fellow teacher. However, it would involve moving to a larger house. Currently I live on the edge of a large village five minutes' drive from a mainly residential area on the edge of the city, and my husband and I adore the location - it's peaceful, safe, and we can grow our own veggies and our cats are happy! For these reasons we'd love to stay in the countryside, but will I have problems finding students? Where I teach currently there is a waiting list of pupils wanting to join. So should I relocate to the city?

When I was younger, I remember my parents driving me to my music lessons, which were either on the edge of town, or in a large village, and the journey would often be an hour round-trip. So I am under the impression that pupils will travel to their teacher, if they are good.

All advice greatly appreciated!

Mrs M

Interesting questions Mrs M. I think students / parents will be prepared to travel to a good teacher, but it probably takes a little while to build up your student base.

I don't know if it's useful to cite my own example ..... Im not in the countryside though ..... I live on the edge of suburbia. Central London is about 7 miles away and none of my pupils live right in London, although one works in Westminster and travels straight to me from work; she has a journey of 20 or 30 mins to get home afterwards. One is at school in London.

I have 24 students, both adults and children. Two live within walking distance of my house (c 5 minutes).

The majority (about 14) live within about 10 -15 minutes' drive. This seems to be very acceptable, in the rush hour it probably takes a bit longer for some of them.

Four live a bit further afield - say 15-20 minutes.

Three live further away - probably 30 mins approx. One child needs two buses on the days her dad can't bring her.

Might be an idea to log on to musicteachers.co.uk, find your area, or where you think you might move to, and your instrument(s) and see whether there are many other teachers offering similiar tuition.

Hi Mrs M

I moved from Shaw, close to Oldham in Lancashire to a rural location in North Notts 6 years ago. I had a large teaching practice for 15 years, so I understand yuour dilemma. My wife had gained a fabulous job over here, so we could afford fo me to take time building up a new business.

We finished up in Misterton, a village on the 'Isle of Axholme' - look on a map, find the south side of the Humber estuary, then the M180 and trace along until you find the A161 going south. You will see from that the sort of area in which I live.

It took me three years to make an impact. Other sole-traders have since confirmed that it takes any kind of similar enterprise roughly that sort of time in this sort of location.

Nothing worked to gain students initially; newspaper advertising was a waste of money; hand-delivered leaflets met with no success. I wrote to all the local schools, including my brochure and a copy of my demo cd. This eventually led to my breakthrough.

The head of music at the 'local' (i.e. 8 miles away!) secondary school invited me to accompany a music project at the school (an 'Arts Technology' school) and a masterclass with the cellist Kathryn Price. We hit it off straight away and work has flowed from that source ever since. Currently, 22 of my pupils are either students at the school or have been recommended by the hom.

Parents will travel large distances in rural areas. Driving is easier because of lower traffic density than they meet in cities. Over here, for example, a 10 mile journey often takes only that many minutes. Services are harder to find, so there is a 'prepared to travel' mentality already built in. My pupils not connected with the school come from S######horpe (35-40 mile round trip; sorry about all the # in that; it seems tha AB software cannot cope with the spelling of a well-known steel producing town in North Lincs!!!), Scotter (across the river Trent, a 36 mile round trip) and all the villages along the Isle, anything up to a 20 mile round trip. One lady still comes over once a fortnight from Shaw, a 164 mile round trip, but I don't think you can expect too many of those

It seems to me that you have a number of things to consider, Mrs M:
* Can you contemplate leaving your quiet village for the city?
* How would it affect your cats (I am not being facetious; I would not uproot our lot and take them to an alien environment unless I really had to).
* How well known are you locally? Do you already have some pupils locally?
* How good are your musical contacts in the nearby residential area?
* How many of your current students would travel out of the city to you?
* Can you afford a temporary drop in income whilst you rebuild you business locally, bearing in mind the length of time it can take (might not in your case, if you are already well known)?

I hope all this helps Mrs M

Steve

Good advice there Steve. Only one of my students lives close enough to walk to her lesson, she actually lives so close we can see each others houses. Some of them come from school by bus and then their parents collect them after their lesson or others are brought by car. Now that I think about it, when I first started teaching, most of my students lived close enough to walk or less than 5 minutes drive away. I know students who travel over 200 miles return trip for music lessons and they don't really do any better than they would with local teachers.