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Keys to Music Learning
Keys to Music Learning
Running an Audiation-Based Music School: Deep dive with Sarah McCaffrey Ritchie Part 1
We are so excited to talk to Sarah McCaffrey Ritchie once again for our first episode of Season 3! In this episode, Sarah discusses her music school, Songs with Sarah, including the the importance of outreach, managing 10 teachers (including five Music Moves for Piano teachers) and 400 students, summer camps, and professional development. Whether or not you run a music school, this conversation will leave you eagerly waiting for Part II!
Songs with Sarah Music School
Songs with Sarah Music School on Instagram @songswithsarahmlps
Audiate! Play Guitar through Audiation by Enrique Andino, Stephen Gunter, and Michael Weyck
Keyboard Games: A comprehensive course - Krista’s course through Music Learning Academy
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Introduction to Audiation-based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano
Ready to learn more about audiation-based piano instruction and Music Moves for Piano? Visit Music Learning Academy for online courses, webinars, and resources.
Want to dive into audiation-based piano instruction? Check out Music Moves for Piano by Marilyn Lowe.
Welcome to keys to Music Learning. I'm Hannah Mayo of Mayo piano.
Krista:And I'm Krista Jadro of Music Learning Academy.
Hannah:Join us as we discuss common goals and challenges in the piano studio and offer research-based ideas and solutions to guide every one of your students to reach their full musical potential with audiation.
Krista:We are back for season three and ready to get into the nitty gritty of audiation based piano instruction and Music Learning Theory. I know many of our listeners have their own studio have their own students but today, we're going to ask you to think bigger. Students of all ages, classes, lessons, maybe even a variety of instruments. Today we are going to talk about creating an audiation-based music school.
Hannah:You may recall Sarah McCaffrey Ritchie joined us a little over a year ago for season two. And we have had to have her back so that we can pick her brain a little more. Sarah is the owner of songs with Sarah, a music school in Minneapolis. And I have to just say that she is one of my favorite Instagram accounts to follow. Because I love seeing all of her teacher features and how creative she is being in her school, creating a studio wide audiation-based music school. And we're going to get lots of wonderful information I think today from Sarah. So welcome, Sarah. Welcome back.
Sarah:Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Krista:Okay, so Sarah, you talked about songs with Sarah, when we spoke with you last. Tell us a little bit about your school and also where it is right now.
Sarah:Sure, yeah. I have my music schools in South Minneapolis in Minnesota. And the school started out with me teaching a handful of music play classes, so parent child classes for birth to about four years old. And then kind of stemming out of that I started finding Music Moves for Piano and adding piano into it. And in July of 2020, we opened doors best time to open a music school ever right in the beginning of the pandemic and started a full fledged Music School. Although I should full fledged might not be quite the right word, I do I have now adopted the term boutique music school. Because it is a while we have about wait 123477 studios, seven studios in the in the school. It's still in a storefront and it's a it's rather a cozy and comfortable kind of feels like making music in a home in a way. That's how we've decorated it and made it feel for everybody. And now, as of today, we have 10 teachers, five Music Moves for Piano teachers and the rest we call studio teachers we've got voice and violin, percussion, guitar, ukulele. But the piano program is almost 100% Music Moves for Piano at this point.
Krista:And how many students do you have in the different programs?
Sarah:Yeah, that's funny. I just had to look that up the other day, and I cannot remember the number. I know with Music Play it's well over 400 students. Music Play being I know 04 I know. And with a with just our studio, I feel like it's around the 250 mark. So that's for group piano and all of the other instruments.
Krista:You have to rewind that so 400 for like 400 students. What is the schedule like that you can accommodate so many families. It's
Sarah:Crazy. Well, Music Play does take up a really, really big bulk of students. And those are always done, well, not always, but they're almost predominantly in the morning. But we have 14 Music Play classes that we run and there is a Tuesday evening one at 415 and 515. But yeah, that's well over
Krista:Hannah mentioned your Instagram and I also love 100 students every time we run a new session, so that's why that number is so much higher. And then because we do group piano in the evenings, in the afternoons, you just get more kids into a room then you would have just individual lessons. So sometimes we have partner lessons sometimes there are...my max right now is three three kids and a music master piano class. I personally could take more but most of my teachers are like no no three, three is good. I've never, it's nice and even with you in the room as well, if one person's out, you can still following your Instagram and I love everything that you're have a really full meaningful class. doing in the community, you seem very involved, especially like in the summer with different fairs or events or festivals. Do you ever have students involved in those? Are they usually teachers? Why is that important to you and your school?
Sarah:So the importance of it for the school is twofold. I think getting your name out there constantly, because just everything is always changing. And, you know, keeping your name relevant, and making sure parents know that you're there. I still run into people on the side of the street, where I'll be like, oh, yeah, no, I'm just bringing my guitar to my music school that's right there and they turn around, they're like, there's a music school right there. So there's still a lot of people that kind of just blindly go through life and drive by my location and don't even know it exists. But that's really important to make sure that we stay relevant in the neighborhood. And also just making sure that we're also providing music and trying to schedule free events here and there that families can attend. And as far as our student involvement is the first time this summer we did something called Open Streets in Minneapolis. And this is where they block down, the police are involved as well, they totally blocked down stretches of avenues in Minneapolis. And it's always been really fun to go to. And I just sort of thought, let's have a booth. And then once we got the booth, they said, great, you have eight hours. And so me and another teacher performed some kind of folksy kid music and invited all of our families. And then we had students get up and sing and play. And that was the first time we done that. That was really fun. Because as soon as you get the kids on a microphone, and we had the whole setup, people stop and listen way more. It's amazing how many people pass me and my teacher, Jessica by, were like they were just singing and playing. But once you have a, you know, 13 year old singing Miley Cyrus, they're like, I want to stop and listen to this. This is really cool. So that part of it was was great. That's amazing.
Krista:And that's a great opportunity for the students to to do that. And hopefully, they'll have more chances to do that in the future.
Hannah:And another way that you've been getting more people involved is in your summer camps. Right? Will you tell us about your summer camp programs?
Sarah:Yeah, absolutely. The summer camp program started out as a way to basically pay rent for the space because we would have this thriving program from September until May. So basically, the school year, and then it felt like there was just this struggle to sort of weave it all together in the summertime, and we run Music Play, it was pretty condensed. Most people in Minnesota do not want to take lessons in the summer. So that is a tricky one. And I have learned that I cannot require it. And if I do require lessons that I will lose a bulk of my people. So running camps was the way that we could sort of start to make ends meet. And it ended up being I mean, I think we started running camps right around the time that parents were like, yes, I'm ready to come back after the pandemic, I need to sign my kids up for things. And so it just, we ran a handful of them and they sold out almost instantly. And last year, I can't remember how many we ran. But I had a summer coordinator that I hired to run all of those. And then we had a lead camp counselor that was one of our Music Moves for Piano teachers. And then we got another Music Moves for Piano teacher to basically assist in it and and they sort of ran the camps and I am not going to lie to you. I think they were both really surprised at how much energy they needed to run a six hour a day at camp with young children. But they did an amazing job. And they also got to keep their income for the summer which is really super important to me that my teachers are able to live and teach and not have three months out of their year just be erased from them. I'd like them to keep making music and doing what they can to be a be a part of that. So it worked out really nicely.
Krista:So this season is all about kind of getting into the nitty gritty. And we've talked about where Songs with Sarah is right now kind of what your year, is like what your summer is like, your outreach, the numbers of classes and lessons and you have so much going on. But it's different than when you have your own studio right or even your own couple of classes, because now you have all these teachers that are relying on you and working for you. And that's another huge responsibility to take on. What have you learned on the admin side from running your own music school?
Sarah:That's a really excellent question. And you are absolutely right. I sometimes I wouldn't reminisce is not the right word. Because I think reminisce makes me feel like I'm looking fondly back on something that I love more than what I am doing now. But I do often stop and think about what it was like to just be me, and have that side of it, and how different it is now to have such I mean, 10 teachers, and they each have their own needs and their own hopes, you know, some of the some of them are like, I want to work Monday, Tuesday. And that's it, and I'm good, and they kind of supplement their pay elsewhere. And then I have some who are saying this is this is it, I want to do this forever. And here's my availability, and I just get to fill it. I think that the trickiest part for me is that I get very close to other human beings. And I really care so much about their well being as teachers, that they especially and now I'm really specifically thinking about my Music Moves for Piano teachers, because not only did they come into this, needing the training and kind of looking to me for that, and looking to some of my other seasoned teachers, for that mentorship is they're also teaching group piano for the first time, or they're teaching until 8pm for the first time, and they're not getting off at five o'clock from their job that they have. And so there's just a lot of wellness checks that I find myself caring very, very deeply. And I don't think it's a bad thing. And I think some people might say, you know, I want to be have a wall I'm, I'm the director, you're the teacher, and I'm going to keep my distance, but I I definitely do not do that. There might be some people who would advise me to, to change the way that I approach running my school, but I care very deeply about my teachers, I meet with them to see what support they need. I offer to observe and give feedback when needed. When they're having some difficulty with financially. So for example, there are two weeks in December where nobody gets paid. You know, like the the last two weeks of December, everyone's off contracted, teachers don't get paid. And so there's just also, you know, conversations about that. And are you doing okay, should we run something? Do you want to do a mini camp that week? Do you want, like, come to me with your ideas, and if the school is free, and it's a cool idea, and it's gonna make you money, I'm in. I don't want struggling teachers that have to quit so they can go do a corporate job. That's the last last thing I will do whatever I can to help make that not happen for them.
Hannah:I really appreciate all of that, especially you being open and transparent and having honest question and answer about money. Because there's like this stigma around talking about money that comes from I don't even know where, but historically speaking, it's rude. And it's gauche to talk about money, and especially for music teachers who have sort of this fluctuating income depending on the season. I think we have to have these conversations, and we have to have a supportive place to talk about these things. So I'm really I'm really glad that you do that with your teachers.
Sarah:Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some gray area there. You want to just sit down and be like, so tell me all about your finances. But the other thing with just kind of coming back to the summer part of it is, you know, the teachers get approached for camp counselors or running camps first. How can I help you get through the summer and a lot of my teachers that a lot a handful of them want to do lessons in the summer and so they'll run their own kind of like individual lessons. We do not run group piano lessons in the summer it's just it's not it's not possible. There's one kid out one week one kid out the next week. The consistency is just way way way too hard. But I do have last summer I had two piano teachers that ran pretty consistent lessons and we just had a different policy in the summer like to give us some heads up and you won't you won't have to pay for the lesson kind of thing where during the school year our policies are much more strict and really protect the school and the teachers a lot without of course making the our clients feel like we don't respect them that most of our clients are really very excited to know that the teachers are making money and that we're, we're drawing policies around that because we want our teachers to thrive and to not have their time get taken advantage of. And so I'm lucky in that way, most, I have stressed the word most most of the parents that send their kids, when I say like, Hey, you don't get a makeup lesson during the school year say, oh, no, that's fine. I even had a parent the other day, their teacher was out sick. And she said, that's fine. I'm gonna pay for that lesson. I don't want my money back for that she deserves a sick day. And I was like, yay, we're getting we're getting to a place where parents are kind of starting to understand that more, there are still some that don't.
Krista:So I also worked for a music school, where we have Music Moves for Piano program. And for the summer, we did the same exact thing, Sarah, because it was just impossible to do group lessons over the summer, because so many people are away or at camps and to find time, so the individual teachers would schedule, maybe just private lessons or just group two of their own students together, or maybe somebody another student from another teacher, just so that they could continue some some lessons over the summer with the kids that wanted it. But I agree it's it's really hard in a music school setting to, to carry on those group lessons over the summer.
Hannah:And I'll also add just as a private, independent studio teacher, when it comes to summer, I have grappled with probably 20 different ideas about how to handle summer. And I finally just accepted that it's best to just say we're off in June and July, especially now with PDLC;s through GIML, and conferencing. And, you know, it's like I'm not even here for half of the summer. And I would also like to take a little bit of a break, maybe have a vacation if I'm lucky. But going ahead and just saying June and July are off. But when I get back, I definitely will take private students. So we won't do the partner lessons with a group lessons, we won't try to schedule all of that stuff, we'll just say if you want a couple of lessons in July, or if you want every week in July, that's fine, you'll just pay for those separately. And it's not it's a separate payment from their regular annual tuition schedule. And I think just as long as you kind of plan ahead, it can work out and it can be okay. It might be a little tight. But as a studio teacher, I would also kind of go with this method as well.
Sarah:That is one really difficult thing when I'm taking on a new teacher and you know, some of my teachers are in their 20s and they are not in a place in their life where just stepping back and not working for a couple months is an option and so that that's really hard to kind of get people on board with as far as teachers go and say, hey, you know, you're making like a pretty good amount of money hourly, right? Between September and may but you got to plan you gotta like do a little nest egg over here for the summer. And or they're going to be working like crazy. Everyone deserves a break. I mean, teachers 100% deserve a break in the summer, but they also need to make money. So it's it's a tricky thing. I'm glad I can offer a few things to them. And we do not close down for June and July. But for the last few weeks of August. It's just a hard. Nope, I want you all to take a break and recoup. Get ready, because it's gonna all come September 1. We're here we are. Boom.
Hannah:So Sarah, if people want to find out more about your summer camp ideas, they can definitely follow you on Songs with Sarah on Instagram. But I'm not I don't want you to just give away all of your camp ideas. But if you could name like your most successful camp so far, would you tell us what that camp idea was?
Sarah:It's gotta be our Harry Potter.
Krista:Oh yeah.
Sarah:It's like a deep dive on the music from Harry Potter and the themes the different character themes. It's a movie script is a deep dive because it feels like a lot of John Williams to me. The we scratched the surface for the kids are a lots of fun games. We do play Quidditch. I will be 100% honest with everybody that it is not musical whatsoever. The Quidditch side of it and it kind of cracks me and the my lovely lovely teacher Calli that runs it with me. We we just crack up because we are not PE teachers and we basically have to be when we're teaching Quidditch. And these kids are you know, they're for the music side of it. So they're not exactly thrilled either by Quidditch, but we're like you're gonna play it because we need you to move your bodies around a little bit. We can't just sit and listen to Dolores Umbridge's theme over and over again. We've, we've got to get you on side. Yeah, so that is our most successful camp. And this year especially it just I feel like every year we're taking it up a notch and doing something new. And some sometimes the same things do because they worked so well. But yeah,
Krista:I believe I saw that on your Instagram, Sarah and commented, can I come?
Sarah:I know, you actually said Can your kids come but I know what you meant. You wanted you wanted to come,
Krista:we were just watching Harry Potter the other night, actually, and it was my choice.
Sarah:And the music is fantastic. And there's a lot of really cool things you can draw from those movies. Yeah, we also also my favorite, I will say to my favorite game from that camp is called Potter or not are where we play classical pieces versus kind of some of the more obscure pieces from the movies. And they have to decide which one actually comes from the movie. And the problem is that my own children attend this camp and they know it like the back of their hand. Like that is not that's not Harry Potter, and all the kids follow them. So it's not super successful in that way.
Hannah:I just want to highlight that having done some camps of my own, just in my house, in my studio, there definitely needs to be times where you're doing something that's not technically music related. Even if it's just like drawing a picture or, you know, getting your wiggles out or doing something or having a snack, you know, it's okay, if you're running a six hour camp, not to be music music music every minute of the day.
Krista:Alright, sowe've talked a little bit about teachers. But let's talk a little bit more about I guess, focusing on your your teachers that teach Music Moves for Piano. Out of the ones that you have, how many were familiar with audiation? Are Music Moves for Piano beforehand, and those who were completely new to it how long did it take for them to fully embrace it?
Sarah:Okay, this is a great question, I can tell you that the first teacher I recruited, her name is Jessica Dawn. She taught Music Together. And for those of you who are familiar with the early childhood program Music Together, it is based on the research of Dr. Gordon, I taught it as well. That's how the two of us met each other. And I stole her. She stopped by to see one of my classes because she was starting a full time job as a public school music teacher and I and I knew where she was at in her life. And she was also being really unsure, she was feeling unsure about this new endeavor. And I said I could hire you. And she stopped by to watch me teach. And she was like, This is so great. So she came on with a lot of audiation knowledge and a lot of familiarity with all of the different modes and the different meters and a deep appreciation for that. So she was a breeze, an absolute breeze. And I remember approaching her about keyboard games. And she's not a prolific piano piano player. I also don't consider myself to be and she was like, I don't think I could teach piano and she came in saw one of my classes and was like, oh my god, I could totally do this. This is fantastic. This is how I want my children to learn music. And so she was just super easy and wonderful. She's my guitar teacher as well. And she has found the audiation guitar method book that is out there. And I can't remember the name of the people who wrote it, but they're fantastic. And she gave it to the other guitar teacher as well and said, you got to start doing this. And he is also a former Music Together teacher. So we could you know, in that way, I kind of just started to gather together, the people who had an understanding of audiation. My second teacher that I hired was just moving back from Australia and wanted to teach piano and had never taught and I will say was actually two of my teachers had never taught piano before but played piano really well. And that is that was probably the best decision I made because they were like we want to teach piano, what should we do? And it was really like, well, why don't you come check out my classes and see how that feels to you and see if that fits. And so my second teacher Calli, she trained with me from Australia to here so she did it all over zoom. It was during the pandemic. She was actually delayed getting back because of that because she was not allowed to leave. And when she did finally come back she just kept training and she did your course Krista. She has done a lot of the webinars that Music Learning Academy has put out there. And she just never taught another way. So I don't think she ever will. If she was to go on or move or do something else with her life, she would still always think that this is this is how you teach piano. And she also took piano from a jazz musician. So she kind of understands that side of it, she she doesn't really remember learning to read music, because I think it just kind of happened over time. And then, so my two like super green teachers that came in and wanted to learn, you guys met Vanessa as well, she came to the Boston PDLC and really enjoys doing it. And then another teacher crept up, because we had space in the studio, I mean, literally, I was like this, the studio is sitting empty, let's get another piano teacher, and just see what happens. And that's where I hired this guy named Luke, who is an amazing jazz pianist. Like when he plays and he was one of the ones that did the camps. So he would actually accompany all of the games they played by just playing piano, it was hilarious to listen to, because he just has brilliant, wonderful ideas. So he also taught piano and he said, I really want it, I'm really interested in doing group piano lessons. And this whole idea of audiation is interesting to me. So he wanted to get somebody applying for your job that says that you're like, I will get my talons into you. And you will never want to leave. And so that's kind of how it all happened. In that way. I think when you're wanting to hire somebody to teach Music Moves for Piano, the best ones are the ones who are like, I don't know I'll teach whatever just tell me what to teach, because then they start to compare how they learned piano to how they're teaching it. And all of them, say, this is incredible. And I wish I had learned this way. And then for them to go in a different direction would be probably really surprising at this point. My very last teacher is a brand new hire. And her name is Demetra, which I'm not saying correctly, because she's from Greece. And she says it in this absolutely gorgeous way that both Jessica my colleague and I, we try to say her name correctly, and she just smiles and says yes, I'm like, nope, we're not saying it, right. But she found me. She found me while she was in Greece. And she contacted us in May, and said I want to come to your school, I'm moving to Minneapolis, my husband is doing like a something at EU. I think he's getting his PhD. And I ignored her. And then she wrote back in August, and I also ignored her. And then she wrote back again, she was like I really, really want to talk to you about your program. She has a background in movement. And she said, I really want to teach piano and add movement in. And so I looked at this, she sent this email, we email back and forth. And I was like, well, I think I need to hire her. Because who can't who finds you from across the world. And then says, whatever you can give me and then she's also she's training. She comes and teaches individual lessons, kind of her own way right now, while she's observing Jessica teach a keyboard games a class every week. And she's observing me I teach a keyboard games B class every week. And she's going to do that for the rest of the school year. So she's training and teaching, and slowly starting to implement more Music Moves for Piano, but she just has she's right on with, how she sees music and how she thinks music should be learned. And so that's been really incredible. It's just kind of dropped into our lap. And we're pretty excited to have her.
Hannah:So speaking of all these teachers, all these piano teachers, how are you handling or approaching continuing education? I mean, you talked a little bit about having them observe, taking Krista's courses, do you have any, like specific protocols that everybody has to participate in? Or how does that work?
Sarah:Yeah, they they have to do Krista's course. So I actually purchased that for every teacher and tell them that I want them to take that. So all of my teachers have at this point taken the keyboard games A and B course. And then over the summer, we had some professional development as a team and my teachers that are the newest to it, they get a lot of check ins. They have not wanted me to observe yet, but I think that's just I get that I really do. I remember I feel like I've always been a really, it's very easy for me to teach but anytime someone's observing me it just changes the way you move and the way you speak to the children and so I totally get why they're a little nervous about that. But it's also the times that I've learned the most is having other teachers observe me and be like this was great, but also this could you know you could work on this other thing. We have another professional development in January, where I actually reached out to my teachers and said, what do you want? You know, and almost all of them said classroom management first. And, you know, it's like you kind of forget about that side of it. It's this wonderful, beautiful way of teaching. But when you're teaching group piano, you've got to be on top of it with classroom management. And so we're gonna do a little bit of that, and then a few other things. In January, I'm still kind of shaping that. And then I am hoping to host a pdlc in 2025. That's my we'll see what happens with the MLT and GIML gods. But that would be one that I would have my teachers attend as well, because early childhood, it would probably be an early childhood level. And that is just so beneficial for everything with piano. I think even helping your older kids.
Krista:These deep dives really pack on the information so we decided to split Sarah's interview into two parts. You won't want to miss part two, where Sarah discusses the challenges of having many teachers including her emergency sub plan, communicating with families and how to establish practice routines with parents and students. If you haven't seen Sarah's webinar Early Audiation: Creating a musical bath for our littlest learners, what are you waiting for? You can get 25% off with the code AUDIATE at musiclearningacademy.com/webinars. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you listeners. We'll see you soon.