Looking back, and some upcoming changes for 2016

As we began 2016, we looked at how our studio has changed in the past 6 years since Dawn graduated from UCLA and committed to piano teaching full time. (you can see it in the first blog post on this website!) Here's a few of the things we came up with:

• Dawn has joined up with three amazing associate teachers to be able to provide lessons to many more students in the greater Pasadena area, so that currently we are teaching about 120 students/week.
• All of our teachers have committed to continuing education so we are receiving up-to-date professional improvement through online conferences, seminars and publications. 
• We have created a summertime curriculum in offering our annual Young Composers program, and participation in the MMF! Summer Stars Festival. 
• Increased our performance opportunities by offering 2 studio-wide recitals per year. 
• Gained a reputation as a unique studio that fosters healthy and inviting learning environments for our students, and we have discovered that there is a large demand for this type of music studio.

We took all of this into account, along with the fact that we haven't changed the studio rate since those humble beginnings, and we realized it was time to do a small rate increase so that we can continue bringing you quality house-call piano lessons while providing the opportunities and innovative music education you have come to expect from us. As of January 2016, our rate is adjusted to $35/hour, or $17.50/30 min. 
 
For our existing students, the rate increase will not go into effect until January, 2017. We appreciate all of you so much, and have decided to give you an extra year at the $30/hour rate. So if you are one of our current students, nothing will change for you until next January. 

We love working with all of you, and one of the core values of this studio is maintaining a reasonable lesson cost that balances the cost of business with offering fair compensation to each of our teachers and continuing to provide quality house-call lessons to our students at an affordable rate. Keeping that in mind, if this rate change will pose a difficulty for you, please feel free to contact me, and we will work something out. We do not want to make anyone feel as though music education is something unaffordable. 

   
Lesson rate aside, our journey doesn't stop here! There are are still so many things we'd like to work towards, here are some of the things we are dreaming about for the next 5 years: 

• Offering a Piano Summer Camp for 1 week of the summer each year. 
• We still have a formidable waitlist, and would like to connect with another piano teacher or two so that when you refer your wonderful friends to us, we can actually have a spot for them!
• For our students interested in leveled assessments, we would like to look into the Music Development Program's materials as an option that could maybe jive with our studio philosophies of keeping music fun and, first and foremost, nurturing a love for making music in our students.
• Performing in smaller groups in public spaces or nursing homes where we can practice using music to bring joy to others. 
• Beefing up our collaboration offerings, duets, trios etc. Maybe even a special Combo recital!

As always, we welcome your feedback, so if you'd like to share any thoughts about what you'd like to see in your music lessons in the future, or any concerns, please contact us.