Building Interest in Piano Lessons and Music

by Nancy L. Ostromencki and John M. Zeigler
Rio Rancho, NM

f potential students and their parents already know about music and its joys, it's a relatively simple matter to reach them through advertising and word of mouth to bring them into the studio for lessons. Unfortunately, this is a little like "preaching to the choir." All teachers want to and can reach these students. To grow a studio in a competitive environment and, more importantly, to increase interest in music, we need to make a special effort to extend the benefits of music to those who might never think of it themselves. In this article, we try to address the challenge of building interest in piano and lessons in the wider community through "community service" activities. Most of these ideas can be done under the sponsorship of a local music teachers association as an educational outreach activity that benefits not only the teacher, but the organization sponsoring it. While we don't represent these ideas as even approaching the limits of what can be done, we hope they will help other teachers think of new ideas appropriate in their own settings.

This is the abstract for the article. The full text of it, and many other articles not available on the online Piano Education Page, can be obtained by purchasing the PEP CD. To find out more about the PEP CD, click here.