Are Your Teachers Doing This Too Much? | EP 295
Release Date: 09/27/2026
Why Music School Owners Feel Guilty About Making Money with Amie Nunez | EP 296
Music Lessons and Marketing
In today’s episode, I sit down with Amie Nunez, who ran a rock school with her husband for about a decade before selling it to Ensemble. We talk about something most music school owners feel but rarely say out loud: the guilt that comes with making money. If you’ve ever paid everyone else first, skipped a rate increase because it felt greedy, or winced when someone said “must be nice” about your vacation, this conversation is for you. Key ideas from this episode: Why so many of us carry the “tortured artist” mindset into our music schools What happens to your family and your...
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Are Your Teachers Doing This Too Much? | EP 295
Music Lessons and Marketing
In today’s episode, I talk about something your teachers probably do hundreds of times a week without thinking twice: they stop the music. It looks like good teaching. But after a conversation with Kelly Bennett from Valencia School of Music, I’m starting to wonder if all that stopping and correcting takes away one of the most important skills a young musician can learn, which is how to recover from a mistake and keep going. Key ideas from this episode: In a private lesson, it’s start, stop, correct. In a band, time keeps moving, and that changes how kids learn. Making a mistake and...
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How to Get More Parents to Say Yes to Group Classes | EP 294
Music Lessons and Marketing
In this episode, I break down why the group class pitch that makes perfect sense in your head falls flat the second it comes out of your mouth on a call. It’s not your program. It’s timing and messaging, and most schools get both wrong before they even realize it. Key ideas covered: Why every parent already has a “movie” playing in their head before they call you Why explaining your group class too early kills the sale The exact questions that get a parent to reveal what they’re really buying Why arguing for group classes is the fastest way to lose the sale entirely In this...
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Why I Stopped Making Kids Earn Their Way Into a Band | EP 293
Music Lessons and Marketing
For years, I had one problem at my music school that drove me crazy. I could always tell which kids were most likely to quit, and it wasn’t the ones who hated music. It was the ones who never got the chance to feel like a musician before they ran out of patience. In this episode, I break down why bands keep kids enrolled in a way private lessons never will, and why I built an entire program around putting total beginners in a band on day one. A few of the ideas we dig into: Why bands create identity in a way private lessons simply can’t The real reason kids quit lessons before they ever...
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Why Group Classes Teach What Private Lessons Can't With Kelly Bennett | Ep 292
Music Lessons and Marketing
In today’s episode, I sit down with Kelly Bennett, co-owner of Valencia School of Music in Westfield, New Jersey, to talk about something a lot of school owners get wrong about their youngest students. Kelly has been running her Kidzrock program since 2019, and right now she has around 40 kids enrolled with another 15 to 20 sitting on a waitlist. We dig into exactly how she built that, and honestly, about ten minutes into this conversation I was taking notes on my own program. Here’s what we cover: Why Kelly stopped selling music lessons and started selling something completely different...
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How to Build a “War Room” for Your Music School (And Make Time to Grow) | EP 291
Music Lessons and Marketing
In this episode, I talk about something that completely changed how I run my music school: the war room. If you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly reacting instead of actually leading your business, putting out fires instead of planning ahead, this one’s for you. I break down why that reactionary mode works fine when your school is small, and why it starts to fall apart as things get more complex. Then I walk you through the exact system I use to fix it, and no, it’s not another app. Key ideas covered in this episode: Why reactionary management feels fine early on but becomes a real...
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Why Your Best Teacher Just Said No (And What It Really Means) | EP 290
Music Lessons and Marketing
In this episode, I talk about something that happens in almost every music school at some point. A great teacher, sometimes your best one, tells you no. You ask them to take on something new, and they push back, and it catches you off guard. I dig into why that happens, and what it actually reveals about the kind of leader your teachers think you are. Because a “no” is rarely about the task itself. A few of the key ideas I cover: Why asking a teacher “would you like to do this?” almost always gets you a no The difference between the barbershop model and a mission-based music school...
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What a Punk Rocker and an Opera Singer Taught Each Other About Running a Music School | EP 285
Music Lessons and Marketing
In this episode, I sit down with John Kozicki and Mandy York, hosts of the Rock School Proprietor podcast, and we get into something every music school owner deals with whether they realize it or not. How do you keep growing when your teaching philosophy and someone else’s look nothing alike? John runs a punk rock brick-and-mortar school in Detroit. Mandy is a classically trained Music Together licensee. On paper they should not get along. In practice, they have built a friendship and a podcast around learning from each other, and I think their conversation will change how you think about...
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How to Know If Your Music School Is Ready to Scale (or Sell) with Brady Davies | EP 288
Music Lessons and Marketing
In this episode, I sit down with Brady Davies, who went from teaching zero instruments himself to building nine music schools and eventually merging his company with Ensemble Performing Arts. We talk about the moment his wife brought 80 piano students into their living room, the pricing mistake that cost him money for years without him realizing it, and the churn numbers he now watches like a hawk to keep his schools healthy. This one is for any school owner who feels maxed out, unsure if it’s time to expand, raise prices, or bring in more help. Brady doesn’t sugarcoat the hard parts. He...
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What a Bored 8-Year-Old Taught Me About Getting Kids to Practice | EP 287
Music Lessons and Marketing
In this episode, I talk about the real reason so many students quietly lose interest in lessons, and why it has nothing to do with talent, motivation, or how good the teaching is. I share the story of a student named Marcus, a kid who went from showing off Queen bass lines to watching the clock, and what that pattern taught me about a structural problem hiding inside almost every private lesson. If you’ve ever had a parent tell you their kid “just won’t practice,” this episode gets at what’s actually going on underneath that. Key ideas covered in this episode: Why better teaching,...
info_outlineIn today’s episode, I talk about something your teachers probably do hundreds of times a week without thinking twice: they stop the music. It looks like good teaching. But after a conversation with Kelly Bennett from Valencia School of Music, I’m starting to wonder if all that stopping and correcting takes away one of the most important skills a young musician can learn, which is how to recover from a mistake and keep going.
Key ideas from this episode:
- In a private lesson, it’s start, stop, correct. In a band, time keeps moving, and that changes how kids learn.
- Making a mistake and recovering from one are two very different things, and we underestimate the second one.
- Kids naturally sync up with each other, often without a single word of instruction.
- Repetition through looping can do a lot of the teaching for you.
- Private lessons are valuable, but maybe they shouldn’t be the default starting point for every child.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why a kid who gets lost in a band and jumps back in may be learning more than a kid who gets corrected in a lesson
- What happened when I put two beginner drummers in the same band (I expected a nightmare)
- How "the almighty loop" gets kids locked into the groove without the teacher saying anything
- A simple way to gamify repetition so kids beg to play the same four bars 17 times
- Six things your teachers can try before they stop the music
- A quick listening exercise you can do outside your lesson rooms this week that might change how you see your school