Fair pay

First of all, forgive me, this blog is not usually about getting irritated with things, but there are somethings that get swept under the carpet if people don’t speak up about them and I have been not speaking up about this for the last twenty or so years.

The topic of the blog is about fair pay and appreciating that you are paying a music teacher for a service that includes time, expertise and niche skills. I am very aware that music isn’t the only profession that struggles with a lack of recognition, but this is the field I know.

I have been teaching since I was 18 years old. Initially in the very early days I taught to get myself some experience (and pocket money), but I always charged for my expertise, maybe not a lot initially, but certainly something. As the years have gone by and I have gained over 35 years of experience, several degrees and diplomas, it is only natural that my fees would reflect some of that, however, no, that isn’t actually the case. My fees are well below what the Musician’s Union recommend is the minimum hourly rate. Why? Because I want music to be accessible to all. It’s a bit hypocritical of me to be writing my thesis on barriers to instrumental learning only to be one of the many barriers by having my fees too high.

My job is highly skilled; it takes many years of practice to learn to play an instrument, add to that the many years spent gaining teaching experience in varied schools and with a wide range of young people from 3 to 18 years.

Most teachers started when they were young, went on and maybe then did a diploma or exams or even a degree and a few perhaps got a PGCE or equivalent, making their training probably over ten years minimum. Take my other half, he has a degree and professional exams, however, his hourly rate probably has an extra 0 on mine, yet I have way more experience and a master’s degree in my field. Of course, you can say that his profession is within business, so obviously he will earn more, yes, I don’t disagree, but when I pay my hairdresser or a dog trainer for example, over £70 an hour you can begin to appreciate there is a slight discrepancy within professions and what people will pay for things.

But let’s ignore the actual hourly rate of pay. I am actually in charge of that, so if I wanted to charge £70 an hour then I could, ultimately the buck stops with me, so that is not my point.

My point is that on top of a lower rate than many other skilled professions, the regard for what is being paid for, and the time is utterly dismissed.

I charge per term, as a series of lessons. Usually this is for ten lessons per term and students book to the same time and day per week, this helps my diary and theirs as so many of my students have very busy lives. So, they are basically paying for that slot each week for ten weeks, rather like if you pay for a course of ten swimming lessons or gymnastics lessons. The time and slot are yours, no one else’s, however this also means that if you can’t make the swim class, you don’t expect that the teacher will turn up on a Sunday especially to teach you for that missed lesson. Within the cost of that swim lesson, they have to heat the pool, put the lights on, have an instructor or lifeguard and, frankly, it’s the instructor’s income and you’re paying for their expertise.

Honestly, I don’t know anyone that would quibble that, and yet, in my 35+ years of teaching, I have fought this on SO many occasions and lost. Lost as in given up my time on another day to ‘make up’ the missed lesson or lost as in lost the student if I’ve put my foot down. My contract is now very firm to this point and my current students are generally brilliant at adhering to it. So perhaps the answer is to be clear from the offset. Only it really isn’t that simple.

Sadly, what this depreciation of the skill and time of experienced musicians looks like in the bigger landscape is that they are asked to do things for free, and worse still there are people who will, so the cycle continues. Only today a post on a musician’s forum was asking for an accompanist for two exams but there was no payment involved, and there were at least five responses all saying they’d do it. Of course, experience is important, but EVERYONE with a specific skill set deserves payment for their time and practice time and frankly shouldn’t have to ask for that renumeration it should go without saying, you don’t ask a plumber to fix your leak ‘for exposure’, that’s ridiculous! But this happens every single day in my profession and it means that skilled musicians are undercut by newly forming ‘music schools’ who charge less as they have a school local area monopoly and pay their teachers even less, there are more Grade 5 ‘teachers’ who are not experienced teachers and are teaching beyond their expertise or badly, and sadly I have had several students that I have had to ‘unpick’ from both these, and there are highly skilled, brilliant musicians who want to ‘make it’ and get pressured into taking ‘free gigs for exposure’.

 If we continue to devalue this, the wider picture (as I am discovering in my fieldwork for my PhD) is that music is not a career that will earn you anything so what is the point in the first place? You then end up with a society that doesn’t value music as a realistic job idea, it is avoided in school for GCSE or even as instrumental lessons, or it is underfunded, so there is a huge lack of exposure and eventually we will be musically barren. I am not sure what the answer is really as there is also a lot of government rhetoric and cuts that have not made the situation easier, my daughter’s university being one of the latest to threaten closing it’s music department doors. I don’t think there is any one thing to blame, it is a massive culmination over many, many years, but if we want music in our lives in the future, we have to value our teachers and recognise their worth and that starts with valuing your child’s music teacher and any accompanist you use.