David Cutler was one month away from completing his master of music degree when he brought one final question to his primary teacher, mentor, and guru: What do I do with my life? “For the first time ever, I saw a blank stare,” Cutler says. “The career advice I got was, ‘I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sure you’ll be fine.’”
Feeling dejected and a bit betrayed after devoting years of his life to musical training, he participated in what he calls a ritual known to all jazz musicians: “I moved back home with Mom and Dad.”
After a period of sulking and soul searching, Cutler was determined to find his way. Now, as the director of music entrepreneurship at the University of South Carolina, he outlines his discoveries in a new book, The $avvy Music Teacher: Blueprint for Maximizing Income & Impact. The
publication is a follow-up to his 2009 book, The Savvy Musician: Building a Career, Earning a Living & Making a Difference, which is geared to all types of musicians and not just teachers. “That’s why I’m here,” he says. “It’s not because I knew all the answers from the start. It’s
because I didn’t and I needed to find them and solve this problem for myself.”
In solving the problem, he first had to recognize that the skills he had been learning all along through music were actually quite valuable in finding career direction. Musical training had taught him to be passionate, to give attention to detail, to be a creative problem solver, and to explore multiple options in order to find answers. Other musicians can draw on similar skills as they build their businesses as independent teachers.
Cutler points to the stigma that exists in many music circles that indicates placing focus on earning money or marketing implies a lack of seriousness or willingness to “sacrifice for the art” of music. “If you thought about those things, you were selling your soul to the devil,” he says.
Times are changing, however, and while Cutler believes teachers genuinely want their students to find artistic as well as professional success, they may be much like his mentor in not having the resources to guide students in this way.
Therefore, much of em>The $avvy Music Teacher is dedicated to developing a long-term plan for success based on clearly defined goals and a vision for the future. This direction is designed to help musicians avoid the mistakes that have become all too common among independent teachers.
Some of these mistakes—like undervaluing themselves, not having clear cancellation policies, not marketing in effective ways, and not keeping clear records—Cutler calls “easy fixes” since they can be addressed with minimal education or experience.
But there are larger-scale issues, crucial to lasting success, which are just as likely to be ignored. “I think the biggest problem for most independent teachers is that when they start, there’s no plan except ‘Well, I’ll just teach and pick up the students I can get,’” he says. “There’s no business design.”
He feels teachers need to consider themselves entrepreneurs who are starting new businesses. This involves thinking about what a mature business will look like, determining how much income needs to be generated to be sustaining, and deciding what is really being offered to students.
“I see a lot of music teachers’ websites and they don’t answer the question ‘Why study with me?’ Instead, they talk about the intrinsic value of music study . . . but it’s like they can’t think of one reason why people should study with them,” he says.
Time management is another element—one familiar to musicians—that must be honestly assessed. While private lessons may be a significant focus for many independent teachers, Cutler reminds us that this form of instruction is only one of the many revenue streams available. For instance, teaching group lessons or planning a summer camp can provide more income with fewer hours of teaching. This not only provides students opportunities to learn in ways that reach beyond the private studio, it also creates efficiency in scheduling that can help teachers avoid overextending their limited time and energy. “If music is valuable and you burn out and you don’t offer that gift to the world, that, to me, is selling out,” Cutler says. “Not thinking about business and doing this incredible art that you are put here to do, that is selling out yourself in the world.”
For this reason, an ideal business model will look beyond potential income to include considering the kind of teaching schedule that will allow outside responsibilities to be met. “Figure out what it looks like on the front end and then start building toward that, as opposed to just a free-for-all, which most teachers do,” Cutler says.
Considering the troves of historical repertoire that are at the center of much of today’s training, classical musicians tend to have at least one foot in the past. But Cutler feels that too much focus on bygone days can actually stifle creativity by keeping musicians from living in the present and looking to the future. Though it is important to honor the great traditions from which much music practice has emerged, he finds many teachers spend too much time “celebrating the genius of composers past and pedagogues past rather than celebrating the genius of students present.”
This focus can naturally spill over into how they run their teaching studios. As Cutler observes, “Teachers who are creative with their pedagogical model also tend to be creative with their business model.”
Of course, the emphasis of The $avvy Music Teacher is not solely on finances (although it outlines pathways to annual earnings of $50,000 or $100,000 or more). Chapter 1 is called “The Very, Very, Very Important Work of Savvy Music Teachers” and is just one of the many explorations of the value of music in modern culture and society. “Income and impact are both really important in this book,” he says, “[but] it’s not just about making more money. It’s about making more impact and changing the world.”
In working toward this end, he acknowledges that while most teachers can explain what they do (teach voice lessons) as well as how they do it (e.g., weekly lessons that follow a specific methodology), many teachers have difficulty articulating why they teach. “Why are you a music teacher in the first place?” he asks. “That should be the most important thing in driving your curriculum.”
Given that most music students will not become professional musicians, teachers must identify what it is they most want their students to learn through music and then craft a pedagogical routine that meets that vision. “Is it the great literature or is it a way of being in society or is it just loving the arts?” Cutler asks.
Of course, he understands that all of this planning does not ensure that things will unfold accordingly. The process may take more time and effort than anticipated when laying out the initial steps. But, like financial investments, investing in a long-term vision from the beginning tends to pay large dividends as the years go by. “Life may not go exactly where you think it’s going to go,” he says. “It rarely does. But if you have a plan, at least you can go toward something.”
Ultimately, Cutler believes that the future is bright for music teachers—especially those who are prepared to meet the demands of an ever-changing musical landscape. “I’m very optimistic,” he says. “It’s a great time to be a musician and a music teacher; there’s so much need for what we do. In our troubled world, music has a certain kind of power that not a lot of other things do have—the power to affect the soul, the power to bring communities together—and there are opportunities [now] that simply never existed before. The impact a savvy musician or savvy music teacher can make is just unparalleled.”
