Mediocrity for Less. Piano lessons: the unregulated, overlooked profession.

To the patrons of private piano lessons: please, be aware!

Unfortunately, there are many poor and mediocre piano lessons available from less-than-professional music teachers and private piano studios. The sad reality is that much of the consumer population is not adequately informed (and thus unprotected) when it comes to dealing with people in this profession. In fact, there are absolutely no legal regulations for private music studios, private music schools, piano studios, piano teachers, private piano lessons, and the like. It is unfortunate that business category receives no attention (or assistance) from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

Private music instructors, piano teachers, music studios, and piano academies are inexplicably unregulated, unlike many other business professionals we encounter regularly, such as doctors, realtors, plumbers, etc.  Consequently, nearly anyone—even those with limited studies or preparation, those with no degrees in music or piano pedagogy, and even those unable to play a musical instrument with some mastery—can establish a piano studio and charge for piano lessons.

     Those particular opportunists may run a local business and advertise themselves widely as qualified, professional music teachers. Due to the substantial lack of awareness of the local customers, coupled with their desire to find a good bargain, these “non-professionals” may even attract a good-sized clientele, despite their relative lack of skill and knowledge. Yes, they can advertise themselves as “professionals” and charge what (to an outside observer) would look like a great price piano lessons.

Of course, these individuals work with the absolute minimum of necessary skills at best, ignoring the vast teaching knowledge and methodology which the field of piano pedagogy has to offer. It implies the neglect of volumes of fruitful results from academic research in music education and piano teaching. Some are not even affiliated with the local and national professional organizations such as TMTA, FSMTA, and MTNA although they may paste huge logos on their impressive-looking web pages in order to compensate.

This precarious situation in the private music lesson business is aggravated by the fact that many of these pseudo-professional instructors have no physical location of business. Certain unscrupulous teachers are offering “in-home lessons,” and others are even using state university facilities (at the expense of our tax money), since they are enrolled as students (and often from abroad). These students, while some are shaping up to become excellent prospective music and piano teachers one day, are currently only transient undergraduates—often ranging from just 18-22 years of age. They are often sought out for temporary teaching jobs by some of the big-name studios and well-known companies in town.

Of course, they are obliged to accept extremely low salaries, since they have no formal qualifications or experience yet. However, they are well advertised by their boss-owners, getting significant exposure on major search engines.  The tragedy of this situation for the students under their tutelage is that they end up with a teacher who is often either uninterested, unenthusiastic, or worse—disdainful.  These temporary teachers do not necessarily care if their students are learning or progressing, since they are—sooner or later—going to move on, and leave their short-term students behind. There is no long-term bond, no ongoing mentor relationship that an established music professional can offer to his or her students. And this is a major disadvantage to the budding musical student, particularly if they are young in age.

In effect, those under-qualified, unregulated “competitors” may indeed be making a living by practically stealing money from their customers.  They are unethically cheating their unwitting students out of all that a first-rate musical education can be, and musically impairing their students with impunity. They also dodge professional organizations and paying the consequent association fees, and sometimes even shirk federal income taxes.

Pity the local nonprofit organization, TMTA (Tallahassee Music Teachers Association)  and the local, well-established, and truly qualified private music instructors who lack the lobbying power to change the lamentable status quo. Their only hope is in cultivating well-informed customers who set a high bar for excellence, and that starts with you, dear readers.

Dr. Ruben Malán, BM. MM. DM., graduated from the  College of Music at the Florida State University. He is an active professional pianist and music professor, who lives in Tallahassee, Florida, and has run  his own Piano & Keyboard Studio since 1993. He has been serving the Tallahassee Music Teachers Association as secretary and webmaster, after holding the presidency for two consecutive years. 

Ruben Malán Piano Studio