{"id":5881,"date":"2011-02-25T21:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=5881"},"modified":"2013-02-07T20:37:36","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T04:37:36","slug":"the-economics-of-private-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/25\/the-economics-of-private-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"the economics of private lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo credit: http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/oudeschool\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I (via Facebook) discovered this tidy essay on make-up lessons by private music instructors, and it makes total sense to me. I’m not currently teaching, but if I were, I’d print it out and have all of my students’ parents read it before beginning lessons with their children.<\/p>\n

Here’s the most relavent bit:<\/p>\n

So why do I believe that music lessons fall into the first category of ‘non-returnable merchandise’, rather than into the second case of ‘exchange privileges unlimited’ (which I think is one of the advertising slogans of an established women’s clothing store!)?\u00a0 Speaking now as an economist, I would claim that the reason is that items like clothing are “durable goods’ – meaning, they can be returned and then resold at the original price – whereas music lessons are non-durable goods – meaning, once my Monday slot at 3:30 is gone, my son’s teacher can’t turn around and sell it again. The only way she would be able to give him a lesson later in the week would be if she were to give up time that she had scheduled for her own private life; and that seems pretty unreasonable – I can’t think of many employees who would be thrilled if their bosses were to announce that they couldn’t work from 3:30 to 4:30 this afternoon, but would they please stay until 6:30 on Thursday, because there will be work for them then!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Make-up Lessons From An Economist’s Point of View<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I (via Facebook) discovered this tidy essay on make-up lessons by private music instructors, and it makes total sense to me. I’m not currently teaching, but if I were, I’d print it out and have all of my students’ parents read it before beginning lessons with their children. Here’s the most relavent bit: So why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[115,1057],"tags":[2555,2554,3682],"class_list":["post-5881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-teaching-music","tag-economist","tag-make-up-lessons","tag-teaching-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-1wR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4939,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/30\/mavi-day-three-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":5881,"position":0},"title":"mavi – day three report","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Lots of teaching and chamber music coaching was done on Tuesday, with some private lessons thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 Got to meet a young woman who was taking viola lessons via Skype while on deployment with the US Army in Iraq, what a story!\u00a0 She came to the evening\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/4749792649_f3fef4af3b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":378,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/07\/07\/max-aronoff-viola-institute-2007\/","url_meta":{"origin":5881,"position":1},"title":"max aronoff viola institute 2007","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As I noted in my last post, I've been performing and teaching this past week. I was taking part in a string camp that I, along with my then teacher Joyce Ram\u00c3\u00a9e, founded back in 1990. With two exceptions (to attend the Tanglewood Music Center in 1994-1995) I've taught and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"festivals\"","block_context":{"text":"festivals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/tag\/festivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":908,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/02\/continuing-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":5881,"position":2},"title":"continuing education","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, thanks to the generosity of Chamber Music Northwest, my string quartet [the Arnica Quartet] got the opportunity to get a two-hour coaching with an internationally-renowned chamber musician - Steven Tenenbom of the Orion Quartet and Opus One piano quartet.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a great experience for us to get some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6033,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/23\/learning-lessons\/","url_meta":{"origin":5881,"position":3},"title":"learning lessons","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"With my performance on Sunday finished, there was one more hurdle in store for me during my trip to Philadelphia. I had scheduled a lesson with my former teacher from Peabody Conservatory, Roberto D\u00edaz. He had been the principal violist of the National Symphony when I'd studied with him in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "teaching"","block_context":{"text":"teaching","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/teaching-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/robertopub-250x375.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8058,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/11\/30\/whats-wrong-with-students-these-days\/","url_meta":{"origin":5881,"position":4},"title":"what’s wrong with students these days?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It's pretty amazing, really. I've been looking at the Facebook pages of my friends who teach. They teach regular school classes in public and private schools. They teach music classes in university settings. They teach music lessons privately in their own homes, at all different levels of student advancement. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "teaching"","block_context":{"text":"teaching","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/teaching-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":379,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/07\/09\/on-teaching\/","url_meta":{"origin":5881,"position":5},"title":"on teaching","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the past few days (and to be honest, years) I've been discussing the vagaries of teaching with many of my colleagues. It's been an interesting discussion, and among the most common subjects has been the changing nature of the students we all teach. I guess it's not a totally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}