In this episode John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) interviews Cathy Hallessey, founder of U-Rock Music School. Cathy shares her innovative approach to running a community-focused, performance-based music school that has thrived for nearly 30 years — pre-dating the big rock school franchises. Through U-Rock, Cathy has broken the mold on some long-standing music school traditions.
Included:
- How performance-first, band-centered programs create a tight-knit community and long-term retention.
- How exclusively hiring student instructors creates a win-win financial relationship between studio and employees, and ensures a stronger studio culture.
- How to implement a student mentor program that organically solves the music teacher shortage problem.
- How an in-home studio can expand beyond private lessons only, and why Cathy’s model has a community advantage over retail and brick-and-mortar studios.
Tune in to learn how U-Rock grew organically, why Cathy rejects traditional growth-by-volume thinking, practical steps for hiring and training student teachers, and how small, consistent performance opportunities and culture-focused choices sustain a successful music school.
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Episode Transcript:
(Please note: This transcript was generated by robots. There may be errors. For the best experience, please listen to the podcast episode.)
John Kozicki (00:01.091)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. My name is John Kazicki, and my guest today is a professional musician who teaches voice, guitar, and songwriting. And she is the founder of U Rock Music School in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Kathy Halisay. How are you, Kathy?
Cathy Hallessey (00:26.646)
I’m great, John. How are you?
John Kozicki (00:28.591)
I am doing well and it is good to see you. It is a pleasure to have you on the podcast. This is our first time meeting in person, but let me say I’ve kind of been a casual admirer of your music school from afar for for a couple years. And so I’m excited to have you on on this the the podcast because I think you’re doing some really, really unique and interesting things with you rock.
Cathy Hallessey (00:43.806)
thank you.
John Kozicki (00:58.099)
and I wanted to share them with other people. So my understanding is that you have been operating Urock Music School since nineteen ninety seven.
Cathy Hallessey (01:13.461)
That’s right. Coming up on thirty years.
John Kozicki (01:15.321)
Which is amazing. And to sort of fill in some blanks for listeners and and maybe answer a question for me, do you consider your music school to be a rock school? Do you feel consider it to be performance-based? What like how would you describe it?
Cathy Hallessey (01:35.584)
Think our school is kind of a combo of both of those things. We teach mostly pop and rock, but we have a huge focus on performance. So we have a band program and other kinds of groups, including private lessons and all the various things that you’d find in a band. So we kind of blend the two because we do so many shows during the school year. I think that sets us apart from the typical brick and mortar school.
John Kozicki (02:03.078)
Yeah. And I think when you have that group interaction and when you have those performances, what ultimately happens, and I am intimately familiar with this because I promote this all the time, is you build a really strong community around music and around what you’re doing. And that is something that that
Well, I kind of affectionately refer to as the the rock school retention secret. Because of because of that community, what I’ve found is that the students who are involved in those in those band programs tend to stay in your studio longer when you compare those to the students who are just doing private lessons. Have you seen that same thing happen in your school?
Cathy Hallessey (02:36.629)
Right.
Cathy Hallessey (02:55.614)
Absolutely. So it’s one of my favorite things. we have a number of students who have been with us for wait for this, 10 years. yeah, starting at four years old. And one of our students just started teaching for us this year and she has been with us since she’s four years old and she’s she’s 15. So she’s turning 16. Yeah.
John Kozicki (03:05.158)
Wow.
John Kozicki (03:17.788)
That’s that’s incredible. so I think the proof is in the pudding there. now going back to you’re coming up on thirty years with your music school. Have you always had this same focus on community and bands? Or is that something that has sort of evolved?
Cathy Hallessey (03:39.689)
Honestly, it’s something that started right away. We wanted to be a little different. So one thing I like to tell people is A, we’re Canadian, B, we came before School of Rock. So we actually existed before SOR. So a lot of people don’t realize that, you know. So our longevity is is cool, but I think because we started out right away with wanting to be involved in the community, performing for lots of different events like Canada Day.
John Kozicki (03:49.696)
Mm.
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (04:08.632)
fundraisers for youth mental health, all kinds of different things, Kowanis Kids for Kids programs. So we donate our time and our students donate their time at least once or twice a year to like a good cause in the community. And that’s something we’ve always done. And I think that that helps us to build the community spirit. And so people are more likely to, you know, if they are looking for music lessons, look us up and say, okay, these guys are
A, they’ve been around for a while, so hopefully they know what they’re doing. And B, they really care about the community that they’re that they’re supporting. So yeah, I’m not sure if I totally answered your question, but
John Kozicki (04:45.531)
Y no you did, but it it leads to a follow-up question, which is well number one, it it’s because yes, you’ve been doing this interactive band thing for as long as your music school has been in in existence, which again coming up on thirty years, and at that point, I guess what
How did you decide? How did you come to the the backstory or it was fill in some blanks? Like I first started doing bands before I ran my own music school. I was teaching at a different place. I started working with bands for the very first time maybe twenty years ago. And and so you’re even ten years earlier than than myself in that respect. So what was the inspiration?
Why did you decide like, okay, we’re going to do music lessons differently and this is what we’re gonna do?
Cathy Hallessey (05:45.318)
Right. so I think it’s because personally I’ve been performing since I was like 11. So I loved the experience of being on stage in the seventh grade playing my guitar and singing songs and hearing people clap. And I started teaching while I was still in in junior high. And so that like I knew I wanted to do this. I had it in me to do this. My best friend was learning how to play the accordion.
John Kozicki (05:52.242)
Mm-hmm.
Cathy Hallessey (06:14.809)
She was kind of boy crazy, and I said, You’re never gonna get a boyfriend playing the accordion. I need to gotta play the guitar. So that’s basically you know, it sort of evolved from there. I loved performing when I was a little kid. My cousins would come over and we’d put on shows for my parents. So I’m gonna date myself by saying, you know, I was in love with the Partridge family. And so we would do all the Partridge family songs and put on songs and dances.
John Kozicki (06:20.279)
Ha ha.
Cathy Hallessey (06:44.537)
And this is like when I was nine, ten, eleven. So I kind of think it was sort of in me right from the beginning. I asked for my first guitar when I was seven. So from then on, basically I knew that I wanted to perform at the very least. And then eventually I I took a different path for for you know university studies, but it led it it led me back right to to teaching again. So but I think what I you know.
John Kozicki (06:47.079)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (07:13.748)
what it says is that I think you’re kind of born to do this. I feel like it’s something that I didn’t have to work at. and that I just wanted to share that passion of how much fun it is to perform. So when we started the school or when I started it on my own 30 years ago, I I wanted there to be that opportunity for kids to get together and do songs together, just like I had done, you know, when I was their age.
John Kozicki (07:41.724)
There’s something really there’s something really organic about that, right? The way that you describe it, it makes perfect sense. And I love that because you’re just saying, like, well, this is a thing that I did and I loved doing it, and I told other people how much fun it is. And that is just how
we build this these communities. You know, that’s that’s exactly how we build community around around music in our music schools. And it’s not really that hard and that groundbreaking. and one of the things that I’m often I feel like I’m saying a lot to a lot of private instructors and maybe private lesson-only studio owners is
just what you’re saying. It’s really not that hard. You just have to put a couple of people in the room together and play music. you know, sure you can fine-tune it and and there’s a lot of things that you can do to make everything run smoothly. But at its core, what you just described, what you started doing 30 years ago before like the franchises and before myself or anyone else is just we’re gonna put people in a room together.
Cathy Hallessey (08:36.416)
It really isn’t.
Cathy Hallessey (09:02.347)
Yeah. Yeah. And the way it evolved has been so fun because once you start putting kids together to perform as as a band, they get super excited about giving themselves a band name, getting to know each other. Nowadays all the kids share their their cell phone numbers, they start little chats for their band to talk about their songs coming up. They become friends and some of them have been lifelong friends, like
John Kozicki (09:02.425)
And then we play music.
John Kozicki (09:25.369)
Mm-hmm.
Cathy Hallessey (09:31.017)
I’ve caught I’ve taught kids that who now have children and their children come to me. And you know, so I’ve been around for a while. So but these kids are they stay in touch. I have people that come up to me like in the grocery store and I haven’t taught them in 20 years, and they’re coming up and hugging me and it’s the most amazing feeling. And they stay in touch with their bandmates, which is like
John Kozicki (09:56.187)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (09:57.222)
Unbelievable, really, you know, and you’re trying to fit in when you’re in high school. So I think that aspect, the fact that this is a welcoming place for kids, they meet other kids that are like-minded. We tend to mix the bands up a little. so if some kids are more into heavy metal, you know, we’ll put them together. If some kids are more into like rock pop, you know, more theatrical stuff, we’ll put them together. and then they have the little families, right? So our school is kind of like
musical family. A lot of people call us music mom and music dad, which is quite funny. so yeah, my husband is part owner. he joined me 15 years in. So he’s half he’s been through to halfway with me. and he’s an incredibly talented musician which allowed us to do the band program exponentially more you know seriously because because he can teach you drums and guitar and
John Kozicki (10:30.776)
Ha ha ha.
John Kozicki (10:42.768)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (10:52.591)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (10:55.593)
piano and everything, so yeah.
John Kozicki (10:57.979)
Okay, I’m gonna shift gears just a touch and talk about something else that I think is really unique about your music school, which is you your music school is in your home, but it’s it clearly it is not what a lot of home-based lesson studios are where it’s like one-on-one private lessons. so tell me a little bit about
how you came to set it up in your home and how it’s sort of this weird hybrid between, again, what I was saying would which would be like kind of this more traditional one-on-one private lessons in a home, and maybe a setup like my own, which is brick and mortar studio. you’re sort of right in the middle there.
Cathy Hallessey (11:51.068)
Yeah, we are. And I can tell you that having this business in our home saved us during COVID because all we had to do was everything was online and we didn’t lose anything. We lost one student in that in that whole time. just because they were not comfortable with with commu you know, with online communications. But anyways, back to your your question. The fact that it started in our home was also organic because before this became our full time job,
John Kozicki (11:57.692)
Mm.
John Kozicki (12:04.847)
Wow.
Cathy Hallessey (12:19.813)
I always had other part-time jobs or full-time jobs, and this was part-time. So it started out with like about 20 kids in one room in the house, and obviously not all at the same time. So and then as the school grew, we changed to an a different house. We f fit the retrofitted the entire basement as a giant band studio and you know double sets of drums and keyboards and you know a million guitars on the wall.
John Kozicki (12:22.523)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (12:30.907)
Sure, sure.
Cathy Hallessey (12:48.648)
and then we added two extra teaching rooms so that we would have three teachers teaching all the time. So myself, Brian, and one of our you know student teachers. And so that worked out really well because what we did is take two bedrooms. kids are grown, so there’s nobody at home. And sorry, I thought I had turned my do not disturb on. yeah, so
John Kozicki (13:11.122)
huh.
Cathy Hallessey (13:13.657)
We had we took the two upstairs bedrooms, put in glass doors so people could see in. we put cameras in all our rooms so that people feel safe. And you know, you’ve got young teenagers teaching other kids and you want to make sure the parents are okay with that. Honestly, that part’s great. and so yeah, it just took over our house. So the entrance is basically, you know, people come in, they take their shoes off at the door, they either go downstairs to the big
John Kozicki (13:22.448)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (13:42.211)
you know, studio room or they go to one of the upstairs classrooms and you know, usually they’ll meet coming in and out because there’s three three all ways at a time, or sometimes there’s more than three when there’s band or when we have our little kid groups, which are adorable, then you have a whole bunch of people coming in, you know, at the same time. So yeah, yeah, it’s fun.
John Kozicki (13:59.888)
Yeah.
The you so with with the home studio. Now th heard you say you’ve got two smaller lesson rooms, so those would be like private lesson rooms, I’m assuming, and then you’ve got the one large
Cathy Hallessey (14:15.096)
Yeah, the one I’m in right now. Yeah, this is this is my studio that I’m in right now.
John Kozicki (14:19.279)
Okay. And then you’ve got the one larger room, which is where you would do your groups and your bands and things like that. d so the and this is something that I know just from my own brick and mortar, and I’m I’m sure people who have home based studios deal with this as well. You start to run numbers and you calculate like, well, where what is my ceiling? And based on the the physical restraints of the space.
It sounds like you’re completely content to continue in your house. Have you so two questions. One, have you ever considered moving it out? But you sort of just answered that. but two, it when you consider what growth means for your studio, how do you how do you measure that or what what things do you look at when you know, okay, I’ve got
Cathy Hallessey (14:54.851)
Yes.
John Kozicki (15:17.115)
two private lesson rooms and I’ve got one band room and that’s all we’re gonna ever do.
Cathy Hallessey (15:21.721)
Yep. So we grew after COVID, we ended up with a over 140 students a week. And that’s a lot of people coming into your, you know, single family home in a s in a suburb. So we kind of hit the ceiling of what our neighbors would tolerate. Luckily, we have fantastic neighbors. They’re all amazing. Some of them send their kids to our school. but
John Kozicki (15:37.603)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (15:43.268)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (15:51.808)
I think when we hit that number, we realized we were just gonna like might be just a bit too many people. So 120 between 100 and 120 is like a good number for us. And I don’t feel the need to have more than that. People have asked me about franchising, you know, all kinds of things. Did would we consider brick and mortar? that’s a hard no for me. But you know, if I had realized maybe how well this was gonna go 20 years ago.
John Kozicki (16:04.058)
Mm-hmm.
Cathy Hallessey (16:22.143)
I might have had a different answer. However, having said that, I think one of the things that a lot of the families love is that it’s not normal. It’s it’s a it’s not a typical, you know, music school. And that it is very, very family oriented and very welcoming. And I don’t know that you can get that in a brick and mortar, you know, no offense to anyone that’s running their operation that way. It’s good for you, but this is just different. And I think different was what we were going for.
John Kozicki (16:38.574)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (16:50.628)
Well, yeah, I think just by by the fact that someone is coming into your home and they know that coming in, of course that’s going to that’s going to feel from the perspective of a parent, from the perspective of a student, that’s going to feel much different than going into a like a studio in a strip mall or something like that. Simply by the fact that
Cathy Hallessey (17:17.087)
Exactly.
John Kozicki (17:19.524)
they know that this is your home and you are welcoming them into your home. It’s the I could see it going both ways, right? Potentially that could be like an area of discomfort for certain people, but also for the people who that’s not, that’s that says a lot. That’s very Canadian of you, Kathy. Guess where I’m Yeah. Yes.
Cathy Hallessey (17:40.693)
It is it is it is a really Canadian thing. Seriously. you’re absolutely right, John. I think the fact that Canadians are like, we love you all, you know, that comes across. And I think the community that we’re in is is extremely family oriented, extremely community focused. And I feel like because of where we are, it works really, really well. And
John Kozicki (17:49.668)
Ha ha ha.
Cathy Hallessey (18:10.226)
you know, word of mouth. I mean, honestly, we have our car decked out in like our in our logo. it’s a little Kia Sol. And that is the best advertising money I’ve ever spent in my life. And it is pretty much the only advertising money I’ve ever spent because everything’s word of mouth. It’s a small town, right? And and we do all these performances and arts in the park and, you know, different fundraising events and
John Kozicki (18:31.14)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (18:38.322)
All the kids get to be on stage. Our kids have their little t-shirts that they wear in some of the groups, like the Roxy’s hot pink t-shirts, all girl singing group. our latest little group, they’re three and four year olds. They’re called the red hot silly peppers. So three and four year olds with these little silly peppers t-shirts, they’re the cutest thing ever. You just never want them to leave. And we have another group called Pop Patrol, so POP Pop.
John Kozicki (18:53.541)
Ha ha ha.
Cathy Hallessey (19:06.007)
And those are five and six year olds. And honestly, you just watch them all playing together. And when they go on stage, when we do our events, they like steal the show. Obviously, they’re so cute. And then they like to look at the watch the bands because they go, you know, even when they’re little like that, they’re like, I want to do that one day. And then the other thing we do is we start looking at who’s potentially going to be a teacher. So I will start looking at kids when they’re
John Kozicki (19:17.177)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (19:35.954)
twelve, thirteen, and think if they’re still in band and they’re still learning, in other words, still taking some kind of lessons, they potentially can definitely be a teacher. And so we’ve had dozens of kids that work for us. So I’m going on a different route here, but yeah.
John Kozicki (19:54.361)
No, this is this is good. This is good because I’m gonna fill in a l a couple of blanks and I wanna dig into this a little bit more because I know this about your school. It’s yourself and your husband who are teachers, but then all of your other teachers are are they current students or former students or maybe both? Okay.
Cathy Hallessey (20:17.147)
Both. So some have some have have reached the max of their learning with us, so they just teach now. some are still in band and teach, which is really great actually. And some are still continuing lessons and in band and teach. Most of the kids that end up teaching have been in band first.
John Kozicki (20:41.092)
Have you ever considered or have you ever hired any other instructors that were not your students? And then we’ll get into like the how how you came about hiring students to teach.
Cathy Hallessey (20:56.612)
Okay, so once, one time we couldn’t our piano both both of our piano teachers were graduating, going off to university, and we needed piano teachers. And so two of our other teachers had really good friends and one of them kept coming to the band practices and I found out he could play the piano and I was like, dude, you want a job? And super nice kid, I knew he knew our other teacher.
John Kozicki (20:59.887)
Okay.
Cathy Hallessey (21:25.648)
who’d been with us for like eight years, interviewed him and he started working. And then when he went off to university a couple of years later, his sister took over. So those that those two from one family are the only teachers we’ve ever hired that were not students at our school. And they were, they both worked out great.
John Kozicki (21:45.873)
And but even that you in your description there and you’re telling the story, you you refer to him as this this kid, right? So even that, you that was we’re not talking about someone who’s in their you know their 20s or their 30s who maybe has some experience teaching, or maybe they’re a working musician and also teach, or someone who is credentialed to teach or went to music school.
You’re specifically only looking for student mentors and which I am a big fan of. I love that. I have hired former students, I’ve hired current students, we’ve we’ve trained students to assist in in certain capacities at the at the music school.
Cathy Hallessey (22:20.399)
Yes, peer to peer.
John Kozicki (22:40.844)
so I’m a big fan of this philosophy. how but how did you come to to this place where this is your go-to for for other teachers?
Cathy Hallessey (22:44.514)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (22:55.446)
Again, it was really organic. Like we got to a point where we needed to have a third teacher. once we set this up, you know, with the extra the two rooms. And one of our teachers was was ready and he was really keen to teach. And so he what we do with all of the kids that teach for us is they shadow teach with us for the over the summer months. So they’re and they’re they’ve been taught by either myself or Brian, so they teach exactly the same way that we teach, which is like
something you can’t get if you’re hiring from outside. You know, y everyone comes in with their credentials, but it might not necessarily match the vibe of how we do things here. So that worked out really well. So Noah was our first teacher and then he was in band and then one of the other girls in band, we said, Okay, we need a another teacher when Noah can’t be there and so we hired Samantha and then it just kept on going from there. So once they would go I I hate when they get into grade twelve ’cause it’s like
John Kozicki (23:52.612)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (23:53.356)
Why are you leaving me? but we’ve had a few that have stayed. if they’ve stayed local for university, then you know, they’ve continued to teach. I think our oldest teacher was twenty one and he was in second year university or third year. but for the most part they’re between they’re in grade nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. Yeah.
John Kozicki (24:15.002)
The so I I think what you just said there about how yes this became another sort of organic thing that happened in your studio. the st these these kids who start to teach for you, you mentioned they already understand how things work in your studio. They were students of yours. That really solidifies the culture. And
Cathy Hallessey (24:43.541)
Does.
John Kozicki (24:44.298)
All of the things that you’re talking about, the the community performances, the allowing people to come into your home for this thing, organically creating these groups 30 years ago, because that’s just how music is done, because it’s fun that way. the student instructors, all of this.
Cathy Hallessey (25:06.631)
Yeah. Yep.
John Kozicki (25:11.532)
is in my mind a as someone outside looking in, is one of the strongest examples of a studio culture I think I’ve ever seen. well, it it’s it’s like all these pieces are coming together and they point to this culture that you’ve created. And I you know, I don’t know if I mean I do a lot of a lot of work to nurture our culture at our school.
Cathy Hallessey (25:21.029)
but so nice.
John Kozicki (25:41.296)
But it seems like everything is just so organically tied to what you and your husband have built that you’ve got again, it’s one of the strongest examples of studio culture I’ve ever seen. Ever.
Cathy Hallessey (25:57.534)
I’m super flattered that you’re saying that because I very much respect what you do and and you know and anyone else who runs a music school, you know, God bless.
John Kozicki (26:08.592)
Yes. now one other thing that that I’m gonna mention is again with all of these things that you’re doing, they seem to you seem to be less concerned about some of the the norms and traditions that we see in our industry. And
Cathy Hallessey (26:35.144)
Okay.
John Kozicki (26:38.0)
like hiring student instructors, you know, just organically saying like, yeah, we’re gonna focus on having these kids play together. the home based studio that’s not really one on one. That’s n again, that’s not a n norm or that’s not a tradition. where Kathy, where does that come from? It’s gotta be there has to be like
Maybe there was a mind set shift, or maybe it’s just you’ve always kind of had a more progressive outlook. I don’t know. What do you think?
Cathy Hallessey (27:11.826)
I think, you know, I’m a very practical person. I I I’m a problem solver. So I’m the oldest of four. And I think when you when you grow up sort of taking care of people, you become very adept at like figuring things out and making it work, even in the worst of circumstances. So the thought of hiring from outside, bringing someone else in that wouldn’t necessarily have the same style as us.
and who would probably have to take, you know, Fridays off for gigs and other things like that if they had children, you know. So teenagers as teachers are like perfect for all I would say every single one of them, it’s their first job. So we’ve written a ton of reference letters over the years to get kids into mat into like, you know, professional arts schools and in and you know, Juilliard and you know, it’s like
John Kozicki (27:59.076)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (28:10.105)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (28:10.575)
really, really fun to be part of that transition for them as into adults. And so we kind of stay, I feel like I mean it just made sense to me. I don’t think there’s a like a magic recipe of why it’s why we do it this way, but it just it was logical and it made me feel comfortable having someone teaching the other children who I had taught, who I knew really well, whose parents I knew, who I’d watched grow up.
I knew they were good kids. I knew that they wouldn’t, you know, do something inappropriate. is there a risk hiring teenagers? Sure. They’re teenagers. They f they look like adults, but they aren’t. So, you know, you have to kind of take on that mom role sometimes, not just the employer role. And that’s a weird dynamic for me because I’ve te I’ve been teaching them, right? And suddenly I’m their employer.
John Kozicki (29:04.931)
Mm-hmm.
Cathy Hallessey (29:06.877)
so it’s a it’s a really interesting learning curve. and I think I think for the kids it’s a great first job experience and you want that first job to be something that you enjoy, right? So that you’re not like, I gotta go to work, I gotta go flip burger at McDonald’s. We pay better than than retail outlets and and you know, fast food chains. So and that’s on purpose. We want the kids to to to enjoy the you know the job.
John Kozicki (29:22.073)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (29:34.124)
And we also want them to show up at events that they’re not get necessarily going to get paid for for like our concerts. And most of them will. And we do offer obviously volunteer hours, because I don’t know if you have this in the states, but high school kids have to have, you know, something like 40 to 60 volunteer hours to graduate. So, you know, we we have workarounds because our budgets are limited. but yeah, like it made sense and it still makes sense. And I never
John Kozicki (29:41.048)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (30:03.019)
Ever regret it?
John Kozicki (30:05.103)
Okay, couple of questions. So, first off, I I was gonna ask about like advice to other studio owners that wanna really lean into culture, but I I don’t I think that’s too broad of of a of question because in hearing you talk about it, you’ve said, well, it’s just logical, right? It just makes sense. So I I’m gonna go a different way with it.
Cathy Hallessey (30:30.414)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (30:34.569)
Let’s say that what ad what would be the first step for or advice for another studio owner who’s thinking about taking that first step in hiring a student instructor?
Cathy Hallessey (30:50.083)
Okay, make sure you know them. make sure you know their family. And you have to be sure that they are a very skilled. Because you don’t want families coming back to you and saying, Well, it’s a peer-to-peer relationship, which is nice, but how good are they? You know? So by showcasing their skills in our band program, families have grown up watching the kids.
progress and get better over the years too. So that’s all kind of like, I think you have to have all the pieces of the puzzle for it to work, is what I would say to someone. Don’t be afraid to be a mentor and a coach to to your younger teachers. They’re they need that. They want it, you know, you can’t just throw them in a room and say, okay, go teach guitar. You know, we have an entire curriculum that we’ve written out.
that has all the various steps that we go through for each of the things that we teach. And that’s something fairly new that we decided to do. mostly because people do like to see objectives and goals. And so although we’re very like relaxed as a school, we also want to make sure that people feel like the kids are really gonna come out having learned quite a bit, you know.
So we make sure that all of those things are taken care of. I’m not really answering your question about how to hire a teenager, but
John Kozicki (32:18.127)
Maybe let me let me switch the flip the question and maybe provide insight to someone who might be thinking about this. Cause I I’m assuming that and you’ve you’ve sort of already said this, that the the students that you hire have been taking lessons with you for a certain amount of years. that that first step in training, does that involve maybe shadowing? What is the what is that first step?
Cathy Hallessey (32:45.3)
Yes. So shadowing is exactly the first step. So once you identify a student as a potential teacher, you’re gonna wanna a talk to them about it, ask them how they feel about it. most will be like, Really? You think I’m good enough? Because they’re so cute, you know, and they don’t realize how talented they are. And then you say, Okay, so if you’re serious and you wanna do this comes come the fall, then you have to shadow Brian and I over the summer.
John Kozicki (33:03.695)
Mm-hmm.
Cathy Hallessey (33:14.071)
and watch how we teach and sit in the corner, take notes. And by the end of the summer, we’ll let you take over the lessons so that you can continue to so you can actually get your feet wet and give it a try. Yeah. And then come the fall, they get their own students. And we because we have cameras in all the rooms, I monitor all the new teachers. So on Mondays and Fridays I don’t teach anymore. So on those days
John Kozicki (33:25.187)
Yeah. Okay.
Cathy Hallessey (33:39.943)
I try to put the new teachers on those days so that I can actually watch their lessons. And I tell them, you know, they know. I said, I’m not being creepy. I just want to make sure you’re doing a good job. And I always I talk to them about brand and our reputation and how they are representing our brand and they’re repu representing our reputation in the community. So it’s really important that they do, you know, follow we have rules and guidelines for our young teachers.
John Kozicki (33:44.463)
Mm-hmm.
Cathy Hallessey (34:06.63)
And I’d like to s I just like to watch to make sure that they’re actually doing things the way that that I would, right? Yeah. And most of the time they do. I’m often pleasantly surprised with how well they they manage.
John Kozicki (34:12.015)
Gotcha.
John Kozicki (34:21.581)
Yeah. similar question. Let’s say that we’ve got a an in-home instructor doing mostly private lessons one-on-one. And in listening to this conversation, they’re thinking, like, hmm, is there something there where maybe I can start to build more community, start to build some
interaction between students, start to have students play together. So let’s say w what maybe first step or word of advice would you give to that one-on-one in-home instructor who may want to start getting their students playing together?
Cathy Hallessey (35:06.714)
I would say that they should initiate like band night, an informal thing Friday afternoons or whatever, open mics. So we do a lot of that and I that really gets the kids that are sort of on the edge or not sure yet if they can do it, gets their confidence up, gets their skill set up, and basically, you know, it’s just again a a really easy way to get people to just jam together.
And so I would just say like create the opportunities. That has that’s something you have to do as a business owner. You’ve got to create the opportunities for these things to happen. They’re not just gonna magically happen out of thin air, right?
John Kozicki (35:49.791)
One hundred percent. I love that. And and one of the things that I do a lot in my studio, because we will get natural resistance for whatever reason. We’ll get natural resistance from students, we’ll get natural resistance from parents when we say, Yes, you’re taking lessons, but what do you think about playing with some other people? Right? And for whatever reason, whether that’s anxiety or other baggage or they think that they’re just not good enough.
We will get resistance. So actively we have multiple ways that we encourage this, whether that’s a tour, you know, why don’t you just come watch one of these band rehearsals, right? Why don’t you yeah, why don’t you come to this this jam program that we’re doing once a month? you know, you don’t have to play. Why don’t you just learn this song that these kids are going to be jamming on at the next
Cathy Hallessey (36:32.358)
We do that a lot.
John Kozicki (36:48.236)
The end of the month. You don’t have to play it with them. You don’t even have to go. But why don’t you just learn it? And there are all these tiny, tiny little steps, like you were saying, creating these opportunities for them to say yes at some point, right? Not just to get that resistance.
Cathy Hallessey (36:56.623)
Yep.
Cathy Hallessey (37:02.146)
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. And I think, you know, the inviting the kids to sit in on band, we I don’t know how many times we’ve done that, like and ninety-nine percent of the kids will join after they do they have that experience because they realize like, okay, these kids are my age, they’re just having fun, they’re not perfect, you know, when they mess up, Brian just laughs. Okay, let’s try that again. That was a train wreck, you know? And it’s and it’s just the way it is. Like you just
John Kozicki (37:30.86)
Yeah. Right.
Cathy Hallessey (37:36.326)
Nobody’s expecting perfection. And you know, we don’t grade our kids for that reason, too. We don’t believe in the formal structures. And I’ll tell families that, you know, especially piano students, a lot of times they’re gonna want, like, do you do RCM? And we’re like, we don’t. I mean, we can get you ready for it, but we don’t actually, that’s not how we work. We want the kids to come in with a set of songs that they like and then we’ll help them to play them. You know, it’s really about because that’s how I learned.
John Kozicki (37:55.778)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (38:04.502)
Like I would sit down with my my best friend who was four years older than me, lived across the street, and I swear to God we were the original American Idols with Canadian Idols. Because we would judge each other. We would learn it like a Simon and Garfunkel song or something. And I’d play it for her, and then she’d play it for me. And of course she was a million times better because she was four years older than me. but and then we would judge each other and you know, you were okay there, you didn’t sing that part well, your guitar part there wasn’t so good, and
John Kozicki (38:12.77)
Ha ha ha.
Cathy Hallessey (38:34.583)
you know, I think kids, you grow from that, right? And so I think watching other kids perform and getting to see them fail, you know, not colossally, but occasionally, like like adult musicians do as well. You know, it it may it it gets rid of the myth that rock stars have to be perfect. We like to call our students rock stars because they really are. Any kid three to eighteen who gets up on a stage
John Kozicki (38:49.41)
Yes, yeah.
John Kozicki (38:56.835)
Right.
Cathy Hallessey (39:03.933)
fearlessly, and even if they do have butterflies and they want to throw up, which is normal, they’re rock stars just for doing that, you know, whether they’re great or not.
John Kozicki (39:16.428)
What is the what’s the typical trajectory of a student in in your school? Do they start with private lessons? Do you try and get them in groups right away? What what is what is your approach there?
Cathy Hallessey (39:27.829)
It depends on what age they come to us. so we have, like I said, we’ve got, you know, group for three and four year olds, which we just started. We had never taught the kids that young before. five and six year olds, which can transition right into private lessons, which we typically start at age seven. So the the the new group is really more for fun. And it also will translate into the next step and then the next step, and then so private lessons eventually lead to.
well, you know, do you want to learn something else? So let’s say they’ve mastered and they’ve done really well on piano or on guitar or something, and they’re like, I want to learn ukulele, I want to learn how to play the drums. And because we teach everything here, and thank God for Brian, who can teach everything. So my skills are a little more limited. I love, you know, I’m a vocal coach and I and I love pla teaching guitar, but I can play piano by ear, but I would not want to teach piano. So
John Kozicki (40:24.706)
Yeah.
Cathy Hallessey (40:25.888)
but because we offer all of the things, the kids really end up staying longer for one thing and the trajectory can go on from, you know, two or three years with us to like ten, you know, and and that to me is the continual progress of a young musician. They’re never stopping, they’re always learning.
and they try everything. And you know, some kids won’t. I mean, some kids will take lessons for a year or two and that’s all they want. You know, that then soccer comes along or hockey. Hockey is the bane of my existence. And we have had families with multiple hockey player kids, also all it all talented musicians. And you know, guess who wins at the end, right? So
John Kozicki (40:49.816)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (41:00.728)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (41:12.898)
Right, sure, sure.
Cathy Hallessey (41:15.038)
But we still love them. We get them on board and we, you know, ex try to explain the value of being a musician versus being an athlete. And they’re both very, you know, they both have great merit. But I think being a musician soothes your soul. And I think it’s something that that gives you comfort. And, you know, it’s I think you’re never too young to start feeling good about music, you know, whether it makes you happy or whether it’s a song you listen to because you’re sad. everyone can relate to that.
And so I think the trajectory is all about those steps along the way to becoming whatever you’re meant to become, you know, whether it’s a student that goes on to have a recording contract, which has happened, you know, records videos and gets airplay on the local music stations. those are great, great events for us because we feel so much pride. But mostly we’re just so excited for them, right? Because they’re achieving their goals and their dreams.
So yeah, I again I’m kinda go round on my explanations, but hopefully you get the gist.
John Kozicki (42:13.902)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (42:19.19)
No, this is great. This is great. Kathy, well we’re gonna bring this one home. I and again, I think the the takeaways here for any listeners that maybe are struggling with retention, the key is culture. if if you can get those students playing together, then you’ve got You’ve got for longer.
and I also love what you’re doing with with the student instructors because it’s just so smart because again, it’s it’s extending that culture. It’s more s it’s solidifying like what you’ve already built. and it is just building on itself. So props to you, Kathy. it’s been an absolute pleasure talking with you. So I I appreciate it. And and thank you for coming on the podcast.
Cathy Hallessey (43:09.105)
Thank you, John. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it and thank you so much for having me.
John Kozicki (43:16.247)
Okay, well we’ll wrap this one up and we’ll see you next time.
Cathy Hallessey (43:19.931)
Okay, thanks.
