In this enlightening episode of the Rock School Proprietor Podcast, John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and co-host Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) dive deep into the world of licensed curriculum for music studios. Mandy shares her extensive experience, having built her entire studio around a licensed program, and offers valuable insights on everything from costs and training to marketing assets.
Join the discussion as John and Mandy explore the pros and cons of adopting a licensed curriculum, the importance of brand identity, and the benefits of having a supportive network. They address common concerns like fee structures, instructor training, and the balance between using provided materials and adding a personal touch.
In this episode:
John and Mandy’s individual experiences with licensed curriculum. John with Kidz Rock and Mandy with Music Together.
Analyzing the fee structure of licensed curriculums
The important and nuanced element of training included with licensed curriculums
Marketing assets, resources, and strategies
Whether you’re considering implementing a licensed curriculum or just curious about how it could enhance your studio, this episode is packed with tips and advice to guide your decision-making process. Discover how to leverage licensed programs to solve common challenges and elevate your music education offerings.
Join our private Facebook group, “Performance-Based Music Programs and Rock Schools,” a community for like-minded professionals to connect and share insights.
Episode Transcript:
On this episode of Rock School Proprietor Podcast, we’re talking about licensed
curriculum, a topic that Mandy is intimately familiar with because she’s built
her entire studio on a licensed curriculum.
We’ll cover things like costs, training, marketing assets.
Maybe it’s something you considered for your studio, but you’re not sure.
We’re going to give you everything that we know about licensed curriculum in this episode.
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. I’m John Kozicki,
and with me is my co-host, Mandy York. Hello, Mandy.
Hey, John. How’s it going?
It’s going well. I’m doing this not over Zoom this time, actually sitting in
the same room together for once.
In real life.
Yeah, we plan to talk about licensed curriculum today.
And I think you’re going to know a lot more about this than I am.
So I’m going to ask a lot of questions.
And hopefully, you’re able to provide some some insight to listeners maybe thinking
about offering a licensed curriculum, or maybe never thought about offering
a licensed curriculum, but maybe it’s a good idea.
I offer kids rock which
is licensed by dave simon in my
studio been offering it for about six years but i do remember in my early days
of my first starting my first music studio like very early on it might have
even been before i started it was just like more thinking about opening a studio.
There was a curriculum and I thought, this seems interesting,
but I’d like to kind of potentially put my own spin on it.
I also thought that the buy-in seemed kind of steep for me at the time.
And then I also was thinking like, oh, well, I’ll just create a curriculum by myself.
In hindsight, I think all of those thoughts probably were,
Not correct, at least for me. I mean, like knowing now what it takes to create
a curriculum, it’s a lot of time, a lot of effort.
While the buy-in did seem steep at the time, in hindsight, again,
I’m totally seeing how that pays off.
And, you know, you can always do tweaks on curriculums if it’s not exactly what you’re looking for.
But your entire studio is built on licensed curriculum.
But what you said is important, though, when you are starting out,
you do want to analyze all of those things.
What you were doing wasn’t wrong. Can I do this on my own? What is the buy-in?
And not all licensed programs are created equal either. I think that’s important to remember.
So, okay. Again, I think you know probably way more than I do about it,
but the fee structure for licensed curriculum can vary.
Books and class materials are sometimes provided, sometimes not provided, I think.
There’s instructor training, I think with most, I would hope with most.
Yeah. Kind of marketing assets that you would be provided with.
So if you could transport yourself back to before you opened Music Time of Milford,
can you remember what were some of the things that were going through your mind at that point?
I mean, I should say, I opened my studio kind of as a result of a move to a new area. Moved here.
My kids were little. There wasn’t a Music Together Center nearby.
Oh, okay.
So it was kind of like, well, I’m kind of looking for something to do.
You know, recreate my identity here in a new place.
And so that’s how it came to be. So I had music together in mind already. I should say that.
But as I started really getting into it, like, is this viable?
Is this really something I want to do?
Looking at space and time commitment, finances.
It was my husband, actually, that said, you should just do this on your own,
you know, like you can do that. Like, don’t license.
Gotcha. Yeah. Well, and again, that’s kind of where I was at one point thinking that same thing.
It’s like, oh, because I think when on the outside, when you see the end result,
when you see what a class looks like, when you see how an instructor may teach
a group, you think like, oh.
So I can totally do that, not thinking about all the steps that go into it in the front end. Oh, yes.
The behind the scenes and what leads up to that point.
Yeah.
I mean, it’s very flattering that Mike told me, you know, you can do this on your own.
And you, John, you’re capable of doing it. We are, you know, musicians.
I am capable of creating this thing. But as I compared, I was like,
oh, my God. But it would take so much time.
And in real life, I mean, you know this about me.
I haven’t shared it on this podcast. But I have been developing a curriculum for my studio.
And it’s been in the works for two years. Like two years, and it’s not totally
ready yet. So that is a lot of time. And that’s not just me working on it.
That’s other people working on it as well.
Yes. Yeah. It takes up—it’s a lot of time to develop something like that.
I wouldn’t have done it differently. I’m really happy.
The resources that I have with the curriculum are just—it’s so numerous. Yeah.
I would have had to, you know, come up with all of the repertoire,
right? Yeah. All of that.
And then you got to be careful about what songs you use, right?
Yeah. Are you going to get rights to this music or are you going to write your own?
There are a lot of early childhood music and movement teachers that just write their own songs.
That’s how they get around this, right?
That’s a lot of time, you know?
Well, and then even if you write the songs, are you going to then also record them?
And how do you make sure that your students have access to them?
Yes.
Yeah.
A whole other process. And that’s what I love.
I’m given high quality studio recordings with real musicians that I’m able to
And I know I’m being very specific, but… When you’re looking at whatever programs
you’re looking at, these are the kind of things you want to analyze.
in a curriculum? Yeah. You know?
Well, and that’s you having just moved to a new area. Yeah. And like,
yeah, you’re, you know, you’ve got two young kids at the time. Yeah.
But, you know, you’ve got some time. If we’re talking about,
like, a studio owner or an instructor who has,
and this is where I am in developing, like, the curriculum I’ve been working
on, all this other stuff, this whole other job.
You’re already rolling.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To notch out the time to write more curriculum,
it’s hard to do. Yes. Mm-hmm.
Okay, question. Mm-hmm. And you had told me that now you’re licensing music
together and that’s what your entire business is built on right now.
Were you considering other curriculums possibly?
And I don’t necessarily think you need to name them. Yeah. Name them. That’s fine.
But I’m curious to know if you were, how did you weigh pros and cons and what did you think about?
Mm-hmm. I did because you should, when you are about to embark on an endeavor
like this, analyze all your options.
I was familiar with music together. That’s what I liked. But as I decided I
wanted to open a center, I started researching other options.
And there are many out there.
Things that I liked about this program was the quality of the music itself.
Again, this is really very specific to what I’m doing, but the music I don’t
think sounds very kiddy.
It’s not very kiddy music,
Right? Yeah, yeah, like childish.
Childish. There’s a strong emphasis on traditional music, traditional songs
from Americana, around the world, very multicultural music.
I liked that. At the time, getting to be trained to teach this curriculum, it was all in person.
Yeah. I thought that was really kind of great. Other programs you could just
kind of go online and get licensed.
The fee structure.
I really liked the fee structure and it made sense to me. That’s a big one, right?
When you’re looking at programs like this, what is the monthly fee?
What are any kind of additional fees in there? Look at the full picture.
And as far as my curriculum goes, this Music Together curriculum,
I don’t have a monthly fee.
I pay licensing fees based on the number of families that I serve.
I thought that was kind of great. There’s people that run Music Together centers,
and they just teach maybe a handful of classes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can see how that’s a really attractive…
Way of accepting or taking on those fees
because it really you as
you grow or as you want to grow or not want to
grow exactly it’s really easy to do that math and
and kind of have an understanding of like what what
you’re paying to offer the program and base
and it helps create your pricing as well now going
back a little bit to you’re talking about the the music
the songs in music together that
resonated with you and earlier you
also were talking about you moved
to the area and you’re trying to find your
identity i think that’s
huge right you don’t the reason why i
license kids rock dave simon’s program at my
studio is because of what you just said it’s like
okay that fits for the most part with what
we do at michigan rock school that’s and
that’s like an extension of of me and my personality and my staff and just like
you were saying the music and how it’s it’s it’s delivered is kind of a representation
of you and and what your beliefs are in your identity Yes.
We’ve talked about authenticity before. I think that’s a good way of summing it up.
This feels authentic to me and what I want to do.
There were other programs that I thought, I don’t know, I can’t see myself doing
that or singing those songs every single week.
This felt really good to me. It was a great fit.
Okay, cool. So the, now I want to also talk about, unless there’s more you want
to talk about in general, but I want to talk about a couple other things.
I want to talk about training and I want to talk about marketing.
Yeah.
But, and we sort of covered the time and the effort involved in creating your
own curriculum versus just saying like, okay, here’s this curriculum that I have. Yeah.
What about the training? Because I know as a studio owner,
even just training my own instructors for day-to-day how to teach private lessons
and how we do things, that can be a challenge.
To give them an entire separate program that they have to run,
training becomes a huge thing, I think.
What was your experience? Because you talked about how training was in person.
Yeah.
And what were the things you liked versus didn’t like about Music Together or other programs?
Well, this is, in analyzing the other programs, right, I said I chose this because
I liked the in-person training.
Talked about the other things that were attractive to me about this program.
I didn’t realize at the time how important that training would be as I start
to hire people. At the time, that wasn’t on my radar, something I appreciate now.
I enjoyed the training because it was long. I mean, back then it was a three-day,
you know, we stayed at a hotel for three days and we did the thing.
It was convention style. That’s pretty involved.
That’s extensive. Okay. So you said it was convention style.
So at the time, everyone registers for this training at this day and this time or this weekend.
Yep, it was a weekend thing.
Goes to this hotel convention center or whatever. Okay, gotcha.
And I mean, convention makes it sound big. Like these weren’t gigantic. Sure.
Yeah. Sure. Conference room.
Yes, exactly. And I really loved it because I felt like I was back in school,
like, you know, in college classes.
And one of the things I love about the program, it’s research-based.
So we were learning the research.
They were telling us all of those things. And then every day we would be in
either one or two like demo test classes.
Yeah. So they brought in families for us to, you know, observe,
watch how different teachers taught classes.
It was really hands-on and then also super informative.
Loved it. Love, love, loved the training. And it really set us up for success
and gave us a good understanding of the material that we were about to present in our communities.
It’s not done that way anymore. They do some in-person things.
Post-pandemic, right? Yeah, yep.
How is it presented these days?
The number of hours are still the same, but there’s more flexibility,
which is nice. You know, we would do a three-day weekend.
And there’s a mix of in-person Zoom. I don’t know what platform they use. You know, Zoom.
So with just so to kind of like there was a certain number of hours training took place. Yep.
Okay. Gotcha. It was a certain number of hours. And now they just spread those hours out.
However is kind of convenient for you. They’ll do it over two weekends,
like I said, two weeks. And there’s like a sprinkling of evenings that,
you know, they present the material.
So when I want to hire a teacher, I would have to say, this is like,
this is a pro and con for me.
I can’t just hire a teacher. right i’ve
got to hire a person and get them trained with music together
right so i’ve got to do that that extra step gotcha but it takes more time you
know i can’t just find you know i can’t just hire someone on monday and have
But Music Together is doing all that work, and they’re giving them all of that
really great research information experience.
Yeah. You know, they might not be sitting in classes anymore,
but there’s a lot of video and discussion.
And I would imagine it takes a lot of the pressure off of you as the director
of your studio or as, you know, whoever the administrator is or whatever.
There’s already training in place. so when
you hire an instructor you’re that’s
a big commitment because you’re also paying for them to to get trained
they’re gonna go do this training you’re not involved until they’re they’re
done and then you can kind of help like apply how you may have tweaked things
here and there in your studio and offer your insight on on their training once
they’re kind of hands-on yeah.
Okay yep they They go to their training and then I call it an apprenticeship.
So they’ll sit in on my classes.
And like you said, they have that curriculum knowledge, but then you have to,
like you said, put your spin on it, but also kind of integrate them into what
your culture is at your center.
There’s music together centers all over the world. We each have a different
culture and vibe, right?
So you get them into, you know, the way you do things. And I have the experience
to say, like, this is something I struggled with.
Here are all my tips and tricks.
Yeah.
You know, but you’re not starting from scratch.
I got to ask this because I am going to guess that this question might be on some people’s mind.
You hire an instructor.
You agree to pay for their training. you’re
investing however much it costs in
terms of like the fee for the
training and to get them trained to run this curriculum
you’re investing your time in this instructor are you ever worried that then
they either come teach for you for a week or maybe like don’t even teach you
for you at all and they’re just like oh i’m gonna go do this elsewhere or i’m
gonna go open my own thing Exactly.
Or they’re so great that they say, huh, I think I’ll just take this and get a license.
Right.
Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Absolutely. Now, I.
Has it happened?
It has not happened.
Okay.
No.
It hasn’t happened. I wouldn’t think it would. But I know that people worry
about that stuff because, again, you’re investing in this person and there’s
like no necessarily, there’s no guarantee that it’s going to work out.
Right. There’s that fear. Right. But I think that comes with literally any job.
Yeah. In any job, someone’s going to have to be trained and,
you know, and like whoever that employer is, is investing in that employee in
hopes that the return will come.
But I, you know, I know musicians, I know like music instructors.
There’s a lot of worry about like stealing students and, you know,
starting your own thing.
Yeah, for sure. And I can’t say that it hasn’t happened. You know,
I know across the. Yeah, it happens. It does.
Now, I do things differently than I used to.
I don’t, I always vet, like I vet the person, right?
I hear them sing, make sure it’s in tune, make sure they can keep a steady beat,
all those things, right?
And they are in class with me. Like, it’s like, you need to come see this to
know if it’s for you. So, there are steps before.
So, in your situation, even before you agree to take this person on and,
like, have them trained, you have requirements for them to come,
like, view a class that you’re teaching.
Yes. Yeah. That’s kind of part of the interview process, so to speak.
Totally. I’m not going to send them off for training unless I feel like this
is a good fit and they’re going to be successful.
Yeah. Yeah.
And, you know, former clients are usually the best teachers.
Yeah. You know, those moms that have been coming for several years,
their kids are getting older.
They were always the ones singing the loudest in class and having the best time.
Right. You know, I’ve had a couple of those that have come back and taught for me.
Where was I at? Oh, so, but I do things differently.
You said paying for the training up front and worrying about where they’re going to go from there.
I don’t pay for the training fully anymore.
Oh, okay.
So that’s a new thing.
They have a little bit of a stake in it.
Yes. I want them to have a stake in that. I want them to invest in themselves
and this training, I mean, this is something that sticks with them.
I’ve, you know, look at your program, your license or whatever the curriculum you have.
But oftentimes, this is something that, you know, is attached to them in their name.
Right. It’s basically a certification for them. So, you know,
even in not the unscrupulous circumstances where, so say, for instance,
maybe they do teach for you for three years, and then they’re moving.
It’s something that they could potentially do at another center,
wherever they move or start their own center or what or just do a couple classes
at a library or whatever yes yeah so it.
Is that’s it’s attached to them so i look at it that way and
i want them investing in this too i have i
have like done bonuses so i’ll pay for you know x amount of your training and
then after two semesters okay you kind of get a bonus yeah to recoup what you
paid for that gotcha you you know like get creative figure out what works for
you right but there’s you don’t have to do there’s not just one way well
And not all licensed curriculums have training that’s done by the the.
Organization that’s
Licensing the curriculum you i speak for myself with with kids rock the the
training is part of my license and it’s a lot of it is there’s books and there’s online videos.
So I just simply need to give my prospective employees access to that material.
So there’s no like you have to pay to have this training or and then you go someplace.
So you’re talking about a different circumstance that I’m in.
And I would imagine like you get some from column A and some from column B,
depending on the curriculum you’re looking at.
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. What other benefits? There was something I wanted to come back to also.
I don’t feel it so much in the area that we’re at, but in other parts of the
country, there’s brand recognition.
Yeah. Right? Right. Well, yeah, I think kinder music comes to mind, right?
As like across the country, it seems like it’s everywhere. So there is that brand recognition.
Yes. Yep. And I think in the area that we’re at, some people will recognize that name.
Music Together started in the West Coast. Or I’m sorry, on the East Coast in Princeton.
So New Jersey, New York, and that’s the name. People are going to recognize
that name when you’re out there, right?
Yeah, okay.
There’s some big centers on the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest too.
So depending on where you are, maybe you want to think about,
well, the saturation of your area is something to think about.
You know, how many centers are out there and, you know, what name is most recognizable?
It’s not something I thought about, but maybe.
I could see that as being a pro or a con, depending on your perspective, right?
Maybe like, oh, there’s already a bunch of music together centers in this area.
I want to do something else. Or, hey, everyone seems to love music together. Let me offer that. Yeah.
Yep. That’s what we got.
So, well, we could, I mean, we could talk about the marketing, the marketing assets.
Clearly a topic that I’m interested in. But also a topic that I think scares
a lot of musicians and maybe music school owners or instructors,
because it’s like that’s the business side of things.
So I’m sure. And again, I’ve I’ve not researched a lot of these licensed curriculums.
So i’m intimately familiar with with dave simon’s programs i’m somewhat familiar with music together,
not familiar at all with any others but uh the marketing side of things now
from what i’ve seen in your studio you get a lot of marketing materials and
it’s it’s almost like you can pick and choose whatever you want to.
Use yes and
They make it it seems like they make it super simple they do.
It’s fantastic because we wear so many
hats right like you said you might be scared
of some of those hats right like yeah but we have
to wear them and they make it very easy one thing i like about this program
is that i’m able to have a little bit of my own identity too yeah like i have
my own name my studio name right we’re music time i’m licensed to teach the
music together curriculum.
There are some centers that just want to be, you know, music time of Springfield,
and that is their entire identity, and they only offer music together classes.
But, you know, I have my.
Own brand and color in addition to all the Music Together assets.
I don’t know. Just something I like.
But, yes, they provide us all of those things. The colors, the social media
tiles, a lot of back-end stuff, too.
You’ll get some of these licensed curriculums or programs. They’ll give you
access to, you know, database or scheduling, CR.
Like, you know, stuff like that. Website, even.
I do that on my own but there’s you know deals
Yeah that they.
Can provide you with so we can take and they provide all this stuff and then
we can put our own spin on it that’s what I I really like it’s not so when you say
They provide it and you can also put your own spin on it is that does that mean
with what you get let’s say for instance you need,
social media images do you
have the capability of like simply
taking something from a file and
saying oh this is a music together social media image i’m just going to use
this and then also hey here’s this social media image but i can also put my
own logo on it or i can insert my own picture into it or something like that yes okay yeah there.
Yeah you can you can just grab and go take the piece use it or or yeah take
the the language and put your own photo in right things like that i i like to make things as
personalized as I can. I love to, you know, get photographers in and build our
library of images, but you can also take, you know, photos from Music Together.
They’ve got lots of those in there. Just take it and put it.
Yeah. Which I think would be great for someone just starting out.
Yes. Because when you are just starting, you don’t have the,
you know, like maybe you don’t even have the students yet. Right.
So you don’t, if you don’t have the students, you can’t use photos of your students.
Or maybe it takes a while to build up the student base. And then once you do,
you’re like, okay, I got the student base.
But you know what? Hiring a photographer right now just isn’t quite in the budget.
So let me continue to use these assets that I’ve been provided with.
And then my next goal is to get a photographer and get our own photos.
And yeah, that’s i think that’s great yeah.
I think for i’m always telling
talking about this with my admin like showing people
what you do you know social media is very visual yeah you just throw up there
with a bunch of cool colors and bubbles music and movement classes it’s a little
bit like what does that mean but when you show a photo of you know mom and dad
and two kids on the floor playing rhythm sticks. Exactly.
And in the episode that we released with Adam Wilson about marketing,
that’s leading with the outcome is what he said, right? It’s like the proof of concept.
You’re seeing what the end result is. And that’s what gets people thinking like,
oh yeah, that’s what I want to do.
Coincidentally, I think that’s very similar to what you said earlier.
Your husband was like, well, you should just do this.
He saw the end result, not realizing all the steps that go into it. But yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, so I think, I mean, that’s a huge benefit of having a licensed curriculum,
the assets that they give you.
So with the marketing stuff, and there’s more that you want to add,
that’s great, but I do have a question. So we’re talking about social media.
We’re talking about images and things like that, which are great.
I get, like, I do a lot with email with my prospective clients.
And, you know, I’ve got like email automations that are designed to sort of
slowly drip out information to people.
Do you get provided, you know, maybe an email copy for specific things or is
that kind of all on you? Yeah, I don’t know.
I don’t know so much that kind of communication. Now, we have a network and
I want to talk more about that.
Oh, okay. But we have, one of the things I love and I use frequently are educational tools.
Like we have this growth chart that Music Together puts out.
It’s a musical growth chart, right? So we give the parents, here are the kind
of musical behaviors you may be seeing at home.
Based on your age, based on how the kids age, based on how many semesters they’ve been in class.
That’s always a good one, right?
That’s cool. Yeah, because that’s like, it’s marketing materials,
but really also educational materials for internal purposes primarily rather
than I’m going to utilize this stuff to try and attract families that are outside
of my sphere that I would like to come in. this is internal marketing.
Hey, this is what we’ve been doing.
Here’s a little postcard or a little poster that’s showing you the progress.
And then that’s going to lead to word of mouth marketing.
Hopefully. Yes. And retention. Yeah. You know, retention. I like that piece. It’s pretty simple.
I always tell everyone lots of interesting tidbits on here,
you know, skim through it and I try to sprinkle some of that into my classes
too they also give us like I don’t know how many pages it is it’s a it’s a tiny
eight chapter booklet that I hand out to everybody too
music and your child and it is our philosophy and why we do what we do yeah
we do these rhythm and tonal patterns in class you know and I I explain these
things in bits and pieces you know through
class as much as you can when you’re trying to
Heard cats, but then they also have this piece to take home.
And it depends on the people, depends on the family. Some caregivers devour
it and they find it really interesting to learn kind of the behind the scenes,
what’s going on in their child’s little brain and why we do what we do.
So those internal pieces are great. I think back to your email question,
the network is awesome okay
So before we go there okay sorry the because again i i’m trying to think of
like well what questions would.
People have
Yeah if they’re if they’re thinking about a licensed
program and so you’re talking about these little
pamphlets or this little eight chapter booklet now
is that something that you do you purchase those is that separate do you have
access to like maybe the digital file and you print them yourself so it’s just
your printing cost is it included in your license how does that how does that all.
Work well i mean i think that’s going to be different sure you
know curriculum to curriculum i i have
some postcards that i have digital copies of
and that i print myself but things
like those important educational pieces they
come with the teacher material or the family materials
my my families all get songbooks a
music download well there’s another great thing like the
company has an app yeah so whenever they sign up for class they get this beautiful
book colorful book with all the music in it plus a code that they pop into their
app and now they’re listening at home yeah right and every semester they’re getting new music,
putting that in their app, growing this library. I mean, talk about retention.
And that
Our goal is to get these families making more music at home.
And music together makes it so much easier than I could on my own.
Well, without, I mean, like you said, I’d have to be recording music.
Oh, my gosh. Right? If you wanted to create an app in-house for just your students. Yeah.
So, I mean, really big picture overall. overall, I’m sure my retention is much
better than it would be if I was doing this by myself. Yeah.
Even if like you kind of said, looking at that snapshot of the end result,
the classroom, you know, me in the classroom with all those families might not
look that different, but the resources that they have are different.
And so that makes a really big difference. Yeah.
And I mean, having an app, I would not think that anyone that is a parent or
a family in your class is necessarily thinking like when they’re paying for the class,
like they’re thinking about the app as part of what they’re paying for,
but definitely an added value.
Yes.
Yeah, and that’s from your perspective as the studio owner, you’re also probably
not thinking about like –,
paying for an app to provide to students. So that’s kind of a nice like thing
that’s coming from the corporation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay. Yes. So the network, because we’re talking about email and I was asking,
do you have email copy and like little templates that you can utilize?
And you were saying that there’s a network.
Oh, yeah. And I think that this is not unique. I’m Sure, there’s a network of
people teaching Kids Rock, too, that share ideas.
But I know I can go into the group.
When I started, we had our own – this is funny – our own network,
a separate login. It was some website. It was our director’s network that we
would pose questions and share ideas.
They completely got rid of that. It’s just a Facebook group now,
Right? I think it’s so much easier with just private Facebook groups.
Totally. And that’s what we do now. And that’s very common.
I think that’s what Kids Rock and Dave Simon has as a private Facebook group.
And they’re really active communities. You say something like,
I’m so bogged down with communication.
What do you guys put out there and how do you do it? You’re going to get like
three form letters from other directors.
Yeah. So they’ve kind of created, I mean, in like the software world,
they call that open source, right? where people are just providing the information
that you need because they’ve already done the work and they’re happy to share it. Yeah.
Same deal. Hey, here’s what we do.
Here’s what we do over here. And you can just sort of pick and choose.
Yep. Yeah. Yep. And this might vary from curriculum to curriculum too, but I decide my pricing.
That’s something I have control over. And so things like that, what are you charging?
And what area and what do you charge for siblings and do you have an event fee
and or a registration fee like our new family you know people do things differently
it’s a great way to get ideas
and then on the other side there’s a separate community for teachers so i belong
to both i’m i’m a teacher as well as a director oh interesting but i can put
my teachers into that group yeah They’re not going to get any of the business nitty-gritty,
but they’ll get things like,
I’m really over this song.
Does anyone have a good way to present it that’s going to excite me?
And, you know, someone will post a video.
So in those instances where you’ve got these networks of other people…,
this goes back to making that decision about,
well, what curriculum might be best for me, that’s clearly an instance in which
more people contributing makes this experience better, right?
So for you, there’s this definite advantage with music together because of the
amount of people that are already involved in it, right?
So a newer curriculum might be awesome,
but people aren’t using it right that
makes it a little bit tougher you know and that’s not to say it’s
it’s like not good but again pros and cons right you’re learning weighing what’s
what’s right for you what is an advantage what what do you think is because
some people might look at the network and think like too much noise yeah you
know or whatever yeah okay.
Yep i do your homework If you’re making a decision like this,
reach out to somebody that’s already teaching and ask them these questions.
Did music together make that easy?
Or was that something that you had to do or you would have to do?
Like, would you have to seek out someone who teaches music together and say,
oh, hey, I took these classes. I loved them.
I’m thinking about offering this curriculum. Or were you able to go directly
to music together and say, I took these classes, I enjoy the curriculum,
I’m thinking about doing it, do you have anyone I can speak with?
Oh, yeah. And they would certainly connect you with people. Yes.
And many people working for worldwide also run their own centers.
Or in some, you know, maybe they teach a little or in some capacity.
So it’s very, you know, in what I’m doing in my experience, very open and everybody
wants to share and learn from each other.
Do you think, now here’s a weird question.
And I think you’ve kind of already answered this, but would you ever take on
creating your own curriculum at this point?
You know what I mean? Like, you know, no.
Sorry.
You can finish your question.
Yeah, I mean, that’s really the question. Because in your opinion,
it sounds like, oh my gosh, this is the best, right?
The cost is like minimal compared to the benefit.
But it sounds like, I mean, what would you say is the, like,
if I said, okay, Mandy, you have to create your own curriculum,
what would you think would be the biggest stumbling block?
I would have to say, for what I’m doing in my experience, the repertoire, the music.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the book, the beautiful, like professionally illustrated books that the kids take home.
Yeah.
You know, I love the music. it
would take me so long to build to build that and you know get copyright permission
and whatever else or write my own songs yeah and then the retention benefit
of having all that material given to the to the families they love it i mean
i this week is my first week of a new semester
so it was passing out books this week yeah and
you know when a class ends typically hugs
and goodbyes and everyone’s out the door right first week
of class everyone’s just sitting down reading looking through
all their books you know looking at all the pages you know and they like to
collect them and they they play music at home this is so yeah that’s my answer
okay what i’m getting is just too beautiful and vast yeah to recreate myself okay okay okay now
I’m thinking Like, okay, for anyone who is still thinking, like,
nope, I think I’m going to do it myself.
Yes.
Okay. Any advice? I mean, clearly, get ready for what you just explained you
felt are, like, the really big challenges.
But, you know, for those, like, really ambitious, really, like,
creative people, really, like, hey, I want to just do this myself –,
thoughts or advice.
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s wonderful and beautiful too, and it can be done.
Begin as you intend to go on.
I like that phrase. I think the training is the big one for me.
If I were to kind of like, based on everything you said and based on my own experience,
I think the training is the big one that we maybe don’t necessarily think about
because because how would you come up with a curriculum well it’s probably like
you’re already teaching something and you figured out a system to teach it you
know oh okay well i do this and
then i do this and this is how i do it and this is how i get the result.
And that’s all well and good when you are that person doing it yeah but then
if you at all would want someone else like even if you got one other instructor
if you would want one other person to teach that,
well, you basically have to open up your brain and say, not only this is what
I do, but this is why I do it, right?
Not only like, this is what I do, this is how I do it.
So there’s all that that’s involved in the training rather than,
again, going back to like what your husband said, not just looking at the end results.
Hey, here’s where we are at the beginning where no one knows anything,
get them to that finish line.
I think the training is a huge, huge one.
That again, I would guess that a lot of people don’t really think about. So my advice would be…
Look at what kind of training is included in the curriculum.
Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, when you’re hiring, that was something
I didn’t think about in the beginning.
It’s just on my own thinking about myself, but I sure do appreciate that training
now as I hire instructors.
Yeah. All right.
I love this.
Anything else that you want to share about licensed curriculum or tips and tricks
or thoughts for anyone either about to do it, thinking about doing it,
never thought about doing it until this conversation? Yeah.
Well, I love it. And I think you just need to do your research.
We’ve laid out a lot of things to think about.
Weigh the pros and cons of the different programs. Talk to people,
for sure, before you kind of sign on for anything.
Find out what other people are doing and how they like it.
Another piece this is a little off but
like i like what you do here you’ve got you’ve got your own curriculum you’ve
got your own thing going and you also offer a licensed program right yeah and
i think things like kids rock things like music together are something you can
add are great things to add to what you already have
Set up yeah good feeder programs well yeah exactly and And again,
I know I mentioned it before, but the Kids Rock, the licensed curriculum that
we offer, we’ve modified it.
You know, we’ve kind of changed a few things in the program to make it fit what we do.
And that goes back to what you said about finding your own identity in a program.
It sounds like you lucked out and like everything about music together resonated
with you. And it’s like this perfect fit.
Make tweaks, make adjustments. It’s okay to do something like that.
Yeah. Yeah. But it’s a great way to add something to your studio without reinventing the wheel.
Oh, sure. Start a license, you know, bring on a license program.
Yeah. And this is my experience. Yeah.
For me, it was about solving a problem. So Kids Rock, and anyone who’s not familiar
with Kids Rock, it’s a four to seven-year-old program.
And we offered it because we would have people, parents who had kids in that
age range interested in private lessons.
And I just kept seeing it as a dead end. We’d try it and I’m like,
okay, it works for a month.
And then the kid hates it, Or the kid’s just like, the result is not what the parent is looking for.
So for me, that solved a problem, right?
That solved a problem where I was turning people away,
not because I didn’t think that that age range was capable of learning and playing music,
but because I felt like the way that it was presented and is presented in so
many other places is not a good thing.
Good fit for that developmental age.
No it’s not developmentally appropriate but you weren’t
you know you you weren’t about to like create this whole curriculum you’ve the
ball is rolling you’ve got stuff going on so yeah yeah it solved your problem what a good fit right
And i knew that what we were doing probably wasn’t helping and that’s that’s
not a good feeling right you know,
Well, we offer this thing, but the result that you’re looking for,
you’re probably not going to get it.
So, yeah, we needed a solution to that problem that was going to be better than
what we had. So, yeah. Yeah.
Awesome. Well, I think that’s about it. We’ve covered a lot.
Your identity, find what’s going to resonate with you. I think like the training
that is involved in any licensed curriculum is huge, huge, hugely important.
And Mandy, I believe your big ones were the content, the music and how much there is that.
And the fact that it fits with your own personal sensibilities and the network is a big one for you.
Yep.
All right. So we’re going to wrap it up. Rock School Proprietor Podcast. I’m John Kazicki.
I’m Mandy York.
Thanks, Mandy. We’ll talk next time. Sounds good.
If you have topic suggestions or maybe some questions about licensed curriculum
that we didn’t answer, please contact us at info at rockschoolproprietor.com.
We’d love to help you with that.
Show notes and transcripts are at rockschoolproprietor.com. I’m at rock.school.proprietor
on Instagram and John Kozicki on LinkedIn.
I’d love to connect with you. If you enjoyed the show and gained insight from
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