As I write this article, it is 9:31 on a Tuesday morning, and I am still at home. Still in my pajamas, honestly, and yes, this is a work day. I did something to change my studio business model at the end of the last school year, and I think it’s going to be wonderful, although I feel a little strange about it right now.
If you follow the Flute Examiner, or follow me on social media, or if I know you and you’ve asked how I’m doing any time in the past few years, I probably gave you some version of this: “I’m good! I’m working way more than any human should, but it’s all good!” At the end of the 2023-2024 school year, I had about 60 flute students. I also had gigs two or three weekends a month, and a smaller job working as personnel manager for one of the groups I play for. And, along with friends, I started a flute society in summer 2023. I was not, in fact, all good. I had money, and plenty of it, for once—but no time to breathe, to exercise, to think about myself as a separate entity from the work that I do. I was chronically stressed, chronically exhausted, and I had the attention span of a gnat by the time the final bell rang on that school year.
I’ve always thought that the best way to optimize my earning potential was to stay in the public and private schools that allow lessons during the school day. Because I live in the suburbs of a growing city, that frequently meant rising at 5:00 or 5:30 to get on the road by 6:30 to get to a downtown location by 8:00, and often my teaching day wouldn’t end until 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. Nominally, I had Saturdays off, but it generally did not work out that way, either because I was away playing or teaching makeup lessons from being away playing on other days. In early May, I had a different thought: what if I embraced the growth of my studio outside the schools, at my home studio and my university jobs? What if…I switched to second shift? I ran the numbers. I could do it. Thanks to a generous raise at one position and a small rate rise I was willing to make for incoming new home studio students, I could pretty much replace the lost income. So I took a deep breath and took the leap.
What inspired this? If I’m being honest, it was my life during the pandemic. I had, for the first time in my adult life, time to sleep naturally and not wake up to the tyrannous bleat of an alarm clock. I had time to take a walk nearly every day, and I still had time to teach and teach and teach, and to practice. Although I am seeing all of these current students in person, my life this Fall looks much like that—enough rest, enough exercise to work on keeping my mind and body healthy, enough free time to remember that I have hobbies and family and interests that don’t revolve around music. Just pulling myself out of the commuter life has been a huge help. While I still go downtown two days a week, I’m not doing it during rush hour.
Where I feel strange is here: am I doing enough if I am not out of the house for a traditional eight or nine hour day that starts early? Am I really working if I am not somewhere public, dressed and made up, executing performative work life? Sometimes I think our Puritan ancestors have a lot to answer for, because I’m pretty sure the answer is YES!
It was dreadfully difficult to leave students I love, to choose some locations and not others in making this change. Luckily, there are several younger teachers around who are looking to expand, and I appreciate their willingness to follow me.
Now the hardest part begins. I really have to say no when I fill the last two open spots in my studio. I have to protect this new lifestyle if I want to keep it. There will be a few more things to add to the schedule as the semester really gets rocking over the next two weeks, but I am hopeful instead of filled with dread.
If you are feeling like I was feeling in May, dangerously tired and stressed out, take a look at changing your shift. Like me, there might be a way for you to earn your living and have a life, too.