How much would you charge?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shana
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Shana

New member
OK im working on a few projcts and im curious what you would recommend me to charge my "customers"

First some backround.
I'm 22 years old/F/Teacher-1st grade
Ive been recording for about 8 months. I play guitar and piano by ear but can get round with notes if i had to. I've been playing for about 10 years now and I "perform" occasionally at birthday parties, school events, and summer camp. I'm working at an elementary school now and alot of peopel have been asking me about giving guitar lessons to their kids. I guess they figure I already know their kids and I'd be cheaper than a professional and more convienient being i live in the neighborhood. I can definitely teach beginners guitar with some books of course. Question is what I should charge per hour,,Do any of you give lessons? Im hardly professional but I dont want to give my time for 5 bucks an hour! SHould i offer group lessons? Have them pay upfront?
Ok next question:

I'm doing the music for a big school play/production. The director gave me some tapes with the music and asked me to redo them, and eventually when the choirs are ready, record them singing and put it all on a cd. There are 4 songs, one 8 minute medley and alot of music for the dances that have to be cut and edited and put on cds. The school is playing me 1000$ and gave me 3 months . Question is, do I have to pay for the materials such as zip disks 10 for 100$
floppy discs 20$ for the keyboard and blank cds 10$ for 3? It's costing me so much and i wouldnt have bought them if i wasnt doing the play. What do u think?

One more: How much would you charge for recording a narration for about an hour or so?

Thanx so much
Shana
 
Shana,

I'll charge clients an hourly rate for small-scale projects (somewhere between $25-$35/hr depending on budgets). For large-scale projects (full CDs, multiple songs), I charge a flat rate for an estimated number of hours, with a discounted hourly rate beyond that... I also have varying rates for simple format transfers.

In addition, the client pays all media costs (CD-Rs, tape, DATs, cassettes, incidentals).... BTW, you should be able to get CD-Rs at better prices than 3 for $10 (more like, 50 Maxells for about $25.00).

Clients must pay half on deposit... the balance before they walk away with the final product...

Hope this helps!

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound
 
Charge Them!!!

Whats up Shana...
I give guitar lesson for my milk and bread. Usually I'll charge $15 a half hour.... $20 or $25 for an hour. Some gengeral guidlines i follow:

- rarely give hour lessons... most (young) students cant sit still that long.(first grade teachers probably know that though)
- is it worth it to take on this student? Are the parents forcing the instrument on the kid? Is there a genuine intrest there? do you really want to give the lesson?..
- how intense will the instruction be? Will you be teaching music theory as well as guitar technique? or Will the student/parent be satisfied with some basic chords and songs? etc.

just my take on it....
J

support this musician at
http://www.mp3.com/joenovice
 
as you already know that teaching is precious and the best gift you could ever touch someone's life with.joe novice is right as well as basing a criteria for do you wanna teach.if you can teach your students exactly how you want,then it's definitely worth it,because then you can show how much fun it is.i am teaching a co worker from corporate world and 6 months ago he was a broker/hockey jock.now he knows how to play and competently.it is a blast to see people enjoy what you teach.

true first graders attention span is pretty short .the going rate for guitar lessons are $30 for 45 minutes.i only charge $20 for an hour.but i like to go very slow and make sure they pay attention.i'll teach a song in 4 lessons,just to make sure they know the song in and out.

with the other stuff.do they expect you to pay out of the $1000 for incidentals?or will they give you a budget?i always discuss all this stuff with my clients so i know how much i will end up putting out.write up a contract .they have site s that help with small term entertainment contracts.where? i am not sure.but it makes thing alot easier.good luck
 
I don't know what the going rate for all that stuff is, but I do have a comment on the $1000 and media costs. If you've already agreed to do this for them and never mentioned the media costs, you should pay for it out of the $1000. It is unethical to come back after you've settled on the $1000 and tell them they have to pay media costs on top of all that. There are some that would say that you should demand that because that's usually part of the deal. I would agree with that as part of your next deal, but since you didn't mention it to them before, that was your mistake, not theirs and that cost should be your burden, not theirs. Just something to think about.

Mark
Alpha Dog
http://www.mp3.com/alphadog
http://alphadog.iuma.com
http://www.musicbuilder.com/Alpha_Dog/
 
My 2 cents...

I live and teach music in a rural area and charge $25 1/2 hour for lessons and $50 an hour. I charge $75 an hour for small time gigs, and have even made up to $250 an hour. The price is in who you're selling to and what you're selling. If you're worth it, they'll pay. Heck, one guy paid me $20 bucks just to listen to his 3 year old play the drums for 10 minutes to tell him wait a year or two. I also write music for people who can't at $50 an hour. I also do work for shows at at least $1000 a pop for 8 weeks work an hour or so most days. As for teaching young students, I do that every day, so if I'm going to do it on my time, they're going to pay.
 
PS.

I used to charge $10 a 1/2 hour for lessons, and play gigs for peanuts. I believed anything more would be highway robbery, since I enjoyed doing it. Then a clown friend of mine told me what he charged, and I decided if a clown was worth it, so was I.
 
I would suggest going for a monthy charge...maybe $60 for a half hour lesson per week. That way you can make $12-15 per half hour and get all of your money up front in the event they skip out on a lesson.

An hour is great for when you're really intense, but I used to teach guitar to kids and found they did better when we could concentrate on one thing for a short amount of time and really nail it down before they got bored or frustrated.

dave @ kathode ray
www.indiebiz.com

Click here for a free, 10-day music promotion course.
 
Hey Shana,

My 2 cents on giving guitar lessons. First of all, like David says, get the money UP FRONT. This eliminates you having to waste a morning waiting on a $20 lesson that never shows up. Second, schedule all the lessons on ONE DAY, and schedule them as close together as you can. It's a waste of time to have 5 students on 5 different days, because now you've shot 5 mornings for only $20 a morning. If you get more students then you can handle in one day, THEN schedule a second day. If a student can't make it on the day you're teaching, pass on him. If a student can't afford $20 for a half hour lesson, pass on him, because sooner or later he's gonna not show up because he won't have the money. You've got to find students that can afford the luxury of taking guitar lessons.

I tell you this from experience. I've been teaching for a while. It's my second income. Listen to me play at http://leemuller.iuma.com . This where I refer potential students so they can hear me. I don't do the rock and roll trip anymore, I don't scream into the mikes anymore, I just play the guitar. Check it out.

Lee
http://leemuller.iuma.com
 
Thanx everyone for your responses. Heres the update. I started guitar lessons with 3 kids -20$ for 40 mins. So far its going well. As far as my recording project,,well I'm very fustrated and I dont know what to do. The project is turning out to be MUCH MUCH more than I initially agreed to. I've arranged 5 songs,recorded 8 choirs WITH solos,3 soloist's songs, edited 4 dance musics, recorded 6 narrations with backround music, I'm constantly making tapes for everyone to rehearse with and I have put in 100s of hours since september for 1000$! I'm feeling this is totally rediculous but what should I say to the producer of the play? I never made a proper contract (which I will be doing from now on!) and she claims the school administration is not shelling out more money no matter what.. I cant quit but I'm also working full time as a teacher and this has taken over my life! SOMEONE give me an idea how to approach this "problem" because Im so overwhelmed
Sorry to rant but my mom doesnt want to hear about it anymore!
Shana
 
Well things like this usually happen when you're learning how to work in a particular marketplace. Of course that doesn't help you at all and I don't know if I can either, but here are some things to consider.

It's a valuable experience for next time, but what about now, right? Well, first you try to plead your case to the producer, listing out all the hours and work you have done, and then if that doesn't work you try to enlist the producers help in confronting the school administrators or whoever would be the next in line and plead your case there. Whoever you're dealing with try to make friends and enlist their help. If they can't help you with more money maybe they can give some of the work to others or help you in other ways. So you run the problem up the flagpole, one step at a time, one administrator at a time, until you decide 1) that it's a worthless cause, in which case you either quit and say forget about them, or 2) go ahead and complete the project at great loss to yourself but preserving your "reputation".

I have noticed that when I do a particular type of work it always tends to generate more work of the same kind. For example: Charities make lots of money, but because they were charities I used to play for free or low pay in order to contribute to the cause. When I played for free and handed out cards I generated more "free" business.

So be careful what you do, because you'll get more of it. And if you do a favor, make them promise to tell others what your regular rates are, or better yet, nothing and all and give out your phone number.

You have difficult situation, you want to follow through with your committment otherwise you wouldn't have posted. Try not only to find more money to make it worthwhile, but the cooperation of all involved to solve the problem in any way possible. And if you do end up following through on the project without making any more money, make sure they know the value of your services and feel that they have gotten a great deal so at least they can refer you to others in the proper way in the future.

You sound like a good person - best of luck to you.

Bob
 
An idea, if you really like working with kids, is to brand yourself as a teacher of kids. Make up a name for your teaching method and let people know you are a specialist.

There is a guy here (Nashville) that does this with singer/songwriters and he makes tons of cash...much more than your average guitar teacher.

--
David Hooper
Kathode Ray Music
http://www.indiebiz.com/
 
Narration

Hi Shana!

Relieve some pressure! I can do a narration for you with a proffesional speaker for $150 finished CD included.

If you need it done, reach me at jwpauze@home.com

Hope this will help as I would normally charge in the neighborhood of $400-$800 depending on the complexity.


Jeff.
 
Shana-
I really do feel bad for you. I did a project for my workplace ONE TIME AND NEVER AGAIN!!!!
You get pressured by your workplace and feel ripped at two things. It's a very bad example of conflict of interests. It feels like harassment because it seems like if you don't conform to what they want it will affect your job.
My only advise is bear through it and NEVER DO IT AGAIN! Hey, we all learn, right.
And you can always get back at them by stealing ofice supplies for the rest of your life like I do:) I KNOW I save $200-300 a year in pens, paper, folders, PC's..oops, i mean....:D
And nuss, you're a punk ass. Can't you see she doesn't want to spend more money and this is killing her, You wouldn't understand unless you were there. Keep your spamming propositions to yourself.
H2H
 
hi there,
Personally, I wouldn`t feel bad about making noizes like
`how about more money` They can only say no.
 
This is probably a bit on the side, but: I once said yes to make a class CD where my friends in my class was going to perform songs and I would record them. This was a lot of work for me, and I suddenly had to play all the instruments myself, record all the songs, get some friends of mine to make 20 CDs, and in the end a couple of my so called friends in the class refused to pay 4$ for the CD. It took a long time before I did favours like that again.
 
more words of wisdom.

Remember, you can always come down lower on your pricing, but you'll never be able to go up higher.

--
David Hooper
Kathode Ray Music
http://www.indiebiz.com/
 
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