In which the inevitable happens.

I have been teaching flute lessons for nearly fourteen years. I love teaching. I love the one-on-one time with my students, I love knowing that I’m helping them cultivate a love of music. I’ve only had two students go on to study music in college, and I’m OK with that. My goal is not to create a studio of competition winners and orchestral stars. My goal is to foster a love of music and a sense of creativity in my students. I think I’m pretty good at it.

Be that as it may, most students “age out” after three or four years. Over the past fourteen years, school systems have changed dramatically, and my students have to choose between taking band/orchestra and taking advanced physics or trigonometry or something like that. Unless they really love the flute, the core coursework always wins. Music students are smart, and smart students know one thing: college is looming.

This year has been an interesting one for my studio. I started with ten students, ranging in age from six years old to the mid-forties. I fired one, because her mother was absolutely intolerable. (Oh! There’s an amazing follow-up story to this, but it would be really tacky to share it. Just trust me: The woman is a whack job, and she has now alienated the flutists in the SF Symphony, Opera, and Ballet orchestras! It’s not just me!!!) Two more quit in the early spring, when sports schedules started to become an issue. One more quit at the end of the school year, because he is switching to (of all things) trombone.

One more quit this morning. And I’m anticipating that another will quit within the next few weeks. It’s like a breakup – you know it’s coming.

I’m not bothered by this from a personal perspective. I’ve had students quit before, and I’ve had each of these kids for two to three years. I still get emails from past students, and I still meet up with recent-past students for a frozen yogurt and some gossip. But let’s look at the math here. In the past year, I went from having ten students to having four. Of those four, two live in San Francisco, and two live about an hour away. I’ve been driving to the hour-away location for the past three and a half years, because so many of my students lived there. Looking at the numbers makes me wonder if it’s worth it.

The thing is, I want to have weekends. But I also want to continue enjoying some modicum of financial stability. The loss of my studio impacts my finances catastrophically. I’m looking at alternatives, including trying to find additional students within the city. I know that it will be absolutely OK, but it’s going to be challenging.

Ultimately, I think this is probably a good thing. This will open up my weekends, which will give my brain a chance to chill the flip out. And I know that I’m resourceful and will come up with a way to make it all work on the money front. But boy, for the next five minutes, I’m just going to let the panic roll over me.