inBachs / 5 Years of Community!

Five years ago today, we created a small Facebook group for music teachers because we wanted a place where musicians (who also teach) could talk honestly about the business side of what they do.

Today that group has 6.8k members with 107 posts in the last month alone. And it is still, genuinely, one of my favorite places on the internet.

Here is the thing about teaching music privately: it is a completely unique job, and almost nobody around you understands what it actually involves.

Your non-teacher friends do not know what it feels like to reteach the same concept for the fourth week in a row to a student who never practices. Your family does not understand why you are emotional about a recital turnout. Your colleagues at the music store are not thinking through whether a flat monthly fee model makes more sense than per-lesson billing.

But in this group, those are the conversations happening every single day.

What makes this community different

This is not a place to promote your studio, your YouTube channel, or your latest resource pack. It is also not a place to sell your courses or software products. Self-promotion gets you removed, and that rule is strictly enforced. I think it is the reason the conversations feel genuinely helpful.

On any given week you might see:

Business questions — rate increases, cancellation policies, make-up lesson structures, handling late payments, moving to a monthly tuition model, when to raise prices and by how much.

Pedagogy questions — how to handle the student who is stuck, how to approach a parent who is undermining practice at home, how to structure a lesson for a kid with attention challenges, what to do when a teenager completely checks out.

The emotional side — the hard moments, the unexpected wins, the times you second-guess yourself, the parents who say things that sting, the students who make everything feel worth it.

Since then, the community has really built itself naturally. Teachers who have never met in person refer to each other as colleagues. People share news when a student gets into a music program or a recital goes particularly well. They offer encouragement through big business updates or policy changes. They talk each other through the hard days, and celebrate the good ones. It’s a bit wild to see how much it has really taken on a life of its own.

Five years in

When we started this group in June 2021, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go.

What has happened since is that a real community built itself. Teachers who have never met in person refer to each other as colleagues. People share news when a student gets into a music program. They celebrate rate increases together. They talk each other through the hard days.

If you are a private music teacher, or aspiring one, for piano, violin, voice, woodwinds, or whatever and you are not in this group yet, I would love to have you join us!

Join the group here

It is free. There are business resources available, but there is no pitch inside. We are just a bunch of really awesome teachers talking honestly about the work they we love doing. Hope to see you there!