Teaching Positions

Thank you for your interest in a teaching position with Join the Band. This page will give you an idea of what we are looking for. The qualifications needed, how to submit a resume, and what we do to meet the needs of our students and teachers.

What we look for:

  • University Trained Musicians.
  • Non-touring musicians that love to teach.
  • Teachers who are friendly and great with kids, teens and parents.
  • Teachers who are punctual, consistent, and will commit to a schedule.
  • Teachers who have great communication skills.
  • Teachers who understand the importance of music education.

We are not looking for:

  • Touring musicians who are looking to fill in time “between gigs”.
  • Teachers who cannot commit to a schedule.
  • Teachers who regularly ask for a “sub”.
  • Teachers who have no time management skills.

Here is what our teachers are saying:

Dave Allen
“I am a drum instructor here at JTB. I absolutely love working here! The school is well organized and the work environment is relaxed and fun. I have some really great students who I enjoy teaching, I also have a lot of fun hanging with the other instructors. To both students and instructors, I highly recommend JTB!”  March 25, 2019  Join the Band Google Reviews

HOW TO APPLY

  • No Phone Calls: Appropriate candidates will be contacted.
  • By email. (Preferred method)  Info@jointheband.com  SUBJECT LINE:  Your Name – Instrument(s) you teach.
  • Please include the following in a printable pdf of your resume: 1. Teaching experience 2. Education 3. Days you are available to teach 4. Whether or not you work as a touring musician. 5. Any other work experience.
  • Regular mail: Join the Band, 5928 Van Nuys Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91401

School Background

Join the Band Music Lessons Studio is a privately owned school that opened in 1998. We are Los Angeles’s first music program of it’s kind. We believe our performance based program brings out the best in our students. We offer lessons to all ages and levels of students. We realize that most of our students will not become professional musicians however, we strive to provide a fun but educational environment with well organized administration and first rate equipment and facilities.

Why Teach With Us?

There are several places you can teach music in the Los Angeles area. So why teach with Join the Band?

As music teacher you can either teach privately in your house or in students homes, or you can teach in a music store or school – both have upsides and downsides.

HOME LESSONS

 The upside of home lessons:

  • You can keep all of the money you charge to the student.
  • Since you have no expenses like rent, a receptionist or advertising you do not have to pay out a percentage to overhead costs.

The downside of home lessons:

  •  It can be hard to keep your schedule constantly full with new students.
  • Getting a full schedule can be difficult and expensive if you have to run classified ads or small newspaper ads.
  • Even if you are a good, well-liked teacher, it can take a long time for referrals and word of mouth to fill your schedule.
  • If you are driving to student’s houses you also have to factor in the cost of gas and driving time between students which limits the amount of teaching you can actually do.
  • The other downside of teaching on your own can be the difficulty in enforcing your attendance and payment policies. No one likes being a collection agent.
  • It can be difficult to concentrate on your teaching while trying to keep track of who owes money and to make sure you are paid.

If you are teaching on your own, it can also be difficult to enforce your teaching policies and have your time respected.

For example, if a student tells you they are going to Disney World for the next two weeks, it can be difficult to still make them pay for their lesson time. Many students will refuse to pay for those missed lessons because they will think: “I’m not getting my lesson so why should I pay?”

Chances are you can’t book another student in that lesson time for just 2 weeks, so if you don’t charge the student in Disney World, you have just lost 2 weeks of pay. If that scenario happens a couple of times per month it can greatly reduce your earnings.

Continued…

Now let’s look at teaching at a music studio/school.

The downside:

  • Teaching rates that in-home teachers and music schools charge are usually pretty similar.
  • So the pay per student to the teacher is lower because of rent, marketing, receptionists and other expenses. 

The upside

  • Having a consistently full schedule of students each day.
  • Being paid a little less per student but having 10 or 11 students in a day will mean you earn more overall.
  • Another upside to teaching at our music school is that you do not have any collections hassles.
  • You are not required to do the dreaded make-up lesson. You are paid for your time.
  • You only have to focus on the teaching.
  • Join the Band provides a professional educational environment that is stimulating to the students.
  • It is also free from distractions found in a home such as ringing phones or doorbells, tvs and noisy family members.

Those are the general differences between teaching on your own and teaching in a music school or store.

Three reasons why teachers choose
 our studio.

1. A constant flow of new students to keep schedules as full as possible.

Over the course of the year, students can move or quit. This can leave a teacher with gaps or holes in their schedule. Most students register and start lessons in September.

Most music schools only advertise in late August and September for new students. At our school we spend a lot of money on advertising and marketing year round to keep our teacher’s schedules as full as possible.

Each year we spend thousands of dollars on advertising in newspapers, direct mail, community publications and other media to constantly attract new students. We are continually registering new students for our private music lessons even during typically slower registration months like May or June.

 2. Extras are taken care of – your only responsibility is to teach.

At Join the Band we have full time front desk administrators to handle all of the “details” of teaching. From scheduling to collecting fees, these details are handled by our administrators not the teacher. This means the teacher is free to focus on teaching and not get bogged down by administration.

3. Your time is respected and you are paid whether or not students show up.

Teachers are paid for lessons whether students attend or not. If a student misses a class for, illness, school trips or holidays, etc… the teacher is still paid.

We instruct our teachers to not get involved with offering scheduling solution to clients. All scheduling inquiries are handled by the front desk so our teachers can focus on teaching.

We use a system called Lesson Mate. Teachers create a video lesson that is sent directly to the student. 

If a student does not pay for their lessons or has an uncollected debt, the teacher is still paid.

Our priority to make sure our teachers time is not abused so they can be as productive as possible.