Craig Smith Music

Craig Smith music, through its Tuition Agency, is available to provide a range of peripatetic music services in Lancashire and the North West. We are available for piano tuition, keyboard tuition, drum tuition, guitar tuition, flute/woodwind tuition and percussion tuition, all in schools.

Our goal: To provide quality instrumental tuition throughout the North West with highly experienced and well-trained music teachers, all of whom are young, enthusiastic and inspiring.

Please see other pages to read more about the business itself and the Tuition Agency.

We appreciate that the needs of every school and every pupil are different, so please excuse any lack of detail held herein; we simply couldn't list all of the different options for lesson times, lengths, sizes, instrument provision etc. However, there's an overview below, and all our contact details are listed throughout the site. The philosophy of our music service is to fit in with your school to offer the best peripatetic music lessons with minimal disruption to everyday school work.

Craig himself regularly works with big name acts (recent work includes projects involving The Noisettes, Tinchy Stryder and Bryan Adams. He is available to offer a unique and inspiring insight into the world of professional music to students in Lancashire schools.

Private Instrumental Tuition in school [Top]

Craig Smith Music offers to Lancashire schools a range of one-to-one peripatetic instrumental lessons including school piano lessons, school keyboard lessons, school flute lessons, school guitar lessons, school percussion lessons and school drum lessons. All lessons are taught by young but very experienced, well-qualified and inspiring teachers, most of whom gig regularly on the pop/rock scene; our services won't provide teachers 'stuck in their traditional ways'.

One-to-one peripatetic instrumental tuition can be provided during the day or after school. With the exception of percussion and drum lessons, they do not necessarily need a dedicated 'practise room', but can take place in the canteen, hall, or vacant classrooms. Examinations are available with all of the major exam boards and also with some smaller, more friendly and student-orientated, boards. Some will even visit your school to examine the pupils, so they needn't miss a morning's lessons travelling to and from the exam centre. Gone are the days of the English staff moaning at the poor music co-ordinator because music caused Johnny's attendance to drop!

We have specialist peripatetic piano teachers, peripatetic keyboard teachers, peripatetic guitar teachers, peripatetic flute/woodwind teachers and peripatetic drum tutors, offering private tuition in schools and their lessons begin at £8 for private lessons.

Group Instrumental Tuition in school [Top]

We offer group lessons, but only on the following premise: we will not allow students to share instruments during the lessons and will only allow one student per ten minute duration of the lesson. Too many school services providing group lessons are profiteering by asking six children to share three keyboards during a twenty minute lesson. We know, because their parents regularly come to us asking for private lessons when their school classes show no progress and they'd like to try our services instead (usually at a considerable increase in fees for a home lesson). Unfortunately, their children usually have poor technique by this time too, because the teacher hasn't time for even the fundamentals.

If a school asks us to work with large groups for short lessons, we'll decline: it's not the correct environment for instrumental tuition.

School instrumental group lessons are available with our specialist piano teachers, keyboard teachers, woodwind teachers, percussion teachers and guitar teachers. We can't offer group drum lessons, because of the space and transport needed for several drum kits! However, we do offer group percussion lessons and can offer an introductory group lesson for drums to gauge interest in private lessons.

In groups, school piano lessons are available across the entire North West, as are school keyboard lessons, and school guitar lessons. Our drum lessons are not currently available East of Blackburn, but we're looking to find the right person(s) to supply them. All peripatetic instrumental group lessons start from just £4 per student per lesson.

We encourage teachers to join these groups if they're after school. It helps the children, who like to laugh at Mrs Jones when she can't do what they find so very simple, but also it's a great way for teachers to enhance their CVs.

Whole-class lessons [Top]

Our whole-class lessons are planned and structured to cover certain skills on your various keystage music syllabuses, rather than on-going instrumental lessons. An example would be our "reading music" lesson, which introduces the notes of the stave and how to translate those to keys on the piano, without writing the letters on the keys. Other lessons include those on timbre, rhythm, melody etc, through to composition and song writing classes, and combine listening with practical group work. We can structure a lesson for almost any topic, and find that this particularly helps primary school teachers who can feel a little out of their comfort zone with certain aspects of their music syllabus.

Pricing explained [Top]

We have several teachers on our books, based all over the region. Since we're able to operate across the entire North West, rather than being limited to one town by travel costs, we're proud to be able to keep our fees lower than most private peripatetic music services, without affecting the quality of the lessons or the teachers' enthusiasm.

Our fees are payable for each half-term, on or before the first lesson of each half-term, and are non-refundable in the case of non-attendance. This also helps us to keep pricing low, as we can always predict and guarantee our income, and don't have the additional costs of constantly contacting parents to chase up children or to organise refunds, credits and the like.

Pricing for instrumental lessons is for the teacher's time. Essentially, we usually charge in the region of £24 per hour, so a 30 minute one-to-one lesson would cost £12, and a forty minute lesson for a group of three would be £6 each (two thirds of an hour at £24 being £18, divided by the three students). For the full pricing table, please click here.

We are able to be flexible with our timings and pricings, so let us know if you have something different in mind. The above price is based on us invoicing the school or music department for a lump sum covering all lessons, and the school or department charging the students. We will do all of the admin, including separate invoices for each student to take this burden away from the school, for an additional admin fee of £1 per family per week. We are not currently VAT registered, so there is no VAT to add or subtract from the prices above.

Pricing for whole-class lessons and JunkJamz sessions is dependent on class length and size, plus any equipment we need to provide, so we will pitch our proposal to you when we have the details of the lesson(s) to be provided.

Current Availability [Top]

Our teachers have listed the following vacancies with us. Other times may be available if we speak to our teachers, so please let us know if you're interested but cannot find a suitable time below.

FAQ [Top]

CAN YOU PROVIDE INSTRUMENTS?

Yes! We are able to provide almost all of the instruments on which the lessons will take place (with the exception of woodwind instruments for obvious hygiene reasons). These include electric pianos and keyboards (the latter are brand new touch sensitive Yamaha keyboards, equipped for sustain pedals), guitars and drum kits, plus all necessary accessories. However, we are not able to loan instruments for students to use at home. We can recommend a good music shop for new instruments and point you in the right direction for second hand ones. All electrical equipment is PAT tested, and you will receive a copy of the certificate.

WHO WILL TEACH THE LESSONS?

Lessons through the Tuition Agency are taught by self-employed teachers to whom we contract work. There is a rigorous interview process, which also includes observing their work. All teachers are suitably qualified in performing on the instruments to be taught, usually with music degrees, and many also have specific teaching diplomas. They are also advised on public liability insurance choices and suchlike.

DO STUDENTS TAKE EXAMS?

It's up to the students. Exams are available with all exam boards, but our most popular is the more modern (and therefore, we feel, more relevant to today's young musicians) London College of Music, which offers Ofqual / NQF accreditation, meaning certain marks at certain grades are actually GSCEs with UCAS points! The more traditional ABRSM, and other boards, can also be used.

ARE TEACHERS CRB CHECKED?

Of course. All teachers are asked to provide valid CRB disclosures before being offered work. You will receive a copy of these at your request, or we're happy to wait while you carry out your own CRB cheques.

WHAT AGES DO YOU TEACH?

To a large extent, we leave this up to the music co-ordinator at the school, although years of experience have shown it's usually better to start from around 7 or 8. It's possible to start the lessons from 4, but it tends to be those children who excel with language and maths skills that do better at this age; for younger children, understanding what is being asked of them and developing the coordination to achieve their goals can be a slower process and occasionally leads to frustration or concentration lapses. That said, we're happy to persevere as long as parents understand this situation.

CAN PARENTS / STAFF HAVE LESSONS?

Absolutely! Learning an instrument is not only great fun, but for teachers it can also be great for the CV. Many of the teachers who study with us comment that they start to remember what it was like to learn as a child and therefore to understand their students' frustrations and difficulties in taking in new information.

WHAT HAPPENS IF THE TEACHER IS ILL?

We hear a lot of gripes about teachers not showing up for lessons provided by other music services. This shouldn't happen with Craig Smith Music, simply because we rarely take on a contract if we can't provide a second teacher as cover in the event of the regular teacher's absence. It's then up to the school / parent / pupil to choose to have the lesson with a different teacher, or to choose to miss a week in exchange for a credit or refund.

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