The Fourforty (440) with Eric Branner

Brian Witkowski (The Lucrative Voice) joins Eric to talk about why great teachers leave studios, how to price with confidence, and a new federal rule that could reshape music education. Structural thinking for studio owners who want to build something that lasts.

Learn More About Brian's work here.
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🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
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• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

Shirley XiaoLing Wang moved from Taiwan to Los Angeles at fifteen, arrived without knowing English, and found her way back to her own voice through opera.
Today she is an operatic soprano, two-time TEDx speaker, keynote concert speaker, and creator of The HUMAN Language™, a body of work built around one question: what changes when we become curious about the human being behind the words.

In this conversation, Shirley and Eric talk about teaching immigrant teenagers to take up space through breath and sound, why persona and performance can be a path to authenticity rather than a detour from it, and what she is learning right now as she rebuilds her voice through a years-long recovery from Lyme disease.

This episode is about intentionally harnessing the connective and nurturing power of music.

Learn more about Shirley's work here.
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🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

"What's your philosophy on teaching?"

After an adult student unexpectedly asked me this question, I realized that after nearly 30 years of teaching, my answer had very little to do with any particular method.

In this episode, I explore growth mindset, deliberate practice, curiosity, culture, artistry, and why ultimately I’m less interested in creating “good guitarists” than in helping people become curious, expressive, engaged human beings. 🌊

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

Connor Chee made his Carnegie Hall debut at 12, trained at Eastman and the University of Cincinnati's Conservatory, and was on track to be a concert pianist. Then he went home to Arizona, reconnected with his grandfather, a Navajo Hataalii (healer and medicine man) who carried hundreds of traditional chants in memory, and started arranging them for piano. This inflection point became a career: five albums, a commission honoring the Navajo Code Talkers, and a growing catalog of piano works, including Sand Paintings, published by Alfred Music.

In this conversation, Connor and Eric talk about composing by ear, the challenge of writing music for beginning students, his journey from prodigy concert pianist to celebrated Navajo composer, and projects like working with the Frances Clark Center commissioning Indigenous composers for elementary piano students.

Learn more about Connor's work here.

www.connorchee.com

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• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
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• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

If traditional marketing avenues don't feel wonderful to you, if daily posting feels exhausting, if asking for referrals feels awkward, this episode is for you.

Eric shares a personal framework built from two decades of teaching and building MakeMusic Studio (formerly Fons): the most effective marketing strategy for most music teachers isn't a strategy at all. It's caring, rabidly and voraciously, about the people you already serve.

Eric tells the stories about how single moments of care ripple through a community and grow a studio more effectively than any flyer or ad could He talks about noticing what shoes his students wore, just to understand them better, and how that small attention became part of his brand. He shares ten years of hosting an annual recital called the Guitarbecue, cooking for a guest list of 200, and how that one event was his entire marketing strategy without ever feeling like one.

Eric draws on three books that shaped how he thinks about business: Seth Godin's This Is Marketing, Lisa Earle McLeod's Selling With Noble Purpose, and Simon Sinek's The Infinite Game. He also shares a moment watching Suzuki guitar veteran Mary Lou Roberts teach, and how her unwavering belief in the medium itself was more compelling than any technique she demonstrated.

If you've ever felt like you should be doing more marketing and it just doesn't feel like you, this episode offers a different path: focus on the people in front of you, and let the story take care of the rest. 🌊

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

John Kozicki quit a marketing career and a touring band to teach guitar. He then built two music schools around a single conviction: students play longer, learn more, and have more fun when they're playing with other people.

John is the founder of Michigan Rock School in Oakland County, Michigan, and the host of the Rock School Proprietor Podcast. He's built two schools from the ground up, operated both, and sold one. Today he runs a year-round band program, coaches at least one band a week, and is finishing a mixed-instrument beginner band curriculum he plans to release to schools everywhere.

We talk about a star instructor of eight years just moved on, tech transitions happening all at once, and what makes his school model work so well. The band program philosophy, the trimester structure, how he thinks about qualifying families at enrollment, his upcoming ska band camp, and what changed in him the night he took his daughter to see Green Day.

We discuss the "curse of knowledge..." why the further you are from beginner, the harder things can become, and about what it means to invite your audience in, not just perform for them.

This was a very fun chat! 🌊

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

In this solo episode, Eric shares three things that have been on his mind.

First, the story of Fons becoming MakeMusic Studio, from a 2016 studio management platform built for his own guitar students, through the years of growth, becoming part of the Peaksware brand family, and what the rebrand means for the community who uses it.

Second, an encouragement for joining a professional organization, even if you've been on the fence. Eric shares the immense value of being together with your people.

Third, something more personal: a practice Eric's been working on around keeping agreements with himself, not just with everyone else.

If you've ever felt pulled in a lot of directions as a teacher, this is a reminder that showing up for yourself is critical to becoming the best version of yourself to help others.

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

Jason Sifford is a piano teacher, composer, and performer based in Iowa City. He runs an independent studio, writes pedagogical music published by Willis/Hal Leonard and FJH Music, composes original musical theater for a children's theater program that now reaches hundreds of kids across Iowa, and recently joined the MTNA Board of Trustees as West-Central Division Director. He also just launched Piano Blocks, a newsletter for piano teachers on Substack.

In this conversation, Eric and Jason talk about building a career rooted in community and curiousity, make the case for 45-minute lessons, and share the origin story of Jason's highly successful theater project.  We also discuss his unique strategy for his latest Substack project.

This episode is perfect for any music teacher contemplating the arc of their career.

Topics covered:

• The 45-minute lesson format and why it works
• Leaving academia to go freelance and what that decision made possible
• The Aspen moment: finding your place in the club
• How a COVID-era theater project became a six-show, 17-employee operation
• Composing for students: writing only what doesn’t already exist
• A/B testing your music with real students
• “Passive income” and why the crank never stops
• Piano Blocks: writing for yourself first, audience second
• The income quilt, building a resilient career
• Work-life balance by the year, not the week

Learn more about Jason's work here...

• Website: jasonsifford.com
• Piano Blocks on Substack: jasonsifford.substack.com
• YouTube: youtube.com/@jsifford
• Instagram: @jasonsifford
• Sheet music: search “Jason Sifford” at halleonard.com

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

Leila Viss has spent her career helping musicians find and trust their own creative voice. In this conversation, she shares the philosophy behind Space to Create, what her son’s accident taught her about music and grief, and why the opposite of anxiety is creativity. This episode is a must-listen for creatives, educators, and humans...

Here's the blog post about her recent recital!

Learn more about Leila's work here.

• Website: https://www.leilaviss.com
• Space to Create: https://www.leilaviss.com/space-to-create
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/88pianokeys
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leilaviss/

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

What does a contemporary, thriving music career actually look like?

Roberto Hermosillo has built it. He's a GRAMMY-nominated guitarist, studio musician, songwriter, TV actor, and the owner of Roberto's Music Studio, a boutique lessons agency in Santa Monica. In this conversation, Roberto and Eric talk honestly about the multi-hyphenate life: balancing artistry with entrepreneurship, ditching the old music school playbook, and building something that makes you genuinely happy.

In This Episode

• How Roberto went from independent teacher to running a multi-teacher lessons agency... nine iterations in
• The intentional geographic move to Santa Monica and why location strategy matters for music educators
• What he learned writing curriculum for a major guitar brand and why he calls it "a free degree in music education"
• The GRAMMY-nominated Solid Rock Revival project with Alice Cooper, Slash, and Rob Halford
• The difference between followers and fans, and what a real music career looks like today
• Why the old music school playbook feels dated in today's world
• Turning down an arena tour with one of the biggest Spanish-language artists in the world, and why he has no regrets
• The no-physical-location agency model and paying teachers well as a competitive advantage
• J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as the original multi-hyphenates
• Building a career you actually want... health insurance, a retirement plan, families who love you
  
  Learn more about Roberto's work here.
  
  www.robertosmusicstudio.com
  Instagram, FB @soyrobertohermosillo

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)