The Fourforty (440) with Eric Branner

Jaci Mrozek just took the entire month of May off, and she's still getting paid. In this conversation, she walks us through exactly how she built a system to support her "radical sabbatical."

Jaci is a piano teacher, presenter, and host of The Scrappy Piano Teacher Podcast. She's been teaching for 28 years and has spent the last several helping independent music teachers build studios.

We talked about year-round billing, the summer schedule that keeps retention up, how she handles parents who count lessons, the "Policy Triangle" she uses in her cohorts, asynchronous lessons for snow days, and the idea that building a great studio experience is the best business move you can make.

This one's full of practical ideas you can borrow. And Jaci delivers them with the kind of energy that will inspire you to reorganize your studio. 

Topics covered:

- The radical sabbatical: how to take a month off and still get paid

- Year-round flat-rate billing and how to communicate it to families

- Summer scheduling that increases retention (and respects everyone's chaos)

- Setting goals in April for the fall, before the year even ends

- The "Piano Gymnastics" evaluation program students actually love

- Recitals as your biggest marketing moment

- The Policy Triangle: philosophy, time, and money

- Asynchronous lessons and the "what now?" weeks

- Running cohorts that create lasting community

- Why raising your rates attracts better families

Connect with Jaci:

Website: scrappypianoteacher.com

Instagram: @jaclynmrozek_piano

YouTube: @ScrappyPianoTeacher

Facebook: ScrappyPianoTeacher

🌊 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)

Narciso Solero spent 30 years developing a framework in his head before he finally put it on paper. The result is Level It Up!, a series that organizes composers' piano repertoire from easiest to most advanced. Level It Up! has attracted teachers from across the country. In this episode, Narciso shares how the series came to be, what it means for teachers navigating the vast piano canon, and why versatility might be the most underrated skill for any independent music educator building a long-term career.

Leare more about Level It Up! at narcisosolero.com. The videos are also available on Narciso's YouTube channel @narcisosolero8163

🌊 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)

Elizabeth Swift didn't start composing until well into her teaching career. She wasn't trained to improvise. And the first time someone handed her a lead sheet and said "just noodle for a few minutes," she broke into a cold sweat.

Today she is a composer published by Alfred Music, the creator of the Saga Land series,(video game-inspired piano music now used in studios nationwide) and the 2025 Ohio Certified Teacher of the Year. She teaches students from age six to sixty-three, runs a studio where families often stay for over a decade, and just launched Saga Land 2 at the MTNA National Conference.

In this conversation, Elizabeth traces the winding path from classical performance training to composing: a church worship team that needed a keyboard player, a kindergartner who loved Super Mario Galaxy, and a willingness to say yes to things that felt far too big. She shares her composing process, her approach to teaching students to improvise through video game character archetypes, and why she believes that doing the small thing in front of you is almost always the right move.

If you've been sitting on a creative idea and wondering if it's too late, this episode is for you.

Topics covered:

• The origin story of Saga Land and Saga Land 2
• How a church worship team unlocked Elizabeth's composing career
• Her process for writing pedagogically grounded, emotionally alive music
• Teaching students to improvise using video game character archetypes
• The Pixels to Piano camp curriculum
• What it's like to work with a publisher after years of self-publishing
• Community, professional leadership, and the value of local teacher networks
• Advice for teachers just starting out: any small start is still a start

Links & Resources

elizabethswiftpiano.com | Alfred Music: alfred.com | Facebook: elizabethswiftcomposer | Instagram: @elizabethswiftpiano

🌊 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)

Anne Katherine Davis teaches piano from Mexico to students and teachers across the world.  Her approach is unlike what you’ll find in standard method books. Grounded in Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory, Anne is passionate about audiation: the idea that real musicianship is thinking in music, not about it. In this episode, she and Eric unpack why the 'eyes before ears' approach has dominated piano pedagogy for decades, what the science says about musical aptitude and its development window, and how movement, immersion, and variety are the real building blocks of musical fluency. Whether you're a curious piano teacher or a lifelong learner, this conversation is for you.

Learn more about Anne'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)

Tim Topham, founder of TopMusicCo and author of No Book Beginners, joins Eric to talk about creative teaching, the four pillars of modern piano pedagogy, the challenge of keeping students engaged in the age of TikTok, and why in-person community might be the most important investment music teachers can make right now.

Learn more about Tim's work here.

topmusic.co

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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)

Dr. Lisa Neher didn’t choose one lane.

She’s an opera singer, composer, professor, private studio teacher, actor, and President of New Wave Opera... and she does all of it at a high level.

In this conversation, we explore what it actually looks like to follow your curiosity into a multi-dimensional career in the arts.

Lisa shares:

• Why she didn’t follow a traditional conservatory path
• How she navigated being both a singer and a composer in graduate school
• What institutions get wrong about putting artists in boxes
• How she built a thriving private voice studio
• What it takes to launch an opera company from scratch
• How to commit to creative projects and actually finish them
• The difference between being “busy” & being aligned
• Why structure is what allows freedom

This episode is a blueprint for musicians who don’t want to shrink themselves into one job title.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re “too many things” to fit into a traditional arts career… this conversation will resonate deeply. 🌊

Learn more about Lisa's work here

www.lisanehermusic.com

Instagram: @lisanehermezzo
Substack:
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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)

Tony Parlapiano is the creator of popMATICS, an online music school built on a simple but powerful idea: great music education lives at the intersection of structure and freedom.

In this episode, Tony shares how popMATICS evolved from private and travel teaching into a membership-based, community-driven music school for adults. He talks candidly about the moment he hit a financial ceiling, why a bold model change caused him to lose half his studio overnight, and how listening closely to students ultimately shaped a better system.

We explore Tony’s teaching philosophy—learning by listening, creating, and developing an understanding of sound—and how popMATICS supports musicians with real lives through live classes, clear rhythms, and a “stay present” approach to learning. Tony also breaks down his creative workflow, including his Friday execution days, daily short-form content practice, and why he prioritizes fun as a core value proposition.

The conversation closes with Tony’s work teaching music in a correctional facility, where students can’t practice between sessions and the roster changes weekly—yet music still finds a way to matter.

This is a deep, honest look at building a music education business that serves both the teacher and the student—and designing a life that supports creative work over the long term.

Learn more about Tony's work at PopMATICS.

🌊 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)

There’s a lot of excitement right now, and also a lot of anxiety in the music lessons industry. After returning from the NAMM Show and talking with teachers and industry leaders, I’m still wildly optimistic about the future of teaching private music lessons.

In this solo episode, I share why the demand for music learning isn’t going away, what the data actually shows about instruments and lessons, and why private teachers are more essential than ever in an increasingly digital world. We’ll talk about leadership, culture, and what it means to stay confident, visible, and committed to work that truly matters.

If you teach music, this episode is meant to put some wind in your sails and encourage you to keep going. 🌊

🌊 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)

Brian Chung has lived a rare kind of career—one where music and business were never opposites, but partners.

In this wide-ranging and deeply human conversation, Brian shares the full arc of his journey: from a five-year-old who wrote “musician” in his childhood memory book, to a performer, educator, and eventually Senior Vice President of Kawai America Corporation, where he spent over three decades serving the music-making community.

Along the way, we talk about risk, identity, and the quiet discipline of gratitude. Brian reflects on pivotal moments—walking away from music school, investing everything into a MIDI studio, rescuing a struggling product line live on QVC, and discovering how powerful it can be to connect heart, mind, and action when communicating an idea.

We also explore his deep involvement with Music Teachers National Association, how invitations shaped his creative life, and how a lifetime of service eventually led him back to his first love: composing.

Now fully devoted to writing music, Brian shares the story behind Life in 12 Keys, his newest solo piano collection published by Alfred Music—and what it means to come home to creativity with gratitude and intention.

This episode is for musicians, educators, entrepreneurs, and anyone navigating the tension between stability and calling—and wondering if it’s ever too late to return to what they love.

Learn more about Brian's work here...

www.brianchung.net

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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 does a truly professional music teaching practice look like in 2026?

In this episode of The FourForty Podcast, I’m joined by Michael Richey, owner of Tennessee Music Academy, a multi-teacher, in-home music studio serving Nashville families.

Michael shares how he’s built a calm, sustainable, high-trust studio by making a few clear decisions and sticking to them. We talk about flat-rate tuition, no-makeup policies, clear communication, and why professionalism actually creates better relationships with families.

We also explore how the Alexander Technique and Dalcroze Eurhythmics have shaped Michael’s teaching philosophy, helping students move, learn, and grow with less tension—both musically and logistically.

This conversation is a masterclass in doing fewer things, better.

🌊 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)