The Fourforty (440) with Eric Branner

Joy Morin has blogged at Color In My Piano since 2009. She has taught piano since high school and just released Starbound with Alfred Music. Joy and Eric talk about building a studio twice, turning a blog into a platform, writing music with an editor, and designing a career from genuine interest and curiousity.In this episode:- Becoming a teacher first, and finding music as the vehicle- Why writing in public clarifies your own thinking- Learning the business side - Break-even math and finding your studio's sweet spot- Budgeting conference travel into your rates- How a too-big farmhouse became a teacher retreat- Composing Starbound with Alfred editor Davis Durrough- Constraints as creative fuel- Ears and reading: teaching students to do both- Rest, limits, and the hats you choose to wear- Notion as a hub for a creative careerAbout JoyJoy Morin is a pianist, composer, and piano pedagogue, and the writer behind ColorInMyPiano.com, a blog for piano teachers. She teaches at her independent piano studio near Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a scholarly focus on piano pedagogy and music learning theory, particularly the research of Edwin E. Gordon. A frequent presenter at national and state conferences, her writing has appeared in Piano Magazine, Clavier Companion, and American Music Teacher. As a composer, she publishes with Alfred Music and at keysatplay.com. Joy holds a Master of Music from Central Michigan University.Links- Color In My Piano (blog + newsletter)- Starbound: 11 Original Piano Pieces Inspired by Outer Space (Alfred Music): - Instagram:- YouTube: - Facebook:🌊 Connect with us:Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group a supportive community for teachers & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

Kelly Riordan of Outside the Bachs returns to The 440 to talk ideal students, frictionless service, and the list on her phone called Things I Know Work. A warm, funny conversation about building a studio that feels like you, and why human-made marketing still wins.About Kelly RiordanKelly Riordan is a clarinetist, private teacher, and co-founder of Outside the Bachs. She paid her way through music school working in marketing, built a 43-student studio in under three months after moving to Wisconsin, and now mentors studio owners on personalized, authentic growth strategy.LinksOutside the Bachs Kelly on Instagram: @kellyriordanmusician🌊 Connect with us:Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group a supportive community for teachers & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

Some studios are booked solid. Some are rebuilding. Eric walks through eight questions to find your gap: landscape, network, who you serve, offerings, sales, marketing, retention, and you. Rate yourself, pick 1-2 areas to work on, and be a little better today than yesterday.🌊 Connect with us:Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group a supportive community for teachers & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)

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.WebsiteSubstackLinkedInFacebookInstagram🌊 Connect with us:Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group a supportive community for teachers & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn 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.Website Linktree🌊 Connect with us:Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group a supportive community for teachers & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn 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 & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn 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.comTikTok InstagramFacebook🌊 Connect with us:Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group a supportive community for teachers & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn 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 & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn 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 & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn 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 & creativesFollow on Instagram: @makemusicstudioLearn more about MakeMusic Studio (Formerly Fons)