TC208: Amy Jorgensen’s pivot to a total Virtual Piano Academy

In true entrepreneurial form, when life handed Amy a change of plans with career, she catapulted forward to open a dream venture: a virtual piano academy.

Amy Bastow Jorgensen joins us on the TopCast today to talk all about her new startup platform where she’s serving students online with remarkable results, all while freeing up her time from the typical 4-9 pm late teaching hours schedule.

Amy started out as a composer and in-person piano teacher before venturing out into the world of online teaching. If you’re curious about more flexibility with teaching 1:1 lessons, and how to present material in ways students naturally learn best, you’ll be surprised at what Amy has found.

Related: Eps. 192 The Flute Coach’s non-teaching dream studio details Christie Gallen’s online lessons academy

Transcript of the Show

If you’d like to download a PDF transcript of this episode, please click below.

In this episode, you’ll explore Amy’s virtual piano academy

• [03:46] The composing work Amy was doing before.
• [04:45] Working as a teacher and composer at the same time.
• [06:51] Helping others become composers through her community, Composerfy.
• [11:20] Her experience in embarking on a new career outside music.
• [20:32] Coming back to her career in piano and music and exploring how she could teach in a COVID world.
• [23:20] Exploring her options in teaching lessons online.
• [28:03] A peek at the lessons she conducts at Virtual Piano Academy.
• [32:08] How the Virtual Piano Academy platform works for students.
• [36:40] Working on her website on her own.
• [38:31] Amy tells us more about Tutorial Scores.
• [40:24] Her current approach and how it works with adults and younger students.
• [42:11] What she’s doing to market her academy.
• [44:33] Challenges she has faced in her business.
• [47:34] Her advice for teachers who want to build their own business like Amy’s.
• [49:51] The scalability of her business model.
• [51:52] Awesome offers from Amy

Links Mentioned

About our Guest

Amy Jorgensen, née Amy Bastow, is an award-winning composer, classically-trained pianist and music educator.

Amy’s composition work with James Cameron has earned her an Australian Academy Award Nomination. She recently founded Virtual Piano Academy in 2020. It’s an innovative platform that transforms the way students learn music.

Today’s Sponsor

Thank you for tuning in!

In conclusion, there are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine. Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run.

Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons!

If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page.

Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes or on my Facebook page. Reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to show’s ranking and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.