Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ally Oakes. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Ally thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

I would like to start out by saying that I have some INCREDIBLE students! I am so very lucky to get to see them each week and help them grow into confident, successful musicians.

I want to share a story about one in particular.

Her name is Roni and she first began lessons with me in September of 2022 shortly before I left teaching for a studio and started on my own. She played violin in high school for around 10 years and then took a 48 year hiatus before starting lessons again. Taking that much time off, your body forgets a lot, but we have had SO much fun and joy building her skills up again over the last year or so!

I remember in one of her very first lessons, she became quite frustrated that she couldn’t do things she used to be able to like playing in tune or keeping a steady sound with her bow. She was even questioning if she would still be able to, but I told her that she should keep working at it and it will get easier with time. I used an analogy that I use often with my adult students who have played before, but taken some time away:

“No matter how good you were before, you have taken a significant time away. Your muscles are no longer used to working in the way they need to to play this instrument and they need to be rebuilt. If you played in the NFL, then retired from that, got another job, had 40+ years of life, and then came back to football, no matter how great of a player you were when you were practicing everyday and going through rigorous conditioning, you have not done that recently. You need to rebuild your muscles to get back to where you were. The difference now is, there is nobody grading you and you get to set all of your own goals. We can get there with work and dedication, but it will take time.”

She really took that to heart and always practices very diligently to improve. We have also developed a wonderful friendship and share lunch before our lesson each week, which is such a highlight of the week for me! She always calls her lessons and practicing “her peace” because it brings her comfort and joy to be working on something she loves and to get to see her progress.

While I love and am so proud when my students are successful in their music, do well in contests, and audition and make it into youth orchestras, this is what teaching is really about to me. I love getting to build that connection with my students, give them a safe space and an outlet for when times are difficult, and watch them grow as people, not just as musicians!

Roni has grown SIGNIFICANTLY as a violinist since we started, but that’s due to the hard work and love that she puts into it every day. She sits down with her sweet beagle, Kiki, and practices diligently and I’m so incredibly proud of the progress she has made and continues to make each week. She plays much more in tune, has a consistent tone, and works hard to obtain the skills she needs to play any piece she wants. She’s gained so much independence in her playing over the last little over a year and always comes in with specific questions that really allow us to dive in and fine tune the harder parts of her music. Her skill level and confidence have skyrocketed and I know she’s going to be able to do anything she wants to on the violin if she puts her mind to it!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started playing violin in my school strings program in the 4th grade and I was TERRIBLE. I never practiced and was always faking it. I made it through a couple of years doing this, and then the night before a concert in the 6th grade, for some reason I decided that I needed to practice so I knew how to play the music during the concert. I don’t know why it was that specific concert because I had never done that and never knew the music at concerts up until then, but I learned all of my music the night before, and fell in love with playing.

I didn’t stop practicing, so my parents signed me up for private lessons at the end of 7th grade and I really took off. I remember at the time, I was “going to be an accountant because that’s what both of my parents were,” but one day I realized you could actually become a musician and that there was actually a way to do that. I had my violin teacher, Rachel Lee as an inspiration and mentor and could see her and her mentors and colleagues being successful and that was the first time I realized that music could actually be a career path.

I have taken a lot of turns along this path. First, my plan was to be a violinist and play in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. I practiced hard and got into CCM and every other college I auditioned for, but burnt out a little. Then, I decided I would get a degree in Music Education so that I could still do music, but have a stable job as a teacher and did find throughout my degree that I love teaching music. I taught private lessons through a lot of college, then graduated and continued to teach lessons while also teaching music in the schools. I was a classroom teacher for a couple of years, when I realized I want to teach private lessons because of the connection that I get to have with my students and the amount of individualized attention I can give each of them. School music programs are SO important for student development and giving students a good background in music, but there’s just something magical about seeing a student individually every week and getting to really know them and develop a plan to help them grow. I resigned from the public school system and started working on finding a location to start my own studio instead of being at the mercy of another studio owner.

In October of 2022, I found a small, queer-affirming church right on the outside of Sayler Park called Our Lady of Peace. They have been wonderful to me. They allow me to use their space in exchange for helping with the music program for church services and are exceptionally kind. I am so grateful for their help as I have grown over the last year. When I started at the church, I had about 10 students and was only teaching there. I now have around 30 students, teach at the church, Cincinnati Music Academy in Kenwood, teach some lessons and sectionals in the Oak Hills Local School District, teach as an adjunct at Mount St. Joseph University.

I have also recently started a Homeschool Orchestra to allow homeschool students to have a more affordable way to learn music in a group setting because my music ensemble classes were so integral to my life. They taught me skills like teamwork, perseverance, and problem solving and I met some life-long friends in orchestra.

I also play in the Mason Symphony Orchestra and take occasional wedding, party, and musical pit gigs as I am able with my schedule.

I am so incredibly lucky and grateful to get to make my own career playing music and sharing the joy of music with others. There have been some bumps in the road, but it has all been worth it. I LOVE getting to work with my students and watch them grow and can’t wait to see what the next year has in store!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn having unrealistic expectations for myself and for others and I think that is my greatest asset as a teacher.

When I was growing up and even sometimes now, I would always beat myself up when I would make a mistake or when I wouldn’t do things as well as I knew I could. This appeared in my school work, in my violin playing, and at home. When I would miss the mark or make a mistake, I would get really down on myself and have a hard time recovering from it; ESPESCIALLY if someone was watching.

This affected my self confidence and I would routinely shut down and be unable to get myself to get back to work or try again.

People in general, but especially creatives and musicians tend to be SO hard on themselves and competitive. It’s a difficult market to get into and does take a lot of work, but I realized that because I was so afraid of failure, I was second-guessing myself and getting in my own way.

I have come to the realization in the last couple of years that I am not perfect, but neither is anyone else. I am good enough and so is everyone else. Everyone is doing their best and sometimes that varies from day to day and week to week.

When I was super strict with my students, they would have similar reactions to what I had when I was super strict with myself. They would shut down and get anxious about practicing and lessons. I have worked hard on creating an environment in my lessons where it is not “me against the student and their mistakes,” but it is instead “the student and me working together to find solutions to their mistakes,” and this has made such a difference.

My students are more at ease during their lessons, they have confidence in their abilities and they know that mistakes happen. They trust that they overcome their challenges and they learn better because they are more engaged in the process of understanding where their mistakes are coming from and how to solve them. They are better at practicing and at letting the mistakes roll off their shoulders because I am less focused on perfection and more focused on the process and progress.

I would love to take credit for their successes because they are really remarkable, but it is just my job to teach them how to practice and teach themselves. I see them 30-60 minutes out of a 10,080 minute long week. That’s about 0.3%-0.6% of their week. It’s what they do with the other over 99% that makes the difference. I will take credit for giving them the skills they need to practice effectively and a safe space to ask questions and troubleshoot the skills they have trouble with, but they’re responsible for most of their improvements in their practice.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I was involved in an accident a couple of years ago that gave me the last little push I needed to make a change and pursue teaching private lessons full time. I realized “I could have died in this accident and another accident, also outside of my control could happen at any time, what’s stopping me from taking the leap?”

I realized it was fear of failure.

Fear of not having the stability of a full time teaching position at a school.

I also realized that there are plenty of people out there who are plenty successful teaching private lessons and that I have some good role models in my life who have experience running their own business and can guide me through it, so I looked at the numbers to find a rate and goal number of students that would allow me to support myself and afford insurance, brainstormed some ideas for getting myself off the ground, and resigned from my teaching position.

I am so glad that I did! I have over 30 students that come to me every week, plus some side jobs like my position at Mount St. Joe, sectionals in school, and various gigs, and I feel so fulfilled in what I do. I absolutely love my students and watching them grow and getting to know them. I love that each of my students is different and has different needs and it brings me so much joy finding ways to help them overcome hurdles and reach their goals.

My accident was horrible, but I don’t wish it didn’t happen anymore. It definitely tore my life apart for a little bit, but I love the life I have built from the wreckage. It was definitely a difficult time for me and I went to a lot of therapy to learn the skills to get through it, but those skills have made me a much better person and teacher and I now see the whole experience as a huge turning point that forced me to do a lot of growth. I learned a lot about communication and about self confidence, which has helped me extensively both as a person and as a teacher and as difficult as the accident was for me, I wouldn’t have gotten the help I needed without it.

Small mental health plug because I think it’s really important to break the stigma and talk about mental health!

If you are going through a difficult time right now, I’m so sorry, It’s excruciating and horrible when it’s happening, but please do not give up. I didn’t believe this when people told me and often felt like all the therapy and hard work I was putting in to get better weren’t helping enough to be worth doing long term and that if I had to try that hard to feel okay forever, I wasn’t going to be able to do it, but it was worth it. I still have bad days and still need to do self care and take some extra time for my mental health sometimes, but it is SO MUCH BETTER. I have the skills and resources I need to get myself out of dark times and to prevent them when I feel them coming on.

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