FAQs & Policies
General School FAQ
We offer month-to-month billing with no long-term contracts! Our monthly membership includes one 45-minute private lesson per week for a flat rate of $215 per month.
There's a one-time registration fee of $39 per student to start your monthly enrollment, and to cancel your membership, we require just seven days notice before the end of the month.
Note: We also offer $20/month off current rates for students whose lessons are done exclusively online!
Check out our Pricing Page for more price info.
For new students, your first 45-minute lesson is just $25 with no commitment required! Book Your Trial Lesson Here. One trial per student.
Tip: When booking a trial lesson, be sure you're looking at today's date on the calendar! Our system only allows booking up to 14 days in advance, so if you click on a future date, it'll look forward from that date - and anything more than 14 days away won't show up. Looking at today's date will show you everything open for the next 14 days.
If you don't see anything open, feel free to text us at 512-817-3663 and ask whether anything's coming available soon that may not be showing yet.
After you attend your first lesson, watch for an email from us with the subject "Thank you for attending!" That email will have all the info you need to pay your first monthly invoice and reserve your weekly spot.
We'll hold your spot for a couple days, and we'll reach out via text before giving it away to another student. If you'd like a different time or teacher than the one you attended for your trial, or you don't receive that email, text us at 512-817-3663 and we'll help you reserve your weekly spot.
(If you take a trial lesson and decide not to sign up, please text to let us know, so we can open that spot back up sooner. Thanks!)
Our private music lessons are 45 minutes long, held once per week—and yes, your monthly membership keeps the same weekly time and teacher reserved for you!
Our teachers and students love the 45-minute length, since it allows enough time to review past material and practice something new without feeling rushed, but it’s not so long that students can’t stay engaged. It's great for younger kids too, since it allows enough time to do multiple shorter activities in a single session.
Yes! Our rock band program at Vivid School of Music is small but mighty, producing some of the top kid bands in the Austin area. We have two bands currently (average age is 12-18), and we hear all the time that they sound like a professional group.
With custom song arrangements, quality professional music gear, and a high ratio of teachers to students, our band program focuses on quality over quantity.
Check out our rock band page for all the info on our band program.
About 90% of our lessons are held in person at our Leander school, but a few of our teachers also offer online lessons from the comfort of your own home.
When choosing a teacher and time for trial or makeup lessons, be sure to pay attention to the location! Online lessons will be marked clearly as "Online," while in-person lessons will show the location as "Vivid School of Music."
Currently our teacher Bret Crow (bass and guitar) only offers online lessons, as he lives in the Denton area.
Other teachers (local to Austin/Cedar Park/Leander) with both online and in-person shifts include Robert Perkins (piano and saxophone), Robby Harris (guitar and pedal steel), Chris Turvill (bass and guitar), and Jon Muq (voice).
All our other teachers generally teach only in person, except in cases of illness or bad weather.
We're located in Leander, TX, just northwest of Austin. The Live Music Capitol of the World is in our backyard!
Our school's on S. Bagdad Rd between Crystal Falls and Hero Way, facing Robin Bledsoe Park. That's just a few minutes from Leander High School, and also close to Old Town Leander.
We're not large enough for a front office staff, so we're an appointment-only establishment. If you have questions or need help, please reach out in email at staff@vividmusicschool.com, or text us at 512-817-3663. (Please use text. Our phone number doesn't work with voice calls, but we check and respond to texts frequently!)
For private lessons, ages 4 to around 110. (Theoretically, of course. We haven’t hit our upper age limit yet.)
Our minimum age to start private music lessons is four years old, but success with children that young depends greatly on how involved the parents are at practice time. As for adults – at the time of this writing, our student holding the elder record is 82 years young!
(Note: Saxophone lessons are an exception due to the weight of the instrument, so our minimum starting age for new saxophone students is 10 years old.)
If you’re enrolled in our monthly plan and need to stop lessons, fill out this withdrawal form at least seven days before the end of the month, and we’ll stop all future charges. Cancellation requests received fewer than 7 days before the end of the month will take effect at the end of the following month.
Tuition is non-refundable once billed! If you cancel in the middle of a month, you can still use your remaining lessons, or request makeup credits to save them for later.
To cancel your enrollment, you MUST fill out the withdrawal form, as canceling your lessons in your Client Portal does not stop the monthly billing!
We allow lessons to be rescheduled online through your Client Profile with at least 24 hours’ notice. Lessons cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice may not be made up. (We ask for as much notice as possible so our teachers can use that time for other students, but 24 hours is the minimum.)
PLEASE DO NOT SEND RESCHEDULING REQUESTS THROUGH EMAIL OR TEXT. The only way to guarantee that you'll receive a makeup credit is to log in and cancel the lesson on your own in your Client Profile at least 24 hours before lesson time.
If it's your first time logging into our system:
- Go to https://vivid.opus1.io/login
- Enter your email address
- Click the button reading "Get A Login Link By Email"
- Check your email for the link to get into your account
- Look for a little padlock icon on your profile page. This will allow you to set a password, so you won't have to use the email link again. (If you lose your password though, you can always use these same steps to get into your account)
NOTE: Makeup lessons cannot be rescheduled! Makeup spots are limited, and once they’re booked, they’re unavailable to other students—so before you book a makeup lesson, please be sure it’s a time you can attend.
We try not to cancel, but life happens and sometimes we have no choice. Before canceling a lesson, we'll try to arrange a substitute. If that doesn't work, we'll offer the option of a makeup credit, or an invoice credit toward the following month.
Note: Any makeup credit that comes from a lesson *WE* had to cancel will never expire as long as you stay enrolled!
In cases where we need to cancel, you'll be notified by text message. Please be sure we have multiple contact phone numbers in case we need to reach you about last-minute schedule changes!
Log into your Client Profile and look for the section labeled "Credits." They'll be listed there, along with their expiration dates (if applicable). Find the one expiring first and click "Use" on the button under it. Choose a teacher and time, and you're done!
If it's your first time logging into our system:
- Go to https://vivid.opus1.io/login
- Enter your email address
- Click the button reading "Get A Login Link By Email"
- Check your email for the link to get into your account
- Look for a little padlock icon on your profile page. This will allow you to set a password, so you won't have to use the email link again. (If you lose your password, you can always use these same steps to get into your account.)
Expiration dates:
Makeup credits from student cancellations will expire after 60 days.
Makeup credits from teacher cancellations won't ever expire as long as you're enrolled in lessons, so if there's no expiration date listed on the credit, that means it's a staff cancellation. Tip: If you have makeup credits with expiration dates, use those first!
If you cancel your monthly membership:
All makeup credits will expire 14 days after your billing ends. For example, if you submit your cancellation request on May 12th, your billing will end on May 31st, and you’ll have until June 13th to get your makeups booked before the credits expire.
Most of our lessons are private, one-on-one lessons, in 45-minute timeslots. However, if two students sign up together in the same 45-minute time slot, we offer a 60% discount for the second student!
We also have two audition-only Rock Bands that rehearse on Sunday evenings.
Absolutely! There’s no better way to grow as a musician than to perform live, and we encourage it as often as possible.
We host recitals and rock band concerts for students at least 3-4 times a year at a number of live music venues in Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville, and Austin. For more details on our upcoming recital, along with a photo gallery of recital photos, check out our recital page.
We don't automatically close for school holidays - so if your lessons are on Mondays, don't worry! All students receive the same number of lessons per year, no matter which day of the week their lessons fall on.
Our monthly tuition covers 48 lessons per year. The four weeks not included in the monthly tuition are:
- SPRING BREAK WEEK (Leander ISD calendar)
- 4TH OF JULY WEEK
- THANKSGIVING WEEK
- CHRISTMAS WEEK
Some teachers choose to teach during those weeks, so it’s possible to use them for makeup lessons or extra lessons. For all other holidays, including Memorial Day, Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, etc, we are open as normal! If your teacher will be out, we'll let you know in advance, and we’ll add a makeup credit to your account to re-book it another day.
Under this system, some months will have five lessons, some will have four, and some will have three - but the final lesson total for the year should always be 48.
We’ll follow forecasts on weather.com to determine whether roads are safe enough to conduct lessons at the school. If roads are unsafe, we'll move to online lessons that day, using whatever platform the teacher and student choose (Zoom, Google Meet, Facetime, etc). If the student can't do online lessons or doesn’t have an instrument to play at home, our other bad-weather options are:
- A phone call during lesson time to talk about music theory or discuss future musical projects and ideas, or...
- Your teacher can create and share a 15-20 minute video with things for the student to practice later at home
Decisions on any given day will be made and communicated as early as possible. Since weather is out of our control, we cannot offer makeups or credits to students who choose not to take the online, phone, or video option that day.
Note: Local schools being closed does NOT automatically mean we will be closed! Most of our music lessons don’t start until afternoon, so if roads have improved by that time, we may be open.
Lessons need to be pre-paid, so we require a credit card or bank account on file before lessons can be booked. We don't pass the credit card fees on to students, but they do get expensive for us, so we appreciate those students who sign up for ACH transfer!
Sorry, no cash or checks please.
IMPORTANT: We will never ask you to pay us through Venmo, Paypal, Zelle, or ANY other cash app! If your payment method is declined, we'll reach out and ask you to update it in our billing system. If anyone ever requests payment for your music lessons through any other method, DO NOT SEND THEM MONEY. Reach out to us via text at 512-817-3663 and we'll verify whether you actually owe anything!
You can borrow one of ours for the first lesson or two, but for real progress, you’ll need your own to practice at home. Also consider renting before buying! Rock and Roll Rentals in North Austin on Burnet is a great option. Rent a drum set, guitar, or bass for a month, try it out, and see what feels best! Feel free to wait until after the first lesson if you need advice from your teacher on what to buy or rent.
If you’re doing online lessons, having your own instrument is even more important, so you’ll need your own instrument by at least the second lesson.
At this time we do not offer a discount for multiple family members in separate private lessons. However, if two friends or family members are taking a class together in the same 45-minute time slot, we offer a 60% discount for the second student!
Students often take vacations in summer, and that’s fine! However, we can’t hold a reserved space in the schedule without the monthly payment, so for vacations, we offer two options:
You can save the missed lessons as makeup credits to be taken later (as long as you give us at least 24 hours’ notice!)
Or you can take the month off from paying, and we’ll fit you back into the schedule where we have availability when you return, at the current lesson rate for new students.
We can’t guarantee any specific day or time when you come back, however, so if you really like your teacher and your lesson time, we recommend keeping your billing going and working in those makeup sessions when you return.
Note: As of October 2023, there is a $29 re-enrollment fee for returning students.
This question was on our online registration form for years because - well, because we think we’re hilarious.
The answer we were looking for, of course, is “African or European?” (a Monty Python reference if you're unfamiliar). We’re impressed, though, that so many of you actually took the time to google it and respond that the actual airspeed velocity is approximately 24 miles per hour, or 11 meters per second.
We got a kick out of seeing so many varied answers to that one, so thanks to everyone for playing along!
