Today we’d like to introduce you to Ruthie Smith
Hi Ruthie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Sharing music is in my blood, as my Dad volunteered as a music director in the community church and local choirs in the small desert town of Ridgecrest, CA. There has been a microphone in my hand since age 3, but I did not know that a lifelong love of music would become an evolving career with sharing music from all sides of the industry.
When looking at my bio, another musician noted that my career includes each step of getting music from its creation to millions of ears. In addition to being a musician & songwriter at heart, my path has included artist management, album production, and 8 years at Universal Music Group in advertising, marketing, finance, and project management. I have been centerstage with my voice and instruments, led choirs from the pit, and now have the most fulfilling role of sharing music with new musicians as they pursue their music goals, whether it is being their best on a huge stage or giving their gift of song to an elder community simply for smiles.
Timeline:
— Piano lessons – age 7-18; Professional Vocal training – high school & College.
— US & International tours in various vocal ensembles, bands, and choirs – full West Coast & PNW; Ca to Nebraska and back; Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico — some of these included service projects based on insecure housing and medical tours.
— Degree in Business Communication from Azusa Pacific University (’03).
— Contemporary Music Center on Martha’s Vineyard – semester study program 2003 – Executive Study track. Roles: Artist Manager, Album Producer, Event Publicity, Booking Agent, Contract negotiation
— Universal Music Group
2003-2004 – Executive Assistant to President and COO
2004-2010 – Advertising Department – THIS is where I felt like I had found my calling truly working behind the scenes, combining my business comm degree with my love for music and getting it to as many ears as our budgets would allow
– projects included everything from No Doubt/Gwen Stefani, U2, and Fergie to Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, and Snow Patrol. Walked away with a thousand stories and a Platinum album for my wall. I resigned in 2010 to follow my heart to San Diego. Yes, I chose love over a career for a few years to start a family. While I never regretted choosing my move, I wondered if I had ended my music career days too soon.
2010-2012 – Marketing Consultant in the non-profit sector (various NPOs on short-term projects)
2011-Present – Marriage and two ridiculously silly boys (currently 12 & 8)
2011 – As a wedding gift, my parents gave me the grand piano I grew up playing with my sister. One day, while my front door was open, a neighbor walked by and heard me playing. She approached the door and asked if I would teach her daughter some lessons. A few months later, a friend heard me singing on stage and asked if I would consider helping his daughter with a vocal audition. Once she got the lead role and my first two students were thriving, word got out around the community, and I found myself teaching 4 days a week from my living room while wondering what my next career move might be.
2017 – Realized that my new career truly was sharing music with new musicians and started to take it more seriously, even though I was teaching out of my living room and with 2 young children, it was a busy time for my home as Music Speaks Studio began to take shape as we added small groups and intro bands.
2018 – selected by CBS “This is San Diego” for a featurette: https://youtu.be/71j2U2X4eNg?si=ry2IrVY6nYrCeRZg
2019 – joined an online Mastermind Community, called Build a Music School (BAMSQUAD), to follow other professionals in the music lesson industry to find best practices and collaborate on how to create exceptional lesson environments.
2020 – I began looking for a commercial space to move the business out of our home, but I am thankful I did not sign a contract before COVID hit. In March, 2020, I immediately pivoted online even before local schools could regroup. Parents were extremely grateful that music lessons were one thing they did not have to give up during the tumultuous time of missing so many activities. During COVID, by offering online music lessons that stayed fun and engaging with positive expectations of practice and growth, I was able to grow and hire my 1st two teachers to work with my growing studio.
2021 – Opened our music lesson studio in Otay Mesa in the South Bay area of San Diego near the border. Hired 2 additional music instructors to broaden our instrument offerings and focus.
2023 – Invited by Build a Music School to become one of 5 Coaches for the BAMSQUAD Mastermind of now over 400 members. It has been an enormous honor to help guide others through creating a thriving music lesson experience for their local communities across the globe. I am now coaching members from across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Singapore, Hong Kong, and The Philippines.
PRESENT – This space has now served hundreds of developing musicians as they learn to create their soundtrack to life. We have 5 instructors and 2 on our Welcome Team, making sure each family and developing musician has access to professional musicians with lessons that drive them to become the most amazing musicians they can be. We provide multiple performance opportunities each year, including big stages & productions, as well as our “Share Music, Share Joy” program, in which we provide free Pop-Up concerts throughout the community at elder care facilities, in the park as kids are getting out of school, and local shopping centers to delight the community with shockingly impressive young musicians.
The focus of Music Speaks Studio comes from the quote attributed to Hans Christian Andersen that “Where words fail, music speaks.” Our core value is that MUSIC IS MEANT TO BE SHARED. With this in mind, we encourage new musicians to work together with rhythm and creativity from their first day with us. In addition to a thriving piano and voice program, a popular option is called “I’m With the Band,” where new musicians get a chance to rotate through drums, guitar, piano, and singing as they start a new band and find out which instrument they connect with most. My personal favorite is our Family Band, where we invite multiple generations at any skill level to work & play together. It is the absolute best to watch a family discover that they can play in a band with other family members, regardless of their starting skill level. Beginners welcome!
Join
WHAT’S NEXT:
We are maxing out our first space and are ready to expand to a space where we can add more lesson rooms, as well as a couple of open spaces to grow our young children’s program, add choirs for children and adults, and add dance and a music theatre program, both of which I have experience in from both high school and college.
Add a Non-profit organization charitable wing to take music out into the under-served areas of our local border community. The goal is that we may have ways of going to the hopeful musicians instead of expecting them to only come to us. This may include partnering with community spaces and getting a Music Bus to make our offerings more mobile.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
This section is long and disjointed. My apologies. I wrote bits and pieces over the last week and realized that I need to just get it sent out.
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Why does it sound so cliche that my biggest struggle in business is making sure that I am spending enough focus as a wife and mom? It’s an honor and privilege to live in a time where I can be both mom & business owner, but it means that I need to be intentional each day to allow both big sides of my life to weave together. As a busy mom-boss who values both family and work, I have to ask both priorities to co-exist in my mind and heart. Sure, I have found ways of managing my task list while giving myself the grace to get up when a kid needs Mom’s tender touch. There are many times where the only answer to my boys’ request for attention is “Mommy is focused on the studio,” but my staff knows that I trust them to run the show when it is time to be with family.
We view ourselves as culture-builders in the border region. Soccer and baseball are an incredible part of the culture in our neighborhoods. This is incredibly important! Music and arts are not, however, part of the obvious list of available children’s activities or weekend activities down here. The region definitely has some incredible arts and music, but the opportunities are few and far between, which means that each musician that performs with us is adding to our Southbay culture in a meaningful way. The more we normalize music lessons as an integral part of the community, the more we are building into future artists.
Many of our students are coming to us from the San Ysidro School District. Parents and kids have let us know that there is little to no music education in the schools, which is sad because our brains benefit greatly from using music to learn. I would love to be able to help with that in any way I can.
I am an “accidental entrepeneur.” My first music students came to me, their parents told their friends, then the parents, themselves, started asking for lessons. Then, in the blink of an eye, while still teaching music lessons 4 days per week, I am now Head of Marketing and Advertising, Chief of Operations, Chief Financial Officer, HR Executive, Head of Media Management, Event Manager, Public Relations Director, and I am still the one making sure there’s enough toilet paper and that the calendars don’t collide. I have an incredible team now, and they are running so many pieces of the business and relationships with musicians and new families that come in each week. However, like many small business owners, being the boss does not mean less work. Or, perhaps, like many small businesses owners, now that the daily tasks are covered by my team, I keep dreaming bigger in order to make more room for more future artists to join the Music Speaks Studio community.
My heart and passion for music was a bit of a side gig while raising young children. When I finally realized that combining my passion and skills for teaching music could be my next career, I fell into that dangerous position that many struggle with to turn something they love into their job. Teaching music and providing that opportunity for others is truly the most fulfilling thing I could be doing with my background, skills, and passion for music to be shared.
Each step of growth has had its unique challenges. When my boys were infants, I was that music teacher who would wrap her baby up in a sling while sitting in a seat next to the piano. As my babies grew, I would trade lessons for baby-sitting just so I could make barely enough to justify splitting my time between family and career. My husband is incredibly supportive of the studio and shares my hopes for many more hopeful musicians to have a place to learn and play. (A couple of years ago, he even came to me and asked if he could take lessons from one of our guitar teachers. We now have a family band with our boys on drums [age 12] and piano [age 8].)
When COVID hit (are you as tired of this trope as I am? It really is a big part of the story, though), I had to make a huge pivot to online lessons. However, I had already been paying attention to the music lesson industry and saw that online lessons may be a way to diversify my business before it became the only way to do business. This prep & research I had already done served the business well. Music lessons became many families’ only consistent activity for their children. When we shifted online, my lessons grew while so many other in-person activities were forced to shut down for a long season.
One of the most nerve-wracking steps of growth for a music lesson studio is trying to decide when to hire new instructors or open new space for students that may not be there yet, but if I do hire and get the word out about the new skills they bring to the table, we can open up more lessons. I want to hire incredible musicians who are also skilled instructors and love sharing music.
This current phase is truly difficult because our prime hours are pretty packed and we are building waitlists for many classes. We just don’t have enough space but commercial real estate is extremely tricky in the south bay, especially when you’ve got kids playing the drums and want to protect relationships with the neighbors. We are hoping to find a stand alone space that needs a reboot, like a former bank or dentist office, or a church that is wanting to move. We are a small business, though, so that huge leap needs a lot upfront in this market. I just wish there were a stronger arts culture in our South Bay. There are a lot of artistic spaces and opportunities Downtown and North, but our Southbay area is desperately underserved. I just want to provide more spaces to allow performing arts, visual arts, movement, and music to speak.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Music Speaks Studio is a music lesson business where we believe that music is meant to be shared. We prioritize learning together from the beginning of a musician’s journey by discovering that rhythm and music can be learned best when you hear and see others creating alongside you.
Piano, Guitar, and Vocal small groups are designed for 2-5 students to each have their own parts that they are working on and bring them together for bigger, more beautiful, more impressive songs than they could each have done on their own. Students learn how to stay together and that, even if they make a mistake, to keep going because the song has already moved on and they can still play their part.
Parents find that students are more motivated to practice because of the positive peer pressure to have their part of the song ready to play together. Musicians bond deeply with bandmates because of having music as their common thread. “Music speaks where words fail” is proven countless times in our studio as we see unlikely friendships form.
Performances are more than the scary recitals from when we were kids. We provide a variety of opportunities to “practice” performing before getting onto a big stage (which we also provide). These extra performances are part of our “Share Music, Share Joy” program, in which we take a few performers to elder care communities, school fun fairs, retail centers, and even as free pop-up concerts in parks near schools.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I have had a microphone in my hand since the age of 3 (and my mom has the pic to prove it). I started taking piano lessons in 2nd grade and joined every singing group I could find throughout high school and college. My Dad was a volunteer choir director for over 20 years. I sat in countless rehearsals and added professional vocal coaching to my piano lessons during high school when I was invited into a touring ensemble in our hometown. I received a Voice Scholarship and Academic Scholarship in college, even though I was not a music major. Music was not the only thing keeping me busy, though. I was the Volleyball co-captain and Cheer Captain. As a member of our Student Council and the class Salutatorian, I consistently found myself being asked to represent my peers in front of community leaders. My dad used to say that if you open the dictionary to “extrovert” there was just a picture of Ruth.
Service opportunities and world travel have always been huge priorities to me. I have been part of service teams in Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Kenya, and Northern Ireland. While there as part of projects for housing, health, and water insecurity, I often brought my guitar to use music and dance as common ground when trying to connect with communities. We would ask them to teach something to us and I would often teach a song or join in a jam session. Truly, I learned that music speaks even when we did not have the words to communicate.
Pricing:
- 45 min weekly Small Groups – Piano, Guitar, Ukulele, Voice – $140 per month
- 45 min weekly I’m With the Band – instrument rotation – $130 per month
- 30 min weekly Private Coaching – drums, voice, piano, guitar, bass – $170 per month
- Audition Prep Package – 3 Private Coaching Sessions (Headshot & Bio available) – $120
- 60 min Family Band – ask for rates
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.musicspeaksstudio.com
- Instagram: @musicspeaksstudio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicspeaksstudio
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthieasmith/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@musicspeaksstudio7035
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/music-speaks-studio-san-diego-2?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
Image Credits
Each student has agreed to a Media Release
All photos used with permission from Jecca Lynn Photo https://www.jeccalynnphoto.com/
