Music Education Franchise Hits Growth Milestone Just Two Years After Its First Deal
- The Musicologie franchise has just sold its 100th franchise. The core values of the music instruction brand are inclusion and play.
- Founders Joseph and Kay Barker started Musicologie in 2014 as a way to supplement their income when their band wasn’t touring. Music education became their dominant passion.
- Musicologie helps franchisees with a wide range of support, including teacher recruitment and site selection.
- The U.S. market for private music lessons was about $725 million in 2024, and demand continues to grow.
Musicologie, a 12-year-old membership-based music education brand, has just sold its 100th franchise license. The Musicologie franchise reached this milestone only a little over two years after closing its first franchise deal.
The enrichment franchise provides lessons in voice, piano, guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, violin and any other instrument imaginable. Instruction is provided in one-on-one and group sessions, including rock band performance classes and summer camps. Musicologie studios also hold events such as open mics, concerts and workshops. (For franchisees, these varied activities represent multiple revenue streams.) Studios welcome students of all abilities and all ages, even babies and toddlers, with its Musicologie Junior program.
Co-founder Kay Barker writes on the brand’s franchising website that Musicologie opened with one central idea: “Everyone is a musician.” She goes on to say that music “is good for your mind, your body and your soul at every age. It’s part of what makes us human.”
Musicologie’s Founding Story
The enrichment brand was launched by Kay and her husband, Joseph Barker, in 2014. That was when they started teaching music during the breaks between tour dates of Bella Ruse, their folk and pop music band.
What began as the couple’s sideline, a way to supplement their income when they weren’t performing on the road, evolved into their dominant passion. Kay says the Barkers’ goal was always to make music in some way, and they eventually realized that teaching was their true calling.
The Barkers built Musicologie around a core philosophy that music instruction should always revolve around inclusion and play. That philosophy governs every one of the brand’s studios through The Musicologie Method®, a proprietary process that the Barkers devised. The Musicologie Method embraces the brand’s overriding mission of developing inclusive communities of music explorers and empowering teachers to build rewarding, long-term careers by means of its membership model combined with strong franchisee support.
Wide Range of Franchisee Support
Musicologie franchisees enjoy a full suite of preopening to ongoing support, including:
- Studio site selection assistance from the Barkers and Build’M, the real estate and construction management arm of the REP’M Group. REP’M Group is a full-service franchise development firm with four service areas: Brand’M, handling brand development and marketing; Grow’M, which does sales; Scale’M, which nurtures franchise operations and growth; and the aforementioned Build’M.
- Help with lease negotiation, another perk available through Build’M.
- Assistance with recruiting, onboarding and training teachers.
- Manuals and playbooks.
- Prelaunch training at franchise headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and in the field.
- Ongoing guidance and training.
A Milestone and More
The comprehensive support has helped the Barkers rapidly expand their brand. “Reaching 100 licenses is a full-circle moment for us,” Kay says. “We began in a one-car garage because we believed every neighborhood deserved a place like Musicologie. Today we are able to build on that with 100 other people who share that belief. And we’re just getting started.”
Joseph chimes in with the postscript that “every one of our 100 licenses represents a franchise owner who chose Musicologie after evaluating the brand… That kind of conviction validates everything we’ve built — the method, the model, the community.”
More about the Musicologie Franchise
The Barkers’ brand has already taught more than 10,000 students. That total is expected to grow as Musicologie franchises launch across 19 states and counting.
The music instruction franchise provides services that respond to strong demand within the United States, according to IBISWorld, a market data and research firm. The nation’s market for private music instruction was valued at $725 million in 2024 and has been growing steadily, IBISWorld reports.
For additional information about opportunities with this family-owned brand, please visit Musicologie’s franchising website.
