Junior Leo Eves shut the door of his car and nervously walked up the path to the house’s front door. It was his first time teaching piano to someone other than his sister. As he knocked on the door, he wondered if he was prepared to teach.

After learning piano for eight years, Leo spends his free time after school teaching piano to elementary school students after being encouraged by his personal piano teacher to do so.

“My personal piano teacher just kind of said, you could teach piano now like this is something you could consider yourself.” said Leo

Leo first showed an interest in piano by playing a piano game on his kindle. His mother, Laurie Eves, encouraged him to learn the actual instrument and signed him up for his first lesson.

“I really believe that we can learn a lot by learning an instrument,” Laurie said. “And learning how to take something hard and work at it and practice at it and see how we can become better.”

To get to the point where he could teach, Leo had to dedicate time each day to practice. He also had to learn different styles of music, rhythms and music theory.

“I practiced a lot,” Leo said. “It took several years. I had to learn all of the required music theory and technique to be able to teach it to another child.”

Leo’s piano teacher told him last year that he was at the level where he could teach beginners and start a business.

“I just wanted him to know how to play the piano and then he just got better and better,” Laurie said. “And his teacher suggested this would be a good way for him to earn a little money.”

Since he didn’t have any experience teaching, he used his little sister as his guinea pig. Leo said it turned out to be the right move because it helped him build confidence in his teaching abilities.

“I did not have complete confidence in myself, but it was a lot of help having it be my sister and I could figure out what I needed to do, exactly what I needed to teach them,” Leo said.

Laurie mostly advertised for Leo’s business through little conversations with people from her church and word spread.

“This was a lot of my mom,” Leo said. “She would get asked, ‘Who teaches your kids?’ And she would be like here’s his teacher, but Leo is also starting to do piano lessons.”

Leo now has five students. Tanner Garrett, the father of one of Leo’s piano students, said that he picked Leo because his lessons were affordable.

“We were looking for Charlie, he has never taking piano,” Tanner said. “We were looking for an affordable option to someone to introduce him to the piano.”

In the future, Leo plans to continue taking his personal piano lessons, teaching after school and get a few more students.

“I definitely think I will continue teaching because I mean I like it and I can have a job,” Leo said.