Don’t Get Duped!
Just recently I encountered a student who is new to us, but apparently has been “studying” piano for quite some time with the family friend. By the way, trust me, I hate over-usage of quotes, but with Facebook I don’t know how to do italics so this just seems fitting and you’ll see why. This […]
Darn the Dream: Transcription
Transcription is really important for musicians for so many reasons. We need to learn how to interpret rhythm, and notating what we here is monumental for growth in that area, especially if we want to be able to improvise over song form. Learning how the masters craft a phrase, approach chords, and develop a solo are essential as well. One of the questions we always need to be asking ourselves is, what do we want to sound like? Analyzing the sound of one of the greats is a wonderful way to learn what it can sound like to improvise over a song form.
Be Prepared: Excellence and Expertise Matter Because People Do
Like it or not, while scales, etudes, and excerpts are far from everything, if you can’t nail something thrown at you in an audition in the first few minutes, your window of opportunity for that position may have just been missed. We want our students flinging the doors open and walking in with confidence, demonstrating both mastery and musicianship.
Jazz Band Music and Other Music for Live Collaborative Performance
For countless music students, and even many musicians and teachers, jazz band music is a scary thing. It shouldn’t be. It doesn’t need to be. If you learn music from the ground up, which includes learning how to properly read melodic notation, intervals, rhythms, interpretation of rhythms in different feels and genres, all of your scales, and then all of your chords, and then chord scales, it pretty much will flow naturally and it will seem like you were born for this!
From Wherever You are to Wherever You Want to Go
We love next level advanced stuff. In fact, Sean-David, Joshua, and Daniel are all about next level theory and practice in music! SD skipped his first three semesters of music theory at Berklee based on advanced placement exams and was taking things like advanced modal harmony and reharmonization techniques when many of his same semester peers were taking harmony 1. We have students that have learned all of their super locrian, diminished, and altered scales as well as all the modes of harmonic and ascending melodic minor, and that’s awesome! We are totally here for that.
Don’t Limit Yourself
We don’t think limiting learning or goals is healthy. You CAN do it. Do you want to play piano? Then choose piano! We don’t think limiting learning or goals is healthy. You CAN do it. Do you want to play piano? Then choose piano!
Don’t Waste Your Summer
Summers are a great time to pick up a second or third instrument and learn to play in the sweet time of summer with less distractions of school and busyness. Don’t Waste Your Summer, and don’t let your kids waste theirs either.
Private Lessons Should Provide You with an Appropriate Level of Challenge
If you or your student wants a challenge that you aren’t getting, if you are hoping for a specific challenge—please tell us! Tell your teacher. We simply cannot know if you don’t tell us, and I can guarantee that at TIA, we have teachers that can challenge you in pretty much any area you could hope for, you only have to let us know what mountain you wish to climb and we will lead you to the base and point you the way up!
Get On the Bench
We won’t waste your time. Let’s make music and make better music, and have fun—focusing on your goals and the music you want to make!
Music is a Lifelong Source of Joy and Sustaining Power
We were recently gifted an amazing library of music from the daughter of Muriel Holden (see just one area of the studio that houses her music below). My understanding was that Muriel was in her mid-nineties when she just recently passed away. But she loved music. She loved piano. In fact, her daughter Jeri tells […]