Trumpet Players: Learn Efficiency
If you try to learn the trumpet or you do learn the trumpet in a way that is inefficient, you’ll struggle, you’ll get frustrated, it’ll be physically extremely demanding, and possibly even painful. Don’t do that. Learn to play in a way that flows, feels good, sounds good—and is fun! I would be happy to help you on your journey.
What Can Music Do For You?
I had an important discussion with a student and his dad last week. This student by the way is actually incredibly exceptional in his capabilities and his growth. I’ve been working with this student for at least a couple of years, I’d have to go back and look to know for sure, he had prior […]
Teaching and Caring are Inseparable
You cannot teach well without caring both about the subject matter and the student. It must be both. You cannot teach well without carefully considering the ramifications and results of how you teach. Students should be cared for by their teachers, period. Students need to be taught well, and properly, and their teachers must not […]
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.