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 […]
Learning Music is a Personal Thing
Learning music is such a personal thing, an important part of life’s journey, it should be inviting, comfortable, fun, challenging, effective.
What’s Different About TIA from Other Local Music Studios?
What’s different about TIA from other local music studios, storefronts with private teachers that teach out of them, and individual private teachers that either travel to your home or teach out of their own? TIA is a 501(c) non-profit academy of music. We are a community. We are a team. We aren’t just a bunch […]
We Love Beginners!
I am a part of a large group of piano teachers online, most of which are seemingly great people who love music and teaching (I mean, let’s be real, its Facebook). But I do see many that gripe or complain about having so many beginner students and asking questions like, why can’t I get I […]
Know Piano, Know Chords
This weekend my family and I attended a jazz festival. There were way too many people there for a Covid-19 jazz festival, but that’s a different post all together and not the purpose of this blog. And of course, I am totally jazzed that so many people would in fact show up for a jazz […]
Affordability and quality do not have to be at odds with each other
Affordability and quality do not have to be at odds with each other. Call us crazy, but we believe that part of being a non-profit with a primary mission of serving the community means making our services affordable and available. You will find our tuition rates to be in fact generally $20-40 less than that of other options in town with qualified (or less than qualified) faculty. And with TIA, you are supporting a local 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Performing Music for Others is Important!
Performing music before others is important! We don’t prefer the word performance, but making music for others and for the community is both an essential part of why we learn and create music and what drives us, and it is literally built into the foundation of everything we do at TIA.
Why are the Modes Important?
Modes have noticeably distinct sounds and feels which make it fun, interesting, sometimes even exotic sounding. This unique nature, sound, and feel alone is enough of a reason to make the modes worthy of study, because without a proper understanding of them musicians that have learned only their foundational 48 will often accidentally play natural minor instead of Dorian, or major when they should be playing Lydian, etc. For piano and guitar players, the modes are also quite useful in that learning them requires the pianist to learn new fingering patterns that will help with more complex melodic lines as they learn more challenging repertoire.