A Word From Judy
Fine, Owner1) Music education should include real self-expression. I was about thirteen-years-old, sitting at my mother's Hamilton upright piano staring at the keys. I had been watching MTV (back when MTV played music videos) and was inspired to play something, but I didn't know how. This wasn't the point at which I decided to take piano lessons. I had already started lessons. But I wasn't learning to express myself through a piano. I was learning to place my finger on a certain note when I saw a certain symbol on a sheet of music.
Granted, a piano student must learn such things. But for many students, including my younger self, music education doesn’t go much beyond this. It is the musical equivalent of Paint By Numbers, which would never pass in an art class. But for some reason, it is often an accepted norm in music education.
2) Meet a student of music where their passion lies and you’ve already reached them. Another accepted norm is the idea that the teacher knows best what the student should learn. Seems reasonable enough, but is it? I loved pop music as a kid, but my first voice teacher had me singing Italian arias. By doing that, she removed from my studies a vital aspect of successful learning. She removed my passion. So what did I do? Or rather, what didn’t I do? Practice. Not as much as I should have, anyway. It wasn’t getting me someplace I wanted to be so I wasn’t inspired to work on it. So I didn’t excel at classical singing because I wasn’t inspired to practice. And I didn’t excel at pop singing because I still had no one to guide me.
3) Music is meant to be shared and meant to be fun! The saddest accepted norm of all in music education is the idea that sitting alone in a room with a private teacher once a week is learning music. Music is meant to be shared, whether with fellow musicians or with an audience. You haven’t experienced music until you’ve experienced how your part fits in with the parts of fellow musicians. You haven’t experienced the exchange of musical giving and receiving until an audience is cheering you and your fellow musicians on. Everything you’ve heard about the benefits of team sports applies to the band experience. Teamwork, camaraderie, confidence and the advancement of skills all progress exponentially when you’re part of a group. And maybe more importantly, so does the fun.
The Singers & Musicians Studio offers you this kind of complete music experience.
So, what’s the bottom-line reason why I started SMS? Because I believe a school like this should exist!
