Our Philosophy

A growth mindset is more important to a musician than hands. We know through extensive experience that playing music with other people –either in recitals or with bands– gives students the highest levels of enjoyment.  It also gives a real sense of accomplishment. This is essential for self-motivation when learning how to play. In addition to focusing on the individual instrument of your choice, we also focus on performances.

Music Is Fun. Rule number one in our lessons is that music is fun. Why? Three big reasons. First, music itself is fun and if you aren’t having fun while playing music, then you’re doing it wrong. We don’t want our students to develop bad habits, so we make sure that all our students remain musical – and that means having fun.
Second, great learners make great musicians. in order to get to where they want to go, our students need to have good learning technique so they can learn faster. The brain learns best while playing, so if the student is having fun, then they are able to learn faster. Third, happy students are motivated students.

Third, the biggest problem with music lessons isn’t talent, and it isn’t motivation. The biggest problem in music lessons is intimidation. If a student feels inwardly that they won’t be able to succeed (research says this is the rule, not the exception), then they won’t be in a state of mind where they can learn fast. By making sure the student is having fun while knocking out critical skills, we level up our student to the point where they start to understand music and feel like it is something they could do.

Music is meant to be shared. Taking private lessons and never playing music with others is like dribbling a soccer ball around your house but never playing in a game. It misses the point of music, which is connection. This is the heart of music and the source for most of the real fulfillment in music-making.

People do what they think will work. The effectiveness of your choices depends on the accuracy of your assumptions. We teach this to our students because it empowers them with the single most effective way to improve their performance. Each action is a choice, and the best way to change your action is to change your choices. The best way to change your choices is to change the assumptions those choices were based on.
Our teachers use this insight to observe why a student is making a mistake, backtracking their choices to figure out the student’s assumptions. This allows the teacher to direct the student to the most effective way to improve, short-circuiting wasted practice time and much frustration. Afterall, music is meant to be fun.