Today’s music students are burdened with pedagogy based on endless repetition of written-out notes. Today’s music teachers are inundated with endless volumes of method books that come out year after year. Music theory is taught with theory workbooks, that have nothing to do with the actual performance of music. As a result, many music students can only play the memorized notes and techniques that they drilled for that year, and all theory concepts are soon to be forgotten, never to be used for musical creativity.
This endless cycle of rote-learning produces music students that cannot do such basic things as: play by ear, improvise, accompany, or play rhythmically and interact with other musicians. After so many years of rote-learning, music becomes a mechanical exercise for students, and in many cases students do not find joy in music, and some are even delighted when the lessons stop when they head off to college.
We teach music so that students enjoy the process of making music. We guide them to continue playing their instruments into adulthood and enjoy it for life.
Our goal is to educate students in all areas of musicianship, so they are equipped to become complete, all-around musicians that can perform with good technique, improvise, arrange, read, write, hear, and play well with other musicians. To develop complete musicianship, playing by ear and listening to a wide variety of musical genres are as important as reading notation and drilling technique.
We believe that creative, adaptable, and technically-skilled music students will enjoy playing music for life.
