Our music education
Blog
for parents and students.
I’ve seen so many do it this way - people become interested in learning the piano, then they go to a music studio or instructor’s home to learn it there. Or, even farther down the spectrum, they try to learn how to play via an app on a phone. Although we ought to celebrate the music-making happening here still, the benefits of having a piano inside your own home far outweigh any other conveniences or frugality in general.
Speaking from experience, I wish I would've taken private lessons throughout middle and high school (even earlier if I had had the opportunity). While I was eager, passionate, and dedicated in my involvement in choir and band, I had to push myself especially hard to achieve certain musical skills that otherwise would've been much easier to gain had I taken private lessons early on.
Students hear this all the time: “Make sure you fill your schedule with enough honors/AP/IB/advanced (you name it) classes to be successful!” They’re constantly bombarded with the idea that some sort of academic "status” or numeric figure like a GPA will set the rest of their lives up for success. Although in some rare circumstances this may be true, for most students what they really need is an opportunity to grow and develop as an entire person.
You’ve likely seen countless advertisements for them over the years: “Sign up here for a pitching clinic!” “Register here for math tutoring!” “Get the help your child needs with private music lessons!” Perhaps you’ve even stopped to seriously question. Why is private instruction SO important that people would go to these lengths to convince and advertise to me?
I’m sure you’ve heard it before; “Music is good for your brain!” But what exactly does that mean? Is it just good for counting, “and a 1, and a 2, and a 3, and a 4… ?” I learned that basic structure in Kindergarten. Surely the scope of music’s benefit to the mind goes beyond that… Well, it turns out the rabbit hole goes deeper - way deeper - than we originally thought.
The Chicago Cubs won the World Series. Being a fourth-generation Cubs fanatic, it was without question the greatest and most important sporting event of my entire life. Now that I'm pretty sure that I've scoured every Cubs video and song available on the internet, I'm continually reminded of the reason that I chose the career path that I did: Music is Powerful. Here's some examples of that just from the Cubs' postseason march to the history books...
