Lesson Programs

Group Keyboard

We have taught our young musicians in group settings for the past 17 years. We have found it best to start kids in groups only until they are High School ages. This is because once a child becomes a teenager their study/practice habits are already firmly ingrained in their personalities. Our teachers are all trained to work with the kids in these group settings. Our program is written for and adapted to group learning. We know that when kid’s learn together they learn better. This means that children learning keyboard who are between the ages of 4 and 12 are candidates for our group lesson programme.

Social Development: the students make friends and thus learn how to better relate and cooperate with others.

Ensembles: by playing different parts of the same song the students develop better sight reading and rhythm.

Motivation: motivation increases with competition which occurs naturally in a group setting encouraging more practice and thus increasing the pace of the learning process.

Less Pressure: there is less pressure in a group than in one on one lessons.

Less Inhibited: because they play in front of their group every week they are more comfortable playing in front of audiences

Guitar

At the Sound of Music we teach a variety of styles and genres. For the beginning student we use Fastrack, Alfred’s Kid’s Guitar, Girls Guitar Method; and other books to teach how to read basic music symbols, notation and tablature. We also begin early with chords, strumming and song structure so as to read music charts. This is a fun way to quickly get to the level of being able to play rhythm and melody to many songs.

 For those who are a little older or are more advanced we’ll show how to play scales, the backbone of soloing and improvisation for Rock & Roll, Blues, Country and everything else. We will also get into more intricate chords and strumming patterns for the types of song that interests the student; as well as for songs they may not be aware of yet.

 We’ll show each student how to care for their instrument; care for the music they play and how to interact with other musicians whether it is with the teacher or a group of fellow students.

School Calendar 2009-10