Children's Music Lessons

Description

What is a first lesson like?
Some of the following is for group lessons but even for a beginning private student it is much the same.
1. The studio is a shoeless one so without knocking you enter and take your shoes and coat off in the 'mud room'.
2. Then the door into the studio slides and you come in, (as long as you are not more than 5 minutes early you should come in without knocking on that door either.) and someone will show you where the bathroom is so that you can wash your hands- everyone must have clean hands before touching instruments.
3. Then we gather in circle and each child picks a song that they know and we all sing it together (so 6 kids= 6 songs) many of the songs that we sing are singing and drumming songs so everyone will get up for those songs and get drumsticks from the drumstick canister and a drum from the drumbox. New students will be shown either by me or more likely by the other kids where these things are.
Then back to circle and we sit and sing and drum.
4. If no one picks a drumming song (this has happened a total of 2 times in 15 years) then I will pick one or we will do some drumming exercises ending with about 20 seconds of wild and crazy.
5. We then put the sticks and drums back and since there is a new student today will be take the piano apart day.
This is exactly what it sounds like. With sticks, our fingers and our imaginations we try to understand (at whatever stage in life we are at) how the piano works and why it makes the sounds it does.
I also introduce the ideas of high notes and low notes and loud and quiet and fast and slow (some of this we get with the drumming but for the first lesson the piano works even better), with all the parts of the piano exposed (for I do literally take much of the piano apart) we can see why the piano does what it does and this can relate to other instruments as we go through those in the coming weeks.
6. To calm everyone down the last 5 minutes of the lesson are spent in LISTENING. Where we do just that- we sit/lay and listen to a recording and try to hear what instruments are being played- if you know you raise your hand and tell and so we kind of learn how different instruments sound and gain a bit of experience in just sitting and consciously listening.
7. Time to get shoes and coats on- and often I will give an assignment like find something made of wood that makes a good sound, and bring it to show us all next time. For 3-5 year olds this is homework another new idea.

Schedule

No class times listed. Please contact the instructor to schedule a session.

Pricing Details

$60 a month, class is one hour a week.
on Fridays at 4pm
Saturdays at 10am
the classes are mixed 3-6 year olds

Reviews write a review

• "wonderful early music experience"

  • 
  • • 4/5 stars
  • janes
  • Seattle, WA

  Review of Jay Hamilton , 29 days ago

  My daughter, who is now nearly 9, came weekly to Jay's studio for music lessons when she was preschool age. While the lessons are structured, they are also quirky (unlike with corporate kiddie music classes, where the instructor didn't come up with the material). The kids get to soak in the environment of a dedicated musician, in a room filled with all kinds of instruments. My daughter did not become any kind of music prodigy because of Jay, but she started taking piano lessons lo these many years later and is taking to it like a duck to water. And she has great taste in music. I credit Jay for opening up her ears. (And yes, they really do get to take apart the piano!!)
  p.s. I rate this learning experience 4 stars because it was Great / More Than I Expected. If my daughter would have never wanted to quit, I would probably have rated it Excellent / Simply the best.

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  My daughter, who is now nearly 9, came weekly to Jay's studio for music lessons when she was preschool age. While the lessons are structured, they ...

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