CONTINUITY IN LEARNING
“The length of time it takes to lose a skill is proportional to the time it took you to learn the skill. We see this in our lives all the time, with the example of riding a bike or playing a musical instrument that we practiced for hours…we don’t really lose these skills, although like our old bikes, they “rust” a little.”
– Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. Psychology Professor, Carleton University
If you really stop to reflect on this past year, you’ll begin to realize just how far you and/or your child have come in regard to their music education. However, learning shouldn’t really be confined to the school year exclusively. Knowledge is received every moment of every day and should be grown consistently throughout the course of the year. Cultivating a love of music and developing musical skills is also something that doesn’t end with the school year. And, without continued participation in lessons, practicing, and ensembling, you will undoubtedly lose some of the skills you have gained. This is why keeping up with music lessons during the summer is so important.
Summer vacation means… no school, no homework, no tests, and all the friends and free time a student can handle! You and/or your child are probably looking forward to the stress-free environment that summer brings. But while school brings with it a certain amount of pressure – music lessons should never be looked at as a major stressor. In fact, music should be viewed as quite the opposite. So, we want to encourage you to include music lessons as part of your rejuvenating summer! When we distribute our music vacation time more evenly throughout the year, we find students are better revitalized without the need to re-teach skills after longer vacations, allowing us all to use our time together more efficiently.
Sharpening and Sustaining
Music does in fact, keep the brain working and the memory growing! Even though school is out, you want to keep your brain functioning on a high level during the break, and music is the perfect way to do that. In addition to being an important creative and physical outlet, music also improves literacy and quantitative reasoning, and provides valuable social and emotional benefits as well. Music helps keep these benefits alive and well, throughout the summer!
And, you can make your summer even more rewarding by taking advantage of our very flexible options, booking around vacations, events, etc. Ideally, we would continue to see you every week to continue your learning, but even 3-4 lessons over the summer will keep your skills sharp and help us to continue on your music journey.
Flex-Pass options:
As always, our summer lessons are flexible in timing. When you call to register we will book you in for dates. These can always be moved if needed as long as we receive 24 hours’ notice.
- 3 – 30 minute lessons $99
- 2 – 45 minute lessons $99
- 6 – 30 minute lessons $189
- 4 – 45 minute lessons $189
SO IN SUMMARY….EVERYONE SHOULD TAKE SUMMER LESSONS!
Flexible Scheduling
We offer flexible scheduling during our 10-week summer session so that you may conveniently schedule summer music lessons around vacations, camps and other fun summer activities. We are open Tuesday-Thursday from 10AM – 8PM, and Saturday 10AM – 5PM.
Maximize Your Investment
You have invested greatly…your time, your money, your energy and your passion to build yourself as a musician. We want to help you ensure you maximize your investment by avoiding significant downtime and catch-up time. That is why we offer such flexible options for the 10 weeks of summer!
Fun and Motivating
Summer is the perfect time to break from the routine and help the students learn the music of their choice whether it be a song they heard on the radio or a challenging classical piece. Maybe a student would like to create a recording, write a song, or prepare a few numbers to perform at our next Crescendo event!
Greater Focus
Without the worries of homework, sports games and practices, and other school-time activities, students can devote time and attention to their summer music lessons and practice. Better focus leads to better practice!
Time for Something New
Summer is the best time to try something new, whether it be a new instrument, or a new application for the instrument you’ve already started learning! There are so many options to explore. For example:
- Digital production
- Speech Arts
- Songwriting
- OR try a new instrument: drums, guitar, ukulele, saxophone, keyboard, vocal, bass guitar, musical theatre, piano, AND MORE!
No Backtracking
When students take a full summer break from their instruments, it only means one thing – extra time has to be taken to backtrack in the fall which can be a frustrating experience! Everyone knows that saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” This is true in all disciplines including learning how to play an instrument. Instead of backtracking for the first month or two in the fall, our students use their summer music lessons to keep making progress and staying on track!
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is practice.” – Vladimir Horowitz, Classical Pianist