Deftones has a great song called “Back to School” put it on right now and crank it (metal heads only). You know why?

Because summer’s over. Sorry, we’re just coming right out and saying it. It’s over, and we are thrilled! 

We have nearly 150 students signed up to take lessons with us this fall. That’s twice as many as we started with last September! 

That means, more students to perform at the concert, more students to form bands with at the Friday night jams, and more students filling the halls of the studio with music. We are extremely excited.

The best way for you (or your little music student) to get started this fall is to build that practice routine in week 1 and stick to it all the way to the Christmas break.

Make it a habit, and you’ll never have to “remember” to practice. (“I forgot to practice” is a refrain heard at every music school since the dawn of time). Whether its before you brush your teeth, after you brush your teeth, before dinner, after dinner, before you walk the dog, as you walk the dog! Just pick a time that works every day and use that time to practice. 

However, not all playing is practice. If you’re just strumming away, or plunking the keys, that’s great! but…. it’s not practice. Practice is doing that thing your teacher told you about last week, and repeating it over and over and over and over and over and over and, well, you get the idea. Learning anything requires a LOT of repetition, and musical instruments even more so.

If you’re not repeating that riff, or that scale, or that triad, or that rhythm, then you’ll have little hope of learning it before going back for your next lesson. The students who succeed are the ones who do this one thing: They make practicing a habit. They do it every day at the same time for at least 30 minutes. They do it even when they don’t particularly feel like it. They practice. 

That’s the only thing that has ever held any student back. I’ve had students who after months of taking lessons, I managed to finally convince them “ya know, if you practice, you’re going to get good”. I’d said it every week during those months and eventually it clicked, and they did practice, and can you guess what happened? THEY GOT GOOD! 

So this nonsense of “Oh I’m just not musical” or “some people are born with it”? Phooey to that! Everyone practices, from Jimi Hendrix, to Miles Davis, to John Bonham to Ludwig Van Beethoven. They all practiced their instrument, and that is the only way they got good. 

I think what I’m trying to say is, PRACTICE. It starts right now. Get off on the right foot this school year. Start building those good habits, not just in music, but with your regular schoolwork too. We think you’ll notice some huge benefits.