Beginner Music Lessons | Why Curtis Music Academy is Great for Young Students
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Curtis Music Academy podcast. I hope you are all having a stupendous week and an amazing summer. Today I wanted to focus a bit on the younger student demographics at Curtis Music Academy, and why we feel that we are the best option for parents who want to start their children learning an instrument at a pretty young age. First, I want to mention some of the benefits of starting beginner music lessons for young children, just for anyone who may not be aware. The youngest years of life are the best for creating new areas of understanding and ways of thinking in a person’s brain. The way you are probably most familiar with hearing about this is that it is easier for really young children to learn a foreign language. And learning an instrument almost is learning a new language.
A student has to learn how to read and comprehend sheet music, and they also then have to learn how to express what that sheet music is saying in terms of what they have to do with their hands to make their instrument make the corresponding notes. Additionally, if the habit of learning and practicing music is formed while the student is young, they will be more likely to continue the practice for the duration of their life. And, if their beginner music lessons as young students are fun and they are able to enjoy learning, they will continue to find music to be something that they will enjoy and love to pursue.
Finally, if they are able to master the basics of their instrument while they are young children, as they get older and their motor skills develop more, they will already have the necessary musical background to begin to practice with more advanced pieces. As for our specific lesson offerings for young students here at Curtis Music Academy, we always listen to and honor the input and opinions of potential students and their parents or guardians. However, we feel that the youngest practical age to start beginner music lessons is around age three, as any younger the student would most likely not be able to focus on their lesson for long enough for any real meaningful progress to be made, and they would be unable to understand a lot of the ideas and concepts that would be presented.
But of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and if a parent feels their child is ready to focus and comprehend their beginner music lessons younger than three, we would absolutely be open to discussion about that. Ultimately, we want to create a scenario that is as enjoyable and successful as possible for everyone, so we don’t want to force students into taking lessons that they are just still unable to be interested in or focus on, and we also want to value the time of our instructors and not have them spending hours planning and attempting to teach a curriculum to a student who has no interest at all in listening to them or learning from them.
Now that I’ve spoken a bit about how we decide when to work with our youngest students, I want to talk a bit about why Curtis Music Academy is the best place to start out young children with music lessons. For starters, we have absolutely zero long term contracts or payment commitments. So, while some music studios might force you to agree to take a certain number of lessons upon signing up with them, we want to make sure that our students are staying with us because they are enjoying their experience and feel they are benefiting from their lessons. So, we allow our students to stop taking their lessons at any time and we will immediately stop charging them.
We only ask for at least twenty-four hours’ notice beforehand so that we can inform that student’s instructor that they won’t be teaching during that time moving forwards. So, if you bring in a younger child for a beginner music lessons and discover that they simply aren’t ready to begin something like this, you can feel free to not take anymore lessons until they are a bit older and more able to focus and enjoy the material. Additionally, we here at Curtis Music Academy create a unique curriculum plan for each student tailored to their current skill level and ability as well as their eventual goals. This is extra beneficial for younger students because it allows us to ensure that we are focusing on easier to comprehend material, but also that we are choosing material that they will find fun to learn.
Whether that means incorporating a song that they love (which we do quite frequently with most of our students of all ages), or using funny words and sounds to teach an idea, we can focus more on developing a love of the instrument rather than a strenuous “nose to the grindstone” approach for those younger children so their beginner music lessons are something they enjoy and look forward to. We also have different lesson scheduling and structure for very young children. Because they find it difficult to focus for long periods of time, we actually offer shortened, fifteen-minute lessons for our youngest students, so they don’t grow bored and uninterested halfway through.
Additionally, we have some great instructors who are very gifted with working with younger kids. They are really talented at working in breaks into their beginner music lessons block to give younger students a chance to stand up and move around and release some pent-up energy and then return to their lesson so they can be more productive after and able to better focus. And they are also really good at identifying the times at which their younger students are starting to need a break from learning, and also balancing that with ensuring that their younger students are still making progress and advancing with their instrument. Thank you all so much for joining me for this episode of the Curtis Music Academy podcast.