Is your child spending too much time on uncreative activities?
Do they have an interest or potential skill in music but don’t know how to harness it?
Has your child tried learning on their own or with another teacher but it’s not working?
If you have a child or children in or near Ithaca, NY, they will love our guitar lessons!
Learning an instrument is creative and develops valuable skills that last a lifetime. It gives them something your child can feel proud of and fulfills their need for self-expression.
It can be nearly impossible for a child to wade through the enormous information available on the internet or in books. If your child shows interest or skill in music, taking lessons can skyrocket their progress.
We try to make the lessons as fun as possible for kids!
We also offer flexible scheduling and both in person and online classes to make it convenient for parents.
“I like the variety in the lessons.”
“[Playing on 2 student albums and 3 recitals is] really awesome, because I was able to perform in front of my family, the entire class, and other people that decided they wanted to listen. [Playing my favorite songs is] really awesome because when I was littler I would just be listening to them thinking about how they’re so cool, and now I’m able to play them.
I like [lessons] a lot because [with my old teacher] you’re just playing the same old chords, not doing anything exciting with them, and now [I’m] able to play songs, able to do so many things with it and its just a lot more fun, and I feel like I’m learning more while doing that.
I [also] like [the variety in the lessons]. You can be playing songs and then do like tablature, improvise. We’ve done songwriting, we’ve done so many things. They’re all really fun.” – Ricky Bitter (soon to be celebrating his 5th anniversary as a student)
We understand that choosing the right guitar teacher for your child is tricky.
Here’s what our children and teens get:
Perfect balance between structure & creativity, organization and fun. Too many times, kids are taught either with too much structure and no creativity, or vice versa. Every child is different, but everyone responds well to a certain degree of organization as well as fun and opportunities for creative self-expression.
Teachers who adapt to his or her own style of learning. When teachers have only one style of teaching, kids who also share that style will thrive, but the rest will feel unfulfilled. It is an art form to adapt to different students’ preferred ways of learning. For example, some kids are more visual, some more audial. Some like to be told exactly what to do and others like to explore, etc. There is no right or wrong. Our teachers are trained to be versatile in their approaches.
Short-term satisfaction and long-term development in the fundamentals of music at the same time. Our younger students love playing their favorite songs, as all musicians do. It brings them immediate gratification and fuels their motivation. However, if other general musicianship skills (such as ear training, fretboard knowledge, music theory) are not mentioned at all, then the students who progress in music will be in for a rude awakening down the road.
Modern teaching methods that get results much faster than traditional ones. This critical difference between great lessons and average lessons can be further explained in the free introductory session, but suffice it to say that many of the ways music has been traditionally taught were not developed because they were shown to be superior to other methods, but simply because they were handed down from generation to generation. Much of the latest research points to much faster and more rewarding, if potentially less ‘neat and tidy’ learning methods.
“I feel comfortable … I can be myself when I play.”
“I like the way Dennis teaches. A lot of my other teachers would get mad at me if I played a note wrong or something. But Dennis is very encouraging. I feel comfortable, like I can be myself when I play. I think how the lessons are taught in general is what helps me the most. Every year I try a new instrument, but when I picked up the guitar I just kind of felt like it was for me. Now I just want to stick to guitar mainly and focus on that. With other instruments I got frustrated if I couldn’t play the right notes, but for guitar it’s a lot easier for me to pick stuff up. I think I’ve come a long way already in a few months, so the lessons are really helpful. I would definitely recommend them. I think they’re just really great and I’m so glad that I have these lessons to help me. I definitely recommend them to anyone who wants to play guitar.” – Amalie White
Hear Our Kids Play!
Performing and recording are wonderful experiences for kids. It gives them something tangible to show for their efforts that they can be proud of, and it provides them with artistic creativity they already have inside them and the self-expression they crave.
“It’s just fun!”
“I think it’s more fun when we get to do stuff that we actually like, and its not just practicing boring stuff that we don’t know. I like the jamming. It’s really fun. I thought playing the songs would be the funnest part, the songs that I know. It’s a fun part, but I like the soloing and stuff; I think its my favorite part.
[In lessons] you can get feedback and help. With a video you can’t … the person in the video cant help you. You don’t have to do a bunch of … weirdness to get to play the stuff that you like to play.
It’s just fun! It’s a fun thing to do.” – Kai Holgate (now in his second year as a student)
Benefits of Guitar Lessons to Children:
Development of both sides of the brain and higher IQ. It is widely known that music is both a creative and a logical activity, and studies such as this one reports that kids learning an instrument show “greater increases in full-scale IQ”
Greater self-confidence. As your child is able to hear better and better music coming out of their guitar, they undoubtedly feel a sense of personal accomplishment, which often pervades other areas of their life. We also offer performance opportunities for them as well, which act as a major booster for self-esteem as well.
Social skills. Music is a team sport. Kids learn the art of listening and responding, and they get the opportunity to vocalize their musical preferences and even make suggestions on repertoire.
Goal-setting skills, self-discipline, and organizational skills. Your child will be invited to think about what they want to be able to do on the guitar, and use specific tools to help them organize their practice routine and track their progress.
“I’m pretty happy with what I can do.”
“When I started, I knew absolutely nothing about guitar… I think I’ve improved a lot because now I can read notes, read chords, read tablature, and I think I’ve come a long way. I’m pretty happy with what I can do.
It’s a fun way to learn a new instrument, and if you learn a new instrument there are so many more things you can do because even if you just learn one instrument and learn how to play notes on that instrument, then if you go for another instrument, it’s so much easier. You already know how to read notes, you already know how to do all that stuff. That’s still very fun and its just a nice way to pass time.” – Elena Sorrentino
“… a pretty big sense of accomplishment.”
“When I started, I knew absolutely nothing about guitar… I think I’ve improved a lot because now I can read notes, read chords, read tablature, and I think I’ve come a long way. I’m pretty happy with what I can do.
It’s a fun way to learn a new instrument, and if you learn a new instrument there are so many more things you can do because even if you just learn one instrument and learn how to play notes on that instrument, then if you go for another instrument, it’s so much easier. You already know how to read notes, you already know how to do all that stuff. That’s still very fun and its just a nice way to pass time.” – Elena Sorrentino
“The teacher inspires me to learn quicker.”
“The student concert I played at this summer was really fun. The solo was a lot easier than I expected in the thick of it, and I felt a pretty big sense of accomplishment by the end of it. I originally started taking lessons because I wanted to learn Master of Puppets and some Green Day because of the video game my friend and I played. It used to be really hard to read some of the tabs but now I can play them pretty well. I really like that we focus on tablature and soloing and power chords, and I’d recommend Guitar Lessons Ithaca because we focus on those things as well as chords.” – Finian Greenlee
“Learning new things is definitely a great thing.”
“Before I started taking lessons, I listened to music and mostly just tried to play what I heard the best I could. And now I can actually have fun with it and start actually understanding more what I’m hearing, and maybe even start making stuff myself.
My favorite part of the lesson is the fact that its not all this pencil and paper and you actually get to translate what you’re actually doing into physical action. And that definitely helps me learn a lot more and faster than I would if it were any other way. Learning new things is definitely a great thing.
Before I started, whenever I would try to learn something new, I would always go to YouTube and try to learn a song via tutorial. That was okay, but I would also have a lot of frustration because of the fact that I still didn’t know how to do anything. It was trying to teach me stuff that I didn’t even know yet in a really fast way and that wasn’t working. But once I got into the lessons it helped me in a pace that I needed.
I would definitely recommend this, because it gives you something to do other than just playing video games or just running around and doing things. It’s nice to have something that’s almost relaxing to do that you’re actually good at, and I would definitely recommend it.” – Ulric Claar
“You can learn whatever you want.”
“…Now I’m writing quite a few [songs on guitar]. [With my former teacher,] I used to only basically do just notes via reading, and honestly the reading doesn’t really make much sense to me. Now I’m pretty much only using tab and chords, which are things that I can very easily understand.
You can learn whatever you want essentially, which is nice, instead of just “go by the book, the book tells you whatever you need, teacher gives you help in understanding the book.” Instead of that. That is incredibly aggravating.” – Demetri Lee-Maltezos (celebrating 2 years as a student)