Do you want your child to experience the joy of playing a musical instrument?
Do you want them to develop life-long skills such as self-confidence, imagination and creativity?
Do you want very convenient scheduling options for their lessons?
We understand that as a parent, you want the best for your child.
Here’s what our students 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.
Scroll down to see what our kids are saying about the School!
Click the button below to tell us more about your child, or call head teacher Dennis Winge directly at 607-222-3166
Benefits of Lessons to Children:
– Development of both sides of the brain. It is widely known that music is both a creative and a logical activity, unlike most subjects, sports, or activities that your child is likely engaged in.
– Higher IQ. In studies such as this one, the group that took music lessons experienced “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. In school, a focus on longer-term goals is rarely encouraged. Your child will be invited to think about what they want to be able to do on the guitar and we will create a customized strategy to help them get there as soon as possible.
– Self-discipline. Everyone knows that in order to see progress, a musician must practice. We break down big goals into easy, doable steps so that kids feel fulfilled and are also more likely to increase the length of their subsequent focused time on the instrument.
– Organizational skills. All students are expected to maintain a clean, well-organized binder. They manage their own Practice Tracker, and they are given customized online resources to help them keep on track as well.
Advantages to Parents:
We are very conscious about the fact that giving your child lessons is a big commitment on your part. In order to make it much easier for you to give your child the benefits of guitar lessons, you will enjoy these benefits:
– very flexible scheduling options. We will explain more about this in the free introductory session.
– strategies for greatly reducing or totally removing your stress about whether your kid practices at home. Our head teacher, Dennis Winge, has had many difficult discussions with his son about practicing his violin over the years. We know what it’s like and we will explain more about how we can help you avoid this ongoing struggle when we meet you in the free intro session.
– opportunity to get shopping done, as we are located near one of Ithaca’s biggest shopping districts
– opportunity to get work done. We have a comfortable and quiet waiting area with wifi where parents sometimes bring laptops, etc.
– relief that your child is in a safe, supportive, & professional learning environment. Some lesson environments can be too noisy or industrial (not to mention the headache for parking their location often induces), and others can be too informal (like a living room or bedroom.) Come see for yourself that our environment has the best of both worlds.
Here’s what our younger students and their parents are saying:
“[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
“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
“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
“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
“I really like learning new stuff and taking it up a step, like maybe doing more soloing or doing stuff faster, learning these songs, I really like doing that.
Sometimes in the middle of practices [the teacher will] just do this random soloing and he goes really fast and that kind of inspires me to go faster and learn quicker. I really think that’s kind of cool.” – Andrew Brechner
“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
“…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
“Dennis is an excellent instructor. He has been super patient with my 8 year old daughter yet still pushes her to give her best and keep at it when she becomes discouraged. I would recommend Dennis to anyone looking to learn an instrument or even to just improve upon their skills as a musician.” – Hank Bennett
“My son Nial is learning so much faster now with Dennis than he was with his former teacher. “- Angie Bomack
Click the button below to tell us more about your child, or call head teacher Dennis Winge directly at 607-222-3166
Dennis Winge, head teacher. Dennis has been teaching guitar professionally since the year 2000.