September is a great time to start music lessons

We've all been doing our best to ignore the ridiculous "back to school" ads that started in July this year. But with Labor Day less than 2 weeks away, there's no hiding from it anymore: The back-to-school frenzy has officially begun! This is an exciting time for kids, especially if they’re hitting a milestone, like moving up to middle school or high school. With the start of a new school year also comes the start of after-school activities and sports, so now is a great time to talk with your kids about prioritizing their list of desired activities and deciding what makes the most sense for your family's busy schedule. If your child has expressed an interest in music, or will be in a band or orchestra program in school this upcoming year, you might be wondering about private music lessons. But is September really a good time to get started? Definitely!

The Tampa Bay Music Academy blog posted an article about why September can be a great time to start lessons, and they bring up some great points! Here’s an excerpt from their list:

1. Capitalize on the back to school spirit. Kids are excited about starting something new. It’s time for a change, and beginning piano lessons while back-to-school fervor is in full swing will help students begin with a positive outlook.
2. Improve performance in school. Numerous studies show that music lessons improve student performance on standardized tests, especially in math. Music education is a great complement to traditional classroom learning, because it uses both the creative and the spatial-temporal parts of the brain at the same time.
3. Build self-confidence. Just as sports can build self-confidence by helping kids learn to overcome challenges and develop new skills, learning a new instrument can accomplish those same goals. When a student successfully performs that difficult piece in his first recital, his confidence gets the same boost it does when his team wins the basketball game.

Continue reading the full article here.

Can you think of more reasons why now is the best time to get started with music lessons? Leave them in the comments!

This article was adapted from a blog post by takelessons. 

The Importance of Mistakes and 5 Famous Rock & Roll Screw-Ups

As humans and musicians, we all make mistakes. Everyone from absolute beginners to high-level professionals are subject to the occasional mess-up and each of us reacts to our imperfections differently. Some musicians are able to recover and move on seamlessly from mistakes, while others allow slight errors to affect their confidence.

The way a musician thinks about mistakes has a huge impact on how they develop as a performer. When musicians are overly-critical of themselves, it can prevent them from being creative and venturing outside of their comfort zone. Mistakes are a necessary part of growing as a player, and without developing the ability to recognize and learn from our gaffes, we miss out on opportunities to improve.

Next time you misstep during a performance, think about what you can take away from the experience. Were there any nice moments or ideas you can use or expand upon in your next performance? What exactly caused the error, and how can you prevent it from happening again?

Remember, play the right notes, but play with feeling and with fearlessness. Focusing on soul and emotion is infinitely more important than focusing on perfection, and mistakes are an invaluable learning tool for any musician. Accept your mistakes as learning lessons, and know that you’re in good company. Some of the most famous acts of all time have messed up big time. From studio slips, to forgotten lyrics, to technical glitches, everyone deals with mistakes from time to time. Here are five of our favorites:

Van Halen - “Jump” (Live) - The synth track plays back in the wrong key during this live performance, resulting in 6 minutes of awful noise.

Paul McCartney - “We Can Work It Out” (Live) - Paul messes up the lyrics not once but twice during this acoustic performance, restarting the song both times.

The Police - “Roxanne” - The seemingly random piano chord at 0:04 and laughing at 0:06 were caused by Sting accidentally leaning on a piano during the recording session.

Billy Joel - “We Didn’t Start the Fire” - Billy forgets some of the words of the second verse, and is forced to start the song over.

Led Zeppelin - “Baby I’m Gonna Leave You” - Beginning at 2:20 you can hear a dim voice that is actually Robert Plant singing along with John Bonham’s drum track. There was no way to remove Robert’s voice from the tracks, so it stayed in.