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Better Late Than Never! (Why you’re Never Too Old to Learn an Instrument)

4/2/2015

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by Columbus Music Schools on 04/01/15


You’ve probably heard people say wistfully, “I wish I’d taken music lessons as a child.” Or, “I wish I could play an instrument.” Perhaps you’ve even thought it yourself. The assumption seems to be that because you didn’t learn at an early age, you are somehow too old to master an instrument now. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. While early music education is indeed a gift, there is no reason that adults cannot become musically proficient, regardless of their age. In fact, many of the skills that have made adults successful in their careers and lives translate over into music study, making them outstanding students. Here are just a few ways mature folks can actually be at an advantage over kids when it comes to music lessons.
  • Motivation: Most adults choose to study music to satisfy themselves, not because they feel compelled to meet someone else’s expectations. This actually gives them a far greater advantage as students over children, who are often taking music lessons at the behest of their parents. Personal motivation has been shown to have positive cognitive effects, allowing students to actually learn more quickly.
  • Patience: Adults know that accomplishing long-term goals takes time, a concept that younger students often struggle with. They don’t expect overnight success, and have realistic expectations of the time and effort it takes to achieve proficiency.
  • Discipline: Even though many older students lead very busy lives, they have developed time management skills that allow them to carve out regular time for practice and to make their time spent practicing more effective. Better focus and a disciplined attitude often put adults at an advantage to younger students.
  • Experience: Adults have far more experience listening to music, which makes it easier to learn how to play it. That lifetime of exposure often allows mature students to grasp chords and groupings of chords more easily. They also have less trouble understanding abstract concepts, such as how specific notes on a scale relate to each other.
In addition to these advantages, adult music students particularly enjoy the benefits of stress reduction which playing a musical instrument can provide. And the challenge of learning an instrument provides cognitive benefits which can help keep the brain functioning better and stave off declines that can come with aging.


So if you have thought you were too old to learn an instrument, think again. There’s no time like the present. At Columbus Music Schools, we understand both the joys and challenges of learning a musical instrument no matter what your age. Our individualized instruction is designed to meet your needs and goals, not accommodate a one-size-fits all approach. Megan Yankee, our Student Services Coordinator, can discuss the best music lesson options for you in greater detail. You can reach Megan at megan@ColumbusMusicSchools.com or at 614-500-4403. She is looking forward to answering your questions and welcoming you to one of our studios soon!

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Six Ways to Get the Most out of Music Practice

2/4/2015

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by Columbus Music Schools on 02/03/15


It’s the first question many students and/or their parents ask about music lessons: How much practice is involved?  While many music teachers give an estimate of 30 minutes a day, there really is no one answer. So much depends on the individual assignment and the student’s aptitude and goals. 
You’ve heard the old punchline to the joke “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice.” There’s no question that practice produces better musicians at all levels.  It’s especially important for beginners since it allows students to get the most benefit from their music lessons and gain mastery – and enjoyment – of their instrument sooner. 
Unfortunately, practicing an instrument can sometimes get put on the back burner. Here are a few tips to help stay on track and get the very most from your time spent practicing.
  • Schedule it in. Music practice shouldn’t be something that gets squeezed in after all other distractions and obligations have been met. Students who set aside a specific time every day for practice are far more likely to successfully complete their assignments. Schedule practice for a time of day when you naturally have the most energy and will be able to think and focus most clearly.
  • Don’t watch the clock. A goal of practicing for half an hour tends to make even the most motivated student a clock-watcher. It’s not so much the time that matters, as what is accomplished within that time. A better plan is to focus on the assignment at hand, and practice for as long as it takes to confidently finish it. Some days that might be twenty minutes, other days it may take an hour or more. 
  • Warm up with scales or similar exercises for the first 15 minutes or so, before starting in on your practice assignment. This helps put your mind in a more focused state for learning. A half an hour of focused productivity after your warm up will yield better results than more time spent practicing without concentration. 
  • Pay attention. Mindless practice wastes everyone’s time. When you’re on autopilot, very little productive learning takes place. Giving your full attention to the assignment at hand not only gets results more quickly, it’s far more interesting. When you’re really concentrating, the time flies by!
  • Set goals. A long piece can take patience and perseverance to master. Give yourself a realistic timeframe by counting the number of measures and calculating how many measures you can realistically learn each week.  Then make a weekly commitment to the time it will take to learn those measures.
  • Celebrate your accomplishments. Learning a musical instrument is a challenging but extremely rewarding endeavor. When you’ve mastered a particularly difficult assignment or passage, congratulate yourself and give yourself permission to move on to something more fun.
At Columbus Music Schools we don’t believe in music practice just for the sake of practice. Good practice unlocks the door to better understanding, better playing and – most importantly – more enjoyment!
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Musical Learning Methods – Traditional vs Suzuki

1/27/2015

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by Columbus Music Schools on 01/26/15


When it comes to their child’s music education, many parents have questions about the choice of instructional approaches. At Columbus Music Schools, we’re often asked, “What is the best teaching method for beginning music students, traditional or Suzuki?” The answer depends on many variables, including the age of the child and the preferences, interests and abilities of both the student and the parent. In this article, we’ll give you a brief overview of both methods, and attempt to dispel some of the myths that have come to be associated with the differences between them. 
The Suzuki method was developed in Japan by Dr. Sinichi Suzuki in the 1940s and began to gain popularity in the United States during the 1960s. Best known as a way to teach violin to young students, its methods have since been adapted to many other instruments. The philosophy behind the Suzuki method is that music can be learned by immersion and listening, much as we learn to speak our native language. For this reason the Suzuki method is often called the “mother-tongue approach.”
With the Suzuki method, students begin by learning songs by ear and delay learning to read musical notation until later in their education. This allows children who are too young to read to begin learning a musical instrument at an early age. Perhaps for this reason, it has come to be associated with “child prodigies,” one of the myths mentioned earlier. While very young students can, indeed, become musically accomplished at an early age, that is neither the goal nor the outcome for most Suzuki students. Instead, the Suzuki method allows students (of all ages) to focus on mastering basic playing skills without the additional burden of learning to read music simultaneously. 
Another myth is that Suzuki students don’t learn to read music. Note reading is simply addressed later in the child’s education, much as reading is only taught after a child has learned to speak. 
Before the popularity of the Suzuki method, the term “traditional” music education wasn’t really used. In fact, there really is no one “traditional” approach, but many variations and styles, which have been developed and honed over centuries. A common thread among what we call traditional music lessons is that students learn to read music at the same time as they learn to play. This can be an important factor if a goal is to participate in a school band, orchestra or musical group. 
The fact is that whether studying violin, piano or other instruments, an outstanding musical education can be obtained by either Suzuki or traditional methods. With faculty that teach both approaches, the choice truly lies with the student and the parent. Regardless of the instructional method chosen, our goal at Columbus Music Schools is to create successful, happy students and help instill a lifelong love of music. 
Our Student Services Coordinator, Megan Yankee, can discuss the best music lesson options for you and your family in greater detail. Megan can be reached at megan@ColumbusMusicSchools.com or at 614-500-4403. We look forward to answering your questions and welcoming you to one of our studios soon!
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How Music Grows Your Brain

1/23/2015

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by Columbus Music Schools on 01/22/15


Do smart people have more musical aptitude, or can learning music actually make you smarter? As amazing as it sounds, the latter is actually true. Randomized studies of people of the same cognitive ability have shown that those who take music lessons experience gains in neural processing, compared to those who did not study music.  
It wasn’t until the last decade or two, when functional brain imaging became possible, that we were able to fully understand this now well-documented phenomena. Technologies such as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Tomography have allowed neuroscientists to gain incredible insights into how learning and playing music affects the brain.
While listening to music engages the brain, modern brain scanning techniques show that playing music becomes the equivalent of a complete workout, stimulating and exercising multiple areas of the brain simultaneously. Among the regions that playing a musical instrument excite are the visual, auditory and motor cortices. Improved connectivity between the right and left sides of the brain is evidenced by the increased volume and activity of the corpus callosum, which acts as the bridge between both hemispheres. This is credited with improving both cognitive and emotional understanding. Individuals who learn to play music benefit from gains in both left brain tasks, such as problem solving and mathematical ability, as well a right brain tasks such as creative thinking.
Perhaps not surprisingly, fine motor skills, which are controlled by both hemispheres are also improved with music lessons.
The structured practice employed to learn to play music is also thought to contribute to the benefit by strengthening the connections which music stimulates in various parts of the brain. Just as regular weight lifting builds specific muscles, mastering an instrument through regular music lessons and practice trains the brain to efficiently process multiple stimuli on both the right and left sides of the brain.
These gains have been especially well studied in children who study music, making all of us at Columbus Music Schools strong proponents of childhood music education. A very recent (November 2014) study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry examined 232 healthy kids ranging in age from 6 to 18 using Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 2-year intervals. The study concluded that playing a musical instrument was associated not only with improved motor planning and visuospatial ability, but also emotion and impulse regulation.
An earlier peer-reviewed study on the benefits of music education, published on PLOS One in 2008, found that children who received at least three years of music instruction outperformed their control counterparts not just in areas closely related to music (auditory discrimination abilities and fine motor skills) but also in areas seemingly unrelated to music (vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning skills).
The dedicated music instructors at Columbus Music Schools see firsthand this kind of growth and blossoming on a daily basis. Sharing the joy as well as the lifelong benefits of learning to play music is our passion and our privilege. We enjoy creating a customized approach to each individual’s music lesson goals, interests and learning level. Our 17 music teachers provide personalized instruction in piano, violin, viola, cello, guitar, woodwinds, percussion and voice. Contact Columbus Music Schools’ Student Services Coordinator Megan Yankee (megan@ColumbusMusicSchools.com) to learn more about music lessons for you or your child.

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    We are a group of music schools in Columbus Ohio teaching piano, guitar, violin, percussion, voice etc.

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