Our 100th Blog!

-Meredith Manley

Drumroll please...this week marks our 100th blog!! That’s A LOT of blogs!! Why do we take the time to write blogs? We feel it reflects our studio’s mission, allows you to get to know our teachers, and expresses our opinions about music teaching and relevant topics. We are proud to say that we write two new blogs every month (although we used to write them weekly our first two years as a studio!) To celebrate this accomplishment, we are going to recap about some of the different topics we’ve written about (and include links to read them!)

First off, we’ve written a few times about the benefits of music lessons- how it builds brain development, character and grit, and teaches arts appreciation. This is an ongoing topic as new research surfaces constantly. There are endless articles about how great music lessons are for both kids and adults! 

One of the biggest questions we are asked from parents is how much and how long to practice. We’ve shared about how to practice efficiently and what parents can do to help their children practice at home. Keeping students motivated through the entire school year is another big category. Music Bucks, Honor Roll, 40 Piece Challenge, Student of the Week, and Music Ball (formerly Piano Ball) are just some of the fun things we do to keep students going that are unique to our studio!

As new teachers join our studio, we ask them to fill out a questionnaire for our blog and for their profile on the website. Currently, we have 7 teachers for private lessons (piano, voice, and guitar), and we are adding two new teachers this fall: Robin, who will be teaching group piano classes, and Giuseppe, who will be teaching private flute lessons. We’ve also shared about the importance of the relationship between the teacher and student, which is why we take the time to really make sure it is a good match between the two.

In addition to our growing number of private students, our early childhood music classes are steadily growing as well. You might be surprised that we believe music education should begin as infants, and continue through preschool to our Merry Musicians class.

Lastly, we’ve written many tips about recital etiquette and coping with performance anxiety. We really encourage all of our students, no matter how long they’ve been taking lessons, to perform at our twice per year recitals. Since all of our piano teachers are members of the Dallas Music Teachers Association, many of our students are involved in their performance opportunities. The three most common events our studio participates in are Sonatina Festival, Achievement Auditions, and the State Theory Exam. We explain the scoring system that DMTA judges use for these events. 

It’s really neat to look back at all the blogs we’ve written- it reflects different stages of how our studio has evolved. We also hope that our blogs are helpful to parents and that they provide a deeper connection to our studio.