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My music classes for young people
FALL 2023 - I have started leading family music classes at Midwest Young Artists Conservatory in Fort Sheridan, IL. I am excited to be teaching at this nationally known music school. My classes at MYAC involve young children and the grown-ups who take care of them. Live musical experiences are vitally important for children and I am proud to be presenting such experiences to families across Lake County.
You can find out more about the Music and Movement classes at MYAC here
These classes are in addition to the Music Together classes I lead in Lake Bluff and Libertyville.
You can find out more about my Music Together classes here
I'm a music teacher
I give formal music lessons to children and adults and I have been teaching music full-time since the last century! (1999)
I do private instruction on Piano, Guitar, Drums.
If your family lives around Highland Park, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, Libertyville, Lincolnshire, Vernon Hills, or Highwood, you're in my area.
My music videos
Selected from my vast trove of attempts to combine moving images with ordered sounds. Take a look. All are family friendly (dogs and most cats included).
Children's Songs - Free Streaming
I have released a collection of twenty(!) childrens' songs (well, the whole family is welcome to listen in, including dogs and most cats). They're free to listen to on my site.
Crossing the Shoreline
My first collection of jazz originals is available here. Some of the pieces are straight-ahead jazzy, some are, um, crossovers. (Crossing. Get it?) Where are they crossing over to? you ask. Give 'em a listen and tell me what your thoughts are on that subject.
Try interacting with Tessèreaction
A visual sound experiment, inspired by some of my Vox Spectra work.
I modified one of my Vox Spectra performances to run on on-line, and you (yes you!) get to try it out. It's a "flash" program, so if you have Adobe Flash installed on your device, have at it.
Different results every time you mess with it.
Note: This on-line experience is in "beta" mode, it is still being tested and refined. Your comments on its specific behavior--as well as your general impressions and suggestions for improvement--would be, as they say, greatly appreciated. Feel free to contact me (link up top on the left).
Music training makes better students
No less than the Wall Street Journal recently published an article (October 10th) that summarizes the latest research into the notion that children who actively participate in music-making are, well, just plain smarter and become better students. The article also mentions that, somewhere in passing, that making music is just plain fun, so music study is sort of a win-win scenario.
Read the whole article here. online.wsj.com/news/article_email/a-musical-fix-for-american-schoolsonline.wsj.com/news/article_email/a-musical-fix-for-american-schools
Benefits of Formal Music Training
This article, on the web site dottedmusic.com is called Benefits of Classical Music Training although I think it would be more appropriate to call it Formal Music Training. Whatever. In any case, here are some points to consider about what methodology to use when learning how to play a musical instrument. (And your own voice counts as a musical instrument--what is more musical than us humans!)
Music Practice and Brain Development
Recent research finds more and more evidence that young children's brain development is stimulated in a plethora of ways with musical activities.
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