Our Fall Student Showcase is Saturday, September 15th at The Pullman from 2:00-4:00 pm. Registration is limited to 30 students and you can sign up in our student portal. This is what we like to call an “informal” performance opportunity, (performances that don’t include a big stage and a big audience). Other informal performance opportunities could include playing for your friends and family, at an open mic, in a song circle, at a campground of a music festival or for your significant other. With each performance, our hope is that students become more comfortable playing music in front of an audience. This is also a great platform to test out new material that you have been working on.

Scheduling performances give you a concrete timeline and goal to work towards. This time of year, students and parents are working on getting into a new groove and establishing a practice routine. I recently listened to an interview with Yo Yo Ma on NPR about the value of incremental practice. He describes how he has been playing the Bach Cello Suites since day one (his first lesson when he was 4 years old). Not that practicing is akin to homework, but he does mention that there are days that the homework is a bit harder and days when it is easier. I encourage you (and your children) to establish a practice routine with the new school year that is realistic and works well with your schedule. I don’t like to quantify practice sessions, but playing your instrument several times a week is a good goal!

With much of our lives focused on instant feedback, whether it is getting instagram likes, taking a test at school, playing a video game, there are fewer and fewer meaningful long term goals that we have to work towards. Playing music is a lifelong pursuit and I am still playing the same songs that I played when starting out, Twinkle, Oh Susanna, When the Saints Go Marching In, and other folks songs. Not only am I still playing these songs, but I am still learning them. Learning how to interpret them in different ways, learning how to teach them and learning the history of them. Have you ever read a book as a child and then re-read it again as a teenager and then as an adult? Even though it is the same book, your relationship with it and interpretation changes with each read.

Children are always modeling the environment around them, so next time you tell your kid to practice… pick up a book, pick up an instrument, paint a painting, write in your journal, build something, or cook a meal… use that time do something for yourself as well. Go forth and create!