Music Lessons Part 2

OK, a little bit about my own music training.  I had one of the best piano teachers around.  She was a young mom who moved into our ward.  She had a degree in Music History (I think) and her husband was on the faculty at BYU in music.  They have been in the MoTab.   They had piano music wall paper on their walls.  I loved her.  I babysat for them.  I think they had one of the best piano lesson experiences that there was to offer.  However, like I already said...the lessons were 30 minutes, in her home, with 3 young kids, phone ringing (those were the days before caller ID and answering machines!), kids crying.  They really did try to keep to to a minimum, but the reality is, looking back, there were a lot of distractions.  

We had 1 recital per year.

I never learned to sing while I played.  I absolutely cannot carry a tune for the life of me.

I cannot begin to play by ear.  I never received that type of ear training.

I cannot play while people sing.  I never learned that and I am too intimidated to try it now that I'm an adult (except for an extreme emergency for Primary once in a while)

I do not know how to transpose music.

I do not know very much music theory at all.

I think my mom paid about $50 per month for my piano lessons and I took for 8 years.  (7 from the same teacher).  If I'm off on any of this mom, please correct me.  I probably took a month or two off in the summers.  So, for my music education it cost approximately $500 per year or $4,000 plus the cost of books.  I seriously appreciate the sacrifice it was for my parents to do this for me and my sister for all of those years.  So, don't think I'm complaining in any way.

This is what Sierra's course of music training will be once she is done at Art City Music.

Sierra basically started in the beginning with the Young Musician Program.  (They have all sorts of flowcharts of when and where to start them for what age they are.  I always heard that  you should be able to read, so 1st or 2nd grade before they should start piano lessons.  These guys start their students in actual music classes at age 3, yikes, that's Cole!)

So, Young Musician is 4 semesters, each semester is 20 weeks with a recital at the end of the semester.  Sierra finished that course and took an optional transitional semester.  In this class they learned about transposing music and comping* while learning folk songs.  it was a fun semester.  So, she has had 5 semesters.  Now she is in Keyboard Musician, which is 4 semesters.  Their is an optional 5th semester if the teacher feels that  the student needs reenforcement on any of the concepts. 

That means by the time Sierra graduates she will have all of the skills I have mentioned in a total of 9 semesters or possibly 10.  Summer has done it in less time because she is older and could handle more information in less time.  But learning music is kind of like learning a foreign language and they say that by the time a child is 12 years old they have lost the ability to learn a language as a native language than a foreign language or a second language.  Basically the window of time for children to learn music is short and it is harder to learn it as they get older.

The basic price for a semester is $250.  There is a fee for books and a $20 fee per year for registration.  They give a discount for paying by the semester rather than by the month and they give a family discount for each additional member of the family.  Sierra is using summer's books so I didn't have to buy more books.  So, I don't know right off hand what that comes out to but for Sierra to take for 9 semesters, it will cost me around $4,500.  That is only $500 more than my music education cost my parents 25 years ago.  And I figure that Sierra is spending almost twice as much time in music instruction even if that is in a group setting.  And she loves it and she really will come out of this experience with so many more skills than I did.

*About Comping:  I didn't know what this was until the girls started learning it.  Sierra is performing a comping song for her recital piece.  It is a Cuban Folk song.  She will sing the words (melody) while she plays the accompaniment.  When they learn the song, the notes are not printed, just the chord names.  So, it might look like this:

C C F C

G F C C

They are able to use whatever variation they want.  The formula above is for a blues style song.

I seriously had no idea what any of this meant until the girls learned it in their classes.

I looked Harmony Road music class locations up online and is says that there is a location in Phoenix.  I don't know any more than that.

I don't know if any of this makes sense, but I love the program.