Children benefit so much from learning to do something well—developing a skill and a passion that gives them confidence, through which they will be able to express themselves and upon which they will be able to build communication skills and relationships and for the rest of their lives.

Teaching them how to trust in their own inspiration, their own tastes, and their own ability to master and excel at something that may seem impossible at first, and to share the joy of music with their friends and family is a priceless gift.

FAQs

How do you get children to practice? 

Playing music that they love, learning songs or pieces that they are drawn to, get excited about and want to master.gets kids practicing more surely than anything else.

This is true for all of us, by the way. 

This is why I believe in inspiring them to practice, not forcing them to do so. Even though discipline and rules have their place for children, pushing them too hard takes the joy out of music.

I give them music they like from the outset, and get them playing music they truly love as soon as possible. Once they have a few rudimentary skills under their fingers, I shift the curriculum to include songs they choose for themselves, providing them with easy versions that they can handle. This is when things really take off for them. 

This happens to all of us, of course—learning an instrument can be difficult.  Even seeing your teacher play something that seems impossible to you can feel discouraging. But that feeling o something being impossible is as much of an illusion to children as it is to adults.  I’ve seen this over and over! Most of the time all they have to do is try what seems impossible—with a bit of sure guidance— and they find they can actually pretty much do it already, even if it’s a bit rough.  All that is needed from there on out is a lot of practicing and repetition to get consistent at it.

Do you teach them classical guitar?

1 try but I never force. The classical guitar approach is an amazing and rich guitar tradition and can create great guitar habits. If your child wants to play classical music, and shows an affinity for learning to sight-read and play solo pieces, then we are good to go.
But kids are inspired by the musical and cultural context that surrounds them. This means what other children are listening to, as well as what is valued in the home environment. If you, their parents, love classical music, or classical guitar, then they will probably be interested in these as well. Even if they are in their teens!
If you are a rocker, or love a certain band, or music from your home country or cultural background, your child will probably pick up on that and want to learn to play that music too.
And that is what I base my curriculum on.

Will my child learn how to read music?
I start teaching kids to read musical notes as soon as possible. As long as they stay motivated, I keep them on this course, practicing sight reading every week.
I find that some children just are not motivated enough to focus on reading music until much later in their musical journey—they want to play the music, not figure out what each note is called. So I’ve learned the hard way to back away from it until they are ready. Suzuki method is based on this sequence as well, by the way. Continually trying to pull them back into note-reading they don’t want to deal with introduces frustration and lack of confidence.
Note reading is easy enough to learn once they are ready for it. I keep going back to my own experience as a guitarist—I started out playing and singing songs from chord diagrams and by ear, and started learning classical guitar and note-reading only when I fell in love with it.