With education reform removing music classes from traditional schooling, greater emphasis being placed on math, English, science, and history classes, and funding for education being back-burnered across the United States, it would seem that guitar lessons are facing the axe from multiple fronts. For music enthusiasts, this is heartbreaking news. For kids who idolize rock stars and want their own guitar and bass lessons for every birthday and holiday, it can be devastating as well. Music lessons just aren’t getting their due.
Guitar lessons are particularly important for children, as they teach manual dexterity, multi-tasking, reading of sheet music as well as tablature, self-confidence, and improved self-esteem. Kids who are shy or are on the spectrum often just light up when they start strumming a guitar. It’s like they have discovered a new language (in fact, they have). With music education on the chopping block, fewer children are developing these skills as highly as they could be.
Fortunately, music is quite literally the soundtrack of our lives. We listen to it at school, at work, during lunch breaks, during downtime. The person writing this page is listening to music in the background while typing these words. Increased access to highly portable music systems and personal entertainment systems means we can enjoy our tunes almost anywhere. Music is a form of celebration and communication, a grieving mechanism and one that empowers. Even Friedrich Nietszche, the consummate nihilist, said that “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
We know music is essential to life as we know it. That’s why we know that offering kids the opportunity to learn music through electric and electric bass guitar lessons is giving them the gift of a lifetime. As it turns out, kids who have had musical education possess greater language development skills, increased IQs, harder-working brains, more sensitive spatial-temporal skills, and improved test scores over those who don’t.
Music Is Essential to Childhood Development
Elizabeth B. Carlton, Assistant Professor at Catawba College in North Carolina, states that musical experiences have great value in the determination of a child’s long-term development. They help develop intuitive responses, enhance listening skills, aid in learning vocabulary, sound and pitch differentiation, emotional and creative responses, and memory. Musical experiences proliferate little ones’ opportunity to experience pleasure. These experiences are critical for essential brain development during the first few years of a child’s life.
It’s important to understand that music activates every subsystem of the brain. This includes structures involved in emotion as well as motivation, which makes it especially effective in creating bonds between individuals. And because music doesn’t build the same barriers as language may (if a child is special needs, shy, doesn’t speak the dominant language, or is on the spectrum), it gives greater opportunity for children to learn to work together and engage in a group activity. Music is the ultimate leveler of the playing field.
Guitar lessons in particular are important because of their prominence in rock and pop, country and folk music. Teaching a student to play a guitar sets them up for playing the music they want to play, which is usually why they ask for music lessons in the first place. Nobody wants to learn to play “Mary Had A Little Lamb”, they want to learn “Seven Nation Army” or “China Girl”.
Supporting Research
It’s also important to note that since educational facilities are being forced due to lack of funding to eliminate music programs, considerable research has been conducted to determine the impact of the destruction of these programs. Many of these studies have been conducted privately by various for- and non-profit organizations. While some of these organizations may be somewhat biased, the research is no less compelling:
- Music, whether playing it, listening to it, or creating it, involves almost all of our cognitive abilities (Zatorre, 2005).
- Doctors have found that babies express preference for the same kind of music they heard while in the womb (Vardin, 2008.)
- Low-income students who had arts-rich experiences in high schools were more than three times as likely to earn a B.A. as low-income students without those experiences. (Duncan, 2009-2010)
Many studies have also been conducted by governmental groups, the least-biased of critical reviewers. Their conclusions have also been decidedly pro-musical education.
In a study by the National Institutes of Health published in 2017, a vast critical review of hundreds of studies done regarding the health of children who receive a musical education was completed. Of the many conclusions in this review, several were particularly revealing, such as: “Music may expose the child to challenges and multi-sensory experiences which enhance learning abilities and encourage cognitive development. In particular, music can also engage cognitive functions, such as planning, working memory, inhibition, and flexibility.” Also, “Music may play an important role in meeting a child’s educational needs as it provides a means of self-expression, giving the child an outlet for feelings and emotions.” And finally, “Musical interventions may become an appealing approach for schools that are increasingly facing a challenge of supporting education processes and development of children with varied degrees of learning and behavioral difficulties.”
It seems pretty likely that music, then, has a profoundly positive effect on childhood development.
Testimonials
Parents love watching their kids engaging, learning and loving music. Here are a few of the comments from the parents of students at Rock Out Loud:
- “Just awesome! Friendly instructors, the kids have a great time while learning.”
- “My 6 year old daughter started taking piano lessons with Rob in September and she loves it.”
- “Absolutely love their lessons, and the experience they have here. Tuesday has become their favorite day of the week because of music lessons.”
- “Sabrina Loves her teachers & has been making great progress. Before starting music lessons with the Staten Island School of ROCK she had taken piano/vocals elsewhere, but was not given the proper training or experience the Staten Island School of ROCK offers!!“
- “My 8 year old has been taking drum lessons and he has an amazing teacher! My son looks forward to his lesson every week. His coach really cares and puts the time in and the bond he has created with my son is incredible. Thank you Staten Island School of Rock. The best investment I have ever made.“
Clearly, music is an incredibly engaging, rewarding, fun, and exciting endeavor. At Rock Out Loud, we take a different approach to traditional music lessons and we think it shows: in the enthusiasm of the parents of our students, in the excitement and joy in our students’ hard work and performance, in the clear increases that we see in our students’ confidence, self-esteem, learning capacity, and overall happiness.
Apps, Games and Tech
There exist tens of thousands of apps, games, and other tech that allow for music to be enjoyed at all levels, by all ages, in all modes of participation. Whether you’re a lover of classic rock and belt the tunes in the shower or you’re one step away from American Idol, technology has evolved to the extent that everyone can get involved in music in one way or another. The accessibility is truly awesome.
Music is something that absolutely everyone can participate in. You don’t have to be a rock star to rock out on air guitar, and you don’t need to be Taylor Swift to belt out some sweet vocals, or Gene Krupa to enjoy a sweet drum solo. While it takes practice to achieve those kinds of skills, technology is making huge inroads in getting aspiring musicians to their goals. Whether it’s Carnegie Hall or your neighbor Bill Carnegie’s living room, the tools are available to help you attain your musical goals.
One of the tools we extend to our students here at Rock Out Loud is our Alexa Music Tool. This free tool can assist in a number of ways to tune your guitar, vocal pitch, or provide background beats for different styles of music. This tool makes practice portable and fun for our students, and their parents appreciate its convenience. After all, what do kids who are crazy about music want to do when they get home after an awesome music lesson? Make more music, of course. We make it easy with our Alexa Music Tool.
Guitar & Bass Lessons at Rock Out Loud
So, why send your kids to guitar lessons at Rock Out Loud? We’re a little different than other music schools, in that:
- We teach our students what they want to learn. We’ve never met a student inspired to take up guitar lessons by “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” (Come to think of it, we’ve never met a teacher inspired to teach “Mary Had A Little Lamb” either.) We teach our students the music they want to play.
- Our teachers are well-versed in classic rock, blues, pop and many other genres that students want to learn.
- We teach our students to incorporate their own musical preference into their lessons.
- We have our students start playing immediately, and we encourage them to do it on an electric guitar. This is because electric guitars are smaller, lighter, easier to handle for small fingers, and significantly easier to play.
We believe in the importance of musical education to every child’s upbringing, but we know that traditionally, music lessons can seem boring or stuffy. By teaching our students how to play music they want to learn how to play instead of the old standards, we engage our students more quickly and more completely. We have found that when students are compelled to figuring something out because they genuinely want to learn how to make it happen … they make it happen. Students, especially children, are innately interested in figuring out how things work, and we already know that a musical education is essential to a child’s well-rounded development. We strive to engage and interest our students in their musical education. We think they’re all rock stars who are still practicing.
We’d love to give your budding musical student their guitar lessons. We guarantee an experience like nowhere else in the area. Please contact us anytime for more information and to Rock Enroll. We can’t wait to work with you!
