Philosophy

Regardless of your musical or lack of musical training, kNOW music studio believes in helping you make music NOW and in the future.

At kNOW music studio, we believe in assisting the student hone his/her musical abilities and to reach his/her full potential. One aspect of the teaching includes fostering a love for music within the student. With the love of music and helping the student reach his/her full potential, kNOW feels having goals to meet is better than simply meeting a required practice time. Goals are met by correct practicing, and this creates progress. The progress will lead to enjoyment and motivation for continued practice. Assessing of practice can be based upon whether or not the student consistently meets goals.

Lost a lesson plan – no worries…

At kNOW music studio, we understand that printed lesson plans can be misplaced or forgotten so we also provide digital copies of the lesson plans.

KNOW does not just work during the lesson. We believe in providing the students with the best musical education possible so kNOW music studio diligently prepares before and after the lessons by creating lesson plans to help each student and then evaluates each lesson to help make the next lesson even better.

What about functional skills?

Another aspect of strengthening a love for music and a good level of playing is to teach functional skills. The skills include the ability to sight-read, improvise, and play lead sheets. An additional aspect of fostering the love of music is giving the student a comprehensive music learning experience. The comprehensive music learning includes knowing music theory, history, and styles. All of these are discussed in the private lessons and will later be studied in more detail in classes outside of the lesson.

  • From theory, the student can apply knowledge of chords to improvise and compose.
  • With music history, the student learns how to feel a connection with the music and how to play stylistically.
  • With music styles, having the student define the styles can assist the student in applying the knowledge to repertoire.
  • The students can also participate in small projects such as writing paragraphs on music history/music styles and composing short compositions. These exercises help to formulate the knowledge within the student, and the projects will inform the teacher where the student may not be grasping a topic.

What kind of modeling is used for teaching?

At kNOW music studio, we believe a key ingredient to teaching is modeling curiosity and enjoyment of music. The teacher’s love and curiosity for music helps inspire the student’s love and curiosity. The teacher actively listens to the student play his/her pieces and assists the student with problem solving and discovery learning. This process is done by the teacher asking questions and addressing problems for the student to solve and with the teacher assisting the student’s growth in learning how to problem solve on his/her own. The end goal of teaching problem solving is to allow the student to learn how to teach him/herself and to solve difficulties without the teacher’s assistance. We believe in the student’s ability to problem solve independently from the teacher which allows the student to learn faster such as when practicing at home. One day, the student may also discontinue lessons, and the student will need to know how to continue learning music without having a teacher.

When should a student begin private lessons?

At kNOW music studio, the preferred age for a student to begin formal music lessons is when the student is 7 or 8. The reason can be explained by thinking of the student’s musical intelligence as a lump of clay bestowed at conception. Each person is conceived with a different size lump of clay. Before turning seven, the clay is still soft and can be molded and shaped. Focusing on musical intelligence (or aptitude) works best during the soft stage to prepare for when the clay hardens around the age of 7. The musical intelligence before the age of 7 shapes the clay into a container which can be filled with musical achievement after the student turns 7. The importance of cultivating the student’s intelligence before achievement can be shown with an example of farmers. A farmer who plants his crops in early May before getting the field ready by plowing etc. will have less success than another farmer who plants in later May after getting his field ready before planting. The analogy applies with the farmer planting in early May being a student who emphasizes on achievement before getting ready by developing aptitude. The farmer who waits until the end of May is the student who emphases aptitude such as tuneful singing and understanding rhythm before working on achievement.

What about parents and the lessons?

kNOW Music Studio knows that the best success happens when teachers, parents, and students work together. Therefore, kNOW Music Studio strives to make sure that parents are informed about the development of their child’s musical abilities. We believe in the importance of keeping parents involved with the musical journey.