Whenever you need to learn something new you use a strategy to help you remember, most adults have learnt what works for them. However, as I learnt many years ago, just because I learn one way, it did not mean my children did. Part of our role as music teachers is to find the best way to facilitate the learning process for a person, of any age. Sometimes adults can explain the way that they learn, other times an educator reads the clues in speech and actions. It is very easy

This morning's Gemstar is Eleanor who takes Glockenspiel lessons with Ste. Did you know Frère Jacques was a real person? Well that's one...

Take a photo of your written music homework being completed or of you doing your effective piano practice and when we publish it on our...

Send a performance of a piece you have been working on to our inbox, we will ask before we share it. If the learning objective has been...

There is something special about learning any musical instrument, but sitting down at a keyboard or a piano and knowing which notes to press, in what order, to make it sound good is something special. It all starts with one lesson, one note and one dream. After that it is staying focused, being consistent and making it happen one day at a time. To give a child the option of being a professional pianist, a professional piano teacher or to just have a gift of a skill which last

While there have been some terrible things that have occurred during this current crisis for us, having to close the physical doors on our business, forced separation from our colleagues and learners, loss of revenue, increased stress (for me, my cats trying to murder me because I'm at home too much lol) there are a few, and increasing, small beauties that are blooming and unfolding as we continue on. Parents able to listen to their children practice and play. More one on one

And in the time of peril, social disruption and fear . . . the music still went on . . . In this time of bewilderment and change where many people are socially distancing and isolating themselves according to governmental advice and therefore are struggling or unable to attend music lessons. In the years that Stalybridge Music Academy has been running we have observed and concluded that music lessons work best where the students come for a lesson a week in person to the Acad

Our amazing son Joseph has just been offered the most exciting opportunity. Next month he will join The Royal Northern College of Music

Music, so far as we are concerned, is a vital and essential part not only of education but also of life. When we stop and think about it and our restrictive, mould forming, education system which strives to thrust each child out into the world as a clone of all the others, doing their part to maintain the system as the same, stale, stagnant state, we, who love the creative arts and are striving to ensure their inclusion into our insular, toxic world. We provide music educati