Nanaimo Music School

New to singing, and want to take the guesswork out of getting started? I have a new course that can help! Comment for more info :)

Looking for singers who want to decrease tension and free their voices to beta test my new course! Comment below if that's you :)

NMS Open House! Weds Aug 28th 4-6 pm 2522 Quill Drive
Check out the studio!
Meet the teachers!
Have a cookie :)

Come work for us, we are awesome!

The annual 2023 Nanaimo Music School Faculty Show is coming up soon!! Contact me now for tickets...NMS students get in for just $10, regular admission $20! There will be a ton of great music with our 4 awesome teachers, don't miss this one!

We are accepting new students for the fall! Contact us today to book your lessons!

Our first annual faculty concert! This will be a lot of fun! Lots of different kinds of music from classical to bluegrass to jazz!

This is so true! The word "talent" gets thrown around a lot and seems to imply a lack of effort. However! Most of the amazing musicians you hear are a result of great teachers and years and years of dedicated practice :)

These two youngsters met in the music program at VIU 16 years ago! They quickly became best friends, fell in love and became musical partners as well. About 10 years ago, Bob convinced Erika to quit her jobs at Starbucks and Canadian Tire and pursue teaching music full time. We made the 2nd bedroom in our first rental place into a teaching studio, and Erika never looked back! We now have 3 teaching studios in our house and are very excitedly looking towards the future, and what we can do with Nanaimo Music School! I think these two youngsters would be pretty stoked to see what they've accomplished! :)

Practicing

Practice is how we grow as musicians. Of course there are other things too, like talking about music, reading, learning, listening, jamming, playing, improvising and performing. But it always comes down to actually sitting down and working things out.

Scales, arpeggios, technical exercises and etudes are all essential, but so is sight reading and learning new material. So how do you decide what to work on?

Before we can even get there we have more questions to answer, like when, where and how long?

When?
I find I have two options, early in the morning before my daughter is awake, or after she has gone to bed in the evening. I also work a physical day job and am usually exhausted in the evening so sometimes that isn't the best option.

Where?
Spare bedroom? Living room? Dining room? This is one of the most important parts of the equation. Having a space that is free of distractions is very important. Leave your cellphone somewhere else or turn it off. Turn off the TV and the computer, it is far too easy to be distracted while trying to practice these days. With so many things designed to distract us, it helps to have a space set up, or that you can quickly re-arrange to be able to focus.

How long?
This is another good one. Twenty minutes of noodling or playing through pieces isn't practicing, it's playing, which is great! But it's still not real practice. Having a daily warm up routine and set of exercises that you spend 5 minutes working through each day can go a long way! However, if you've only got 5 minutes, what should you do?

It's hard to find time for real practice sometimes, but if you set yourself up for success it can be very rewarding.

If your having trouble finding motivation to practice, try these 3 steps!

1) Decide on a dedicated practice time each day (or on set days). This could be as little as 15 minutes of undisturbed time, or a good solid hour if you can make it work. Everyone is busy but if you schedule it in you'd be surprised what you can accomplish!

2) set up a practice space. It could be a spare room, a corner of a room, or a music stand that you bring out. If you can create a distraction free zone for practice, you will be much more productive!

3) Have a plan! If you need to, write down what you are going to work on. It doesn't have to all be scales (I actually really enjoy practicing scales!) And make sure to leave a few minutes to just play and enjoy it.

I hope this helps!

If you have any questions about practicing, please don't hesitate to reach out!

If you have some tips or some things I've missed please feel free to share in the comments!

Happy practicing!
Bob

This is our guitar lesson room. It also features a modest recording setup so that if our students want or need to record a simple demo, we got them covered! Whether it's a recording for your child's grandparents for christmas, or a demo for getting your first gig, or even a good quality recording for an audition to get into a university music program. We can help you out!