Coyote Music Studio

Fall Scheduling! Send me your preferred times for fall private lessons. Send me at least 3 different times so that I can find just the right spot in my schedule for you!

Enrollment link:
http://www.coyotemusicstudio.com/enrollment.html

Early Childhood Music Classes begin in Septemeber:

YouTube announcement:
https://youtube.com/shorts/jV49Wc-gPhU?si=YvkRaaRcinA7A2Z_

Class Schedule:
Family Music for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers
10:30am Weds, Sep 9 - Oct 28

Piano Level A, for ages 4-5 yrs
11am Thurs, Sep 3 - Dec 3

Piano Level B, for ages 6-7 yrs
3:30pm Thurs, Sep 3 - Dec 3

Early Childhood Music Classes return in September with Piano for 4-6 yrs starting Sep 3rd and our most requested class, Family Music for 0-5yrs starting Sep 9th. Classes are small. Enroll online
http://www.coyotemusicstudio.com/

Well it's the last day to vote in Best of Denton and I forgot to let y'all know we'd been nominated. It's quick and easy. Pop over to bestofdenton.com and you can find Coyote Music Studio under the Life and Fun section, Private/Group Lessons category. Love you, Denton. Thanks for supporting music therapy and music education.

Early Childhood Piano Classes at Coyote Music Studio begin Sep 3rd.
11am Thursdays, Piano Level A for 4 & 5 y/o
3:30 Thursdays, Piano Level B for 6 & 7 y/o
Enroll at coyotemusicstudio.com

9 years ago I decided to leave public school teaching and go back to music therapy but I wanted to build a sustainable practice, not continue what pushed me out of the field in the first place. I knew my arthritic body couldn't handle packing in and packing out all my instruments and other equipment every hour at a different home or facility every day so I chose not to work with medicaid waiver programs, which require you to see clients in their homes whether it's medically necessary or not. I also decided not to work with ABA clinics because of many reasons both personal and work related. This meant I had significantly limited my available client base so I worked odd jobs, like cleaning houses, until I could have enough clients. With my background in both music therapy and music ed, I opened early childhood music classes for children of all abilities. The next year I opened my home to private lesson students "for side cash" and learned that piano lessons will pay the bills. This is how Coyote Music Studio was born. My tagline is "Music. Therapy. Education." because that's exactly what I do. I never thought I would enjoy teaching lessons so much but I quickly realized that the methods I had learned from, and that so many teachers use, were frustrating to my students. Music is supposed to be fun and I was losing many of the students who came to me specifically because I'm a music therapist. I knew there had to be a better way so I researched different teaching styles and methods until I found Music Learning Theory by Edwin E Gordon. It states that music is a language and should be learned that way. This means we don't start by memorizing the music staff and then applying those notes to the instrument. That's a cognitive exercise that requires students to already understand that symbols represent words or things. This means they need to be old enough to at least be reading sight words and if they have any sort of learning difficulties then playing music will be really frustrating for them. Mozart didn't learn like that. His father and sister taught him to play learning musical patterns so he was playing complicated pieces and composing music before he could read and write it. His sister wrote down his compositions when he was 5 years old, for example. Music Learning Theory says that we start by understanding musical patterns and playing simple songs using those patterns then expand those patterns to create phrases until we're playing entire pieces. We do all this before learning to read and write, just like we learn to have conversations in our native language before learning to read and write it. After we can understand musical patterns and our instrument, we start learning to read and write on the music staff and all those patterns are visible. Students can sightread almost right away without having to name notes. They name notes slowly as we go. I know it sounds backward if you learned music in the 20th century but I promise it works. I found curriculum from two publishers that I love that follow Music Learning Theory and have been using them now for 6 years. I'll add them in the comments if you're curious. My focus on early childhood means that with this curriculum, I'm able to teach 4 and 5-year-olds as well. My retention rate has drastically increased to the point that most of my kiddos start around age 5 or 6 and stick with me until they go to middle school. Most of them only stop piano lessons because they've decided to take Orchestra or band. Most of the students coming out of my studio are becoming multi-instrumentalists. That's not normal. Most music studios have a very high turnover rate like I did when I first started this studio and I'm convinced it's because of the methods they use. It only attracts and retains kids who are already academically brilliant or don't need extra help. But this method is better for them too and there's lots of other kids who also want to play music. One of the kids who started when I first began using these method books is now in honors Orchestra after only playing the cello for one year but of course he's been playing piano for 6. He's already composing his own music, transposing music to different keys, figuring out his orchestra music on piano and his piano music on his cello, and adding his own variations. He's doing things musically at 11 that I wasn't doing until I was 20. Most of my students can transpose simple music by ear within a month of starting lessons and the ones who get to book 3 are simply amazing musicians. I really wish I had more flute students (a lot of flutes start in middle school but I can start you earlier!) but so far my piano studio has produced kids who went on to also play bassoon, saxophone, oboe, violin, viola, cello, percussion, trombone, and trumpet as well as win awards in competitions. I play none of those but I inspired these kids to be multi-instrumentalists and that's an amazing win for my studio. Someone nominated Coyote Music for the Denton Record-Chronicle best business awards so when voting begins, it would be really cool if you chose me. I have big plans for this little studio. Thank you all for your support over the years. 💕

Lessons on piano, ukulele, flute*, and voice for ages 5+
*kids under 9 can start on Pennywhistle, recorder, or a Nuvo flute.

We're on the Nextdoor app. Share our Summer Music Camps with your neighbors!

nextdoor.com

Did you see the this week at the Dallas Museum of Art? Tag us in your pictures!