Our teachers make it a priority to get to know you on a personal level and to become familiar with your personal musical needs and goals. We do not treat every student the same in terms of what and how we teach. A 7 year old having their first guitar lesson will have very different needs than a 57 year old taking up piano for the second time after having had lessons as a child.

The main reason to choose The Music Stand as your music lesson provider, is that we are sensitive to the fact that every student is an individual. If you enroll here for music lessons, we will work with you to make a plan that will fit your needs and musical preferences. During your first lesson your teacher will ask you about your favourite type of music and set goals to help accomplish whatever aspirations you have for yourself or your child. In addition to their teaching credentials, our teachers have warm personalities, are extremely friendly, and strive to get to know each student and their parent on a personal level.

Our piano teachers teach a variety of styles from classical to popular music. Whether you want to learn Bach or Alicia Keys, our teachers are happy to help you become the pianist you want to be. Our piano faculty will show you the fundamentals of sight reading, technique and theory, but they will also incorporate your favourite songs into your lessons. You do not have to have a piano at home to take lessons. A simple full size electronic keyboard will suffice for the first few months. Our piano teachers enjoy sharing their love for the piano with you.

Our guitar teachers teach rock, blues, metal, jazz, country, and classical guitar lessons on electric, acoustic, and bass guitars. Beginner students can expect to work on chords, simple songs and melodies, sight reading and theory. We balance musicianship and fun by making sure that each lesson you are challenged with a new technical or theory concept, but always end with something fun such as your favourite riff or song. We use a variety of guitar method books to accomplish this and encourage students to bring CDs or their iPod to their lesson to learn their favourite tunes.

Our voice teachers primarily focus on popular and classical music. If you have always wanted to be a better rock, pop, country, jazz, gospel or opera singer, then we have the right voice teachers for you. Voice students spend time each week doing physical exercises to improve their vocal range, ear training, breath control, vibrato, tone production, enunciation and more. All voice students set goals with their teacher to work on sounding like their favourite recording artists, or if they prefer, to develop their own unique voice.

The two most common methods of teaching violin are Suzuki and Conservatory/Old European Method. The Suzuki violin method is how we start most of our students, particularly our youngest ones. They learn many concepts by ear first and play a song within the first few lessons. The violin is harder to learn than piano (on the piano if you hit a key, even if it is the wrong key the tone is still correct – on the violin you have to learn exactly where to place your finger and bow on the string to make the tone). Being able to play a song as quickly as possible keeps the student motivated.
We also introduce the Conservatory/European method system to all students, which stresses the ability to read music. In later years, all violin students use only this method.
Violin students can also study fiddling which is just a style of playing.