Between The Lines Music

...And how we might avoid it altogether in our students! Stage-fright, nerves, performance anxiety - call it what you will, it's a frustrating and sometimes paralyzing obstacle to making music in front of people, sometimes even your music teacher! We've all experienced it in some form, at some time, and while it's certainly no fun, a certain level of anxiety about performing can be a tool for motivating us to practice. But we all, as students, parents, teachers and performers, need to develop strategies to deal with it, and sometimes, to avoid inadvertently creating it. As performance opportunities arise, like festivals, recitals, jam sessions and so on, I often hear parents asking their kids: "Are you nervous about the recital (or whatever)?" Most people, if asked in that language, will respond in the affirmative: "A little," "Yes," etc. I try to coach parents into asking more neutral questions, like "There's a recital coming...

It's a valid question. When I was a young music student in Canada, it seemed crazy to even consider taking music lessons over summer vacation, and I'm sure my parents were happy that they didn't have to drive me to my music teacher's house in the middle of summer with no air conditioning in the car! But I also remember going back to my lessons after a long summer holiday and being frustrated that the songs I'd played so beautifully in June seemed impossible in September. As an adult, I've enjoyed taking workshops and classes over the summer - picking up a new skill or polishing something that I've done for years, and it seems to give me a head-start and some much needed momentum in my practicing, playing and singing. It may sound a trifle self-serving for us at Between the Lines Music School to be arguing in favor of summer lessons... but there are lots of great reasons to take lessons in the summer. For ongoing students, it keeps up the momen...

“I didn’t have time to practice this week; I had a birthday party/sports event to go to.” “I didn’t get much practicing done; it was really busy at work/school.” “I can only practice at my grandma’s house, ‘cause she has a piano. She lives in Spokane.” “I left my music at Dad’s/work/my boyfriend’s place, so I couldn’t practice.” Every music teacher I’ve ever known has heard all of these, and a hundred more. From child, teenaged and adult students, from parents and grandparents of students… there are always a million reasons why a student didn’t practice. To be honest, all those excuses don’t bother me too much. At least they demonstrate an acknowledge-ment that practicing should be happening, even though it didn’t. The ones that shock me are the students who seem to feel that having to practice at home is a failure by the teacher, somehow. As though the half-hour or hour-long lesson, once a week, (as long as nothing else comes up) should be enough to show ...

I wish I could sing, but... ... I can't carry a tune in a bucket. ... my voice just sounds so terrible. ... I have to be really drunk, first. ... [insert reason/excuse here] It makes me sad, frankly , to think that so many people will never know the sheer, unadulterated joy of singing out as loudly as they want to, for whomever may be in the vicinity, unselfconsciously and just because it feels good. And baby, it feels GOOD. So what makes us believe we can't sing, and what can we do about it? Music - making it as well as simply enjoying it - is as vital as physical activity to keep us sane and healthy. In fact, making music (playing an instrument or singing) is physical activity!  Imagine if we thought of exercise the same way we think about singing. I, for example, am pretty clumsy and have no hand/eye coordination, short legs and no gift at any sport I've ever tried. I'm not fast, I'm not terribly strong, and while I'm pretty competitive, that ...

Finding our Niche When you're starting a business, especially one that is in a competitive market, one of the first things to figure out is: Where does my business fit? What do we offer that is different and awesome, that our competitors don't? We thought about that a lot as we contemplated setting up yet another music school in the Portland area. They're everywhere! So how could we set ourselves apart? First of all, our location in Downtown Portland is unusual for a music school. The building itself is cool and quirky, which can be a plus or a minus. We decided to think of it as a big positive. It sets us apart, for a lot of really good reasons. We're not in a suburban strip mall, near families with young kids who want to take some lessons. That's ok... that market is well served by a great many wonderful music schools (some of whom we work for!). The market that seems to us to be underserved is... GROWNUPS! When we all lived in British Columbia, we fou...

What's in a name? Technically, we called it Between the Lines because we're located between the red and blue Max lines, in Downtown Portland. But if you read between the lines..... ... see what we did there? We're kinda big on puns around here. Sorry.  No, the fact is that naming a new venture is an under appreciated level of organization. We tossed around a lot of ideas, and ultimately came to the conclusion that we wanted to avoid the standard way of naming a music school, which is to say we didn't want to have a specifically "music term pressed into service as a school name." (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) Anyway, we thought that one of the big differences between us and our competition is our location - right in the heart of Portland's Downtown. We hope to be able to take advantage of that market, recruiting students who are adults that work (and possibly live) at the heart of the city, and want an opportunity to study...