Swan Music School
is not your average music school. While we definitely emphasize music theory and technical proficiency, we believe that music is little more than audible math without the human heart. Therefore, we approach music instruction through the lens of personal expression.
It’s natural in this climate of computerization, efficiency, and ‘right answers’ to doubt what is inside, especially if students have had little experience with the expressive arts in the past. With an unwavering faith in each person’s potential to express something unique, we nurture our students into surprising themselves.
We strive to help the students view their instruments as extensions of themselves and to feel confident that they can communicate through them. We do this via exercises and lessons designed to promote student experimentation. We teach the chords but ask the students which combinations they prefer. We then explain the theory that underpins why people tend to prefer certain sound combinations to others. We don’t want students to memorize rules. We want them to know the rules and then be able to consciously choose to follow or break them as they map their own life experiences in music.
Along with this approach comes the awareness that some people will feel overly vulnerable when asked to express themselves. It’s natural in this climate of computerization, efficiency, and ‘right answers’ to doubt what is inside, especially if students have had little experience with the expressive arts in the past. We welcome the ‘I can’t do this’ students and see them as some of our favorite challenges. With an intuitive sense of what’s blocking people from free self-expression, we nurture our students into surprising themselves. We never resort to empty praise and we don’t pull our punches in the pursuit of excellence, but our identity as teachers rests in a place of unwavering faith in each person’s creative potential.
It’s that faith that we’re actually teaching; music is just the means.