It's Heating Up, Folks!
While much of the country is still counting the days until the end of the school year, here in Tucson, as they say, "School's Out for Summer!" It's going to be an exciting summer for us at Desert Home Music, and we thought we'd share some of the news!
Desert Home Music runs on a year-round calendar. Continuing to take music lessons over the summer is a great way to maintain your progress, learning new things, and keeping your brain active during the school break. We do our best to work with all our families to be responsive to the vagaries of summer schedules and the desire to relax and make the most of the hot summer months.
Try Something New!
Summer is a great time for adventures... including musical ones! Here are some suggestions!
If You Want to Take It Easy
A lot of people look on the summer as a time to "kick back and relax" - they don't want to work as hard at music over the summer as they do during the school year. For them, summer is a great time to try some new repertoire, at their current level of achievement! Most of the method books our students use have companion volumes of songs (at the same level as the lesson books) that can help sustain and support the learning that we've been doing all year, while not being as challenging as moving up to the next level lesson book. Ask your teacher to recommend an appropriate book of music and play!
If You Want to Challenge Yourself
You know you have more free time over the summer, and now's the time to really make some big improvements, when you don't have homework, sports or many of the other demands on your time that fill up the school year. This summer, why not double up on lessons, try a longer lesson on for size... or maybe take your regular lesson and then another one with a friend? You'll be surprised how much you can learn in just a few weeks, if you're really focused on it!
If You Want Something New
Summer is a great time to try a brand new challenge... what about a new instrument? If you're a singer, why not try piano or ukulele -
you can learn to accompany yourself and expand your musical knowledge. If you play guitar, why not try bass for a change - or try taking a few singing lessons! There are a lot of opportunities for multi-instrumentalists, for singers who play an instrument, and for instrumentalists who can sing... and now is a great time to get started!
Summertime Scheduling
Desert Home Music instructors Adam and Julia are going on vacation for 2 weeks from June 9 to (about) June 21. This means that you may choose either to skip those 2 lessons, or to arrange to take online lessons for those weeks. Speak to your instructors about making the necessary adjustments, and we'll take care of everything!
See how easy that was? All your summer scheduling challenges are totally manageable here at Desert Home Music! We know that summer means family vacations, camps and camping, visitors and all the things that can wreak havoc with your music lesson schedule. Well, not to worry - we have you covered!
Online Lessons
Any regular in-home or in-studio lesson can be substituted for an online lesson, via Skype, Zoom Meeting, FaceTime or Google Hangouts. Just let us know (with at least 24 hours notice, of course) if you'd like to take one of your lessons online instead of in person, and you can continue learning, even if you're not at home!
Flexible Scheduling
If you'd like to switch your lesson to another day/time (either just one time, or for the entirety of the summer season), just contact your teacher, who can let you know about any available slots in their schedule. Our 24 hour notice policy still applies, though!
We can also be flexible with the length of your lesson. For example, if you usually take a 45 minute lesson, and you're planning to take a couple of weeks off, you can opt to take a few longer lessons (provided the time is available) to make up the minutes you're missing.
We're also experimenting with allowing students to reschedule their own lessons. If you'd like to be part of our "beta-testing" for this feature, contact us to send you an email that will allow you to set up a log-in account. Then you will be able (we hope!) to log in to the parent or student portal and adjust your schedule yourself! We plan to roll this out to all our students in the fall, but now seems like a great time to try it out!
Temporary Withdrawal
Desert Home Music requires one month's notice for withdrawal, but if you wish to withdraw for the remainder of the summer, we understand. However, we hope that with our ability to be flexible around your lesson days and times, and even converting one or more of your lessons to online lessons. Just remember that the only way to guarantee your first choice of available lesson times in the fall is to be a current student, so the sooner you come back to us, the more likely it is that we will be able to put you into your first choice time slot for school year 2018/2019!
The Last Bit of Big News!
Not quite yet, and not far... but we promise we'll keep you posted!
A few years ago, I was working at a different music school, and they'd decided they needed to find a new location, but they didn't want to let people know until the last minute. I was never sure why they didn't, but it caused a giant confusion when the time to move actually arrived. So I want to avoid that!
Desert Home Music's current location has been a fantastic location for us to get started, but it's time for us to find somewhere a little bit roomier, with better parking options for our students and a little more studio space for our offices and ever-growing instrument collection (more about that in a future post, too!) so we've decided to search out a new place to call "our desert home." We're planning on staying in the same general area of Tucson, and we'll let you know all the information just as soon as we have it.
Probably we'll be transitioning to our new space throughout this Fall, but we're hoping to have some amazing Music Parties (our take on recitals) starting around Christmastime!
For now, enjoy the summer, and we'll see you soon!
