I can wholeheartedly recommend School of Rock (SOR) to anyone interested in learning to understand music, play an instrument, or learn to sing. I’ll describe my reasons below, but if you are reading this review and just want a quick summary, for me I’d give it a “two-thumbs-up”, five-stars, a very-happy-face – pick a measure and I’ll pick the highest!
Here is my story. When my mom was living with us, she encouraged me to pick up and play an old acoustic guitar that was laying around the house. After more encouragement (or nagging!), I eventually did pick it up. But I found it very difficult to play. So, I bought an electric guitar. It was easier to play, but it did not magically transform me into a guitar wizard, as I had hoped! I eventually got to where I could play most of the open chords and a few scales. After that I began a few years of watching YouTube videos on guitar technique, usually quickly getting frustrated because even what seemed to be simple, was not simple for me. Then came COVID-19. Though terrifying, the pandemic had some unexpected benefits. All of a sudden I had extra time on my hands, so I chose to spend more time on music. I “got serious” about playing guitar and I started singing along with songs that I liked. All of my life I thought that singing was something that either one can do or can’t do, and I thought that I couldn’t. At some point, with the help of voice apps like SingSharp, I realized that I could get very close to hitting pitches correctly and had the beginnings of what I have learned is called relative pitch. Then, just over a year ago, I began working regularly with another beginner musician on guitar and voice. As my friend and I continued down the path of trying to teach ourselves voice and guitar, my wife, unbeknownst to me, signed me up for a trial guitar lesson at SOR. This was in the summer of 2021. I’m eternally grateful to her for that – it has completely changed my musical journey! During the very first lesson, I learned that my command of timing needed work, as did my knowledge of very basic things like common chord voicings. My teacher did not hesitate to point out what I needed to work on, but he didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. The simple drills that he recommended were very effective. Since that first lesson, I decided that voice was an important part of my journey, so I added a weekly voice lesson to my guitar lessons. This led me to Eric Mann, who teaches voice and guitar. I’ve been working with Eric for several months now and the experience has transformed my concept and appreciation for music in general, and voice in particular. For now, I’ve decided to work on voice as my main musical interest. Eric is fluent in voice, guitar, keyboards and music theory. He is never heavy-handed about music theory, rather he makes suggestions, like “you might want to consider using the solfege method to help with your understanding of pitch.”. I’ve learned to pay attention to what Eric suggests! Everything that he has suggested has furthered my understanding of, and my ability to actually do musical things. I now realize that music is a lifelong journey, I started late (I’m retired), but I am so happy that I somehow found my way to SOR. I can confidently say that had I not enrolled, I would have never have figured how to achieve my goals. YouTube, books and apps can be helpful, but I see music as something that is essentially a human-to-human thing, not something that can be done exclusively alone in one’s basement.
School Of Rock is a welcoming and gentle environment for pursuing your musical journey. I can’t recommend it enough.
