We have been officially open 20 months, and we thank our awesome customers for their continued patronage, our hardworking students who make us look good, and our amazing instructors, lab attendants, and staff for making us the best music school in central Ohio. Yay! Hugs and high fives all around.

For the curious, we currently have 274 students on the long-term roster. We’ve been hovering around the number more than a month, because some students have paused lessons in favor of spring sports, and still others have given us notice that they intend to break for the summer.  Photographs inside →

We must be out of our minds. We’re giving away a free summer camp this year. No strings attached.

Just to clear up a point of confusion, anyone can enroll in MTMS Summer Day Camps. You don’t have to be a current music student at MTMS. You don’t have to be a current music student anywhere. You can be a brand-spanking-new beginner. But MTMS students and experienced musicians are welcome, too. We’ve got a spot for you, regardless of your skill and experience. Photographs inside →

At MTMS, we love music. And we love it when our students love music, too. So it thrills us to see our students excited to share their music with friends and family. We believe that music is meant to be heard and should be shared.   Photographs inside →

…and we’re on the sixth and last day of Bring a Friend to Lessons Week April 2012! We’re going out with a friendly “bang” of drum heads and piano keys… Photographs inside →

With only two days left in MTMS Bring a Friend to Lessons Week, excitement is anything but winding down. Photographs inside →

We’ve passed the halfway point, and we’re still excited to see the friends of our students step through our doors. Welcome to all, and we hope you are having a good time and enjoying all the donuts. Photographs inside →

By now, we’re Dunkin Donuts’ favorite customer! Bring a Friend to Lessons Week Day 2 was a smashingly sweet success. Miss Emily’s preschool music class just about burst at the seams with energy and enthusiasm for music, as almost every child in the class brought a friend. The older kids in private music lessons and their friends got to rock out, too. There was no shortage of donuts to be had, and since we keep children for at least forty minutes at a time, kids were sure to be done bouncing off the walls by the time we sent them home. Bring on the friends! Four days of “Bring a Friend to Lessons Week” to go. Photographs inside →

Izzie and Sammy welcome you to Bring a Friend to Lessons Week!

On Monday, April 16th, Michelle Tuesday Music School launched Bring a Friend to Lessons Week April 2012. With music, balloons and donuts from our favorite neighbor, Dunkin Donuts, we celebrated in style. Check out the pictures below, and be sure to bring your friend if you have a lesson later this week! Show off your mad music skills.
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Photos from the St. Patrick’s Day Party and Irish Carnival are posted on the blog. Scroll down the post for photos.

This week is BRING A FRIEND TO LESSONS WEEK. All students enrolled in classes and private lessons are invited to bring a friend, show off their mad music skills, and get a photo commemorating the event. MTMS will provide refreshments.

All Samplers are currently half price. Always wanted to try learning a different instrument? Now is the perfect time! Enroll online here.

Looking for a fun summer activity for the kids? MTMS Summer Day Camps are now enrolling. Watch our MTMS Summer Camps web page and Facebook page for our exciting FREE SUMMER CAMP GIVEAWAY starting this week!

And finally, our Spring Recitals will be May 12th and 13th at MTMS. Recital sign-ups are posted in the lobby. Please see your instructor to decide whether you are ready to perform, to select your performance piece(s), and to pick your desired performance time.

Happy Spring!
Michelle & the MTMS Faculty and Staff

Enroll in summer music camps, classes, and private music lessons at michelletuesday.com/enroll.

by Michelle Tuesday

I’m a writer. I freelance commercially as a nonfiction and copy writer, and my original songs make it into my paid performance repertoire, but my real (and, thus far, unpaid)  joy is fiction. ”Writer” is one of my lesser-known identities, because I don’t invest a lot of time on the act of writing, let alone marketing my writing. At least not yet. But as a business owner, I’ve been putting thought into the future of my writing.

I belong to a fairly extensive network of writers, so I see authors working hard to make a living as self-publishers or submit works for “publication”.  A writer friend chastised me for using quotes on that word once, because she has a book published by a small, independent publisher, and that’s “real publication” thankyouverymuch. She’s right, and I think she misunderstood my use of the quotes. Writers equate publication with success, with real authorship, and I see that as a validation thing: Photographs inside →

Our students didn’t need the luck o’the Irish to offer stellar performances at this St. Patrick’s Day event! Congratulations to all our hard-working students for preparing and polishing pieces to share with family and friends. Congrats also go out to all our game and cakewalk winners, which was pretty much everybody. A huge thank-you to The Spud Bus for providing our salty and delicious snacks, and to Kellie Taylor for preparing most of our games and events. Thanks to Chris, Angela, Karen, Ashley, and the entire MTMS staff for making our MTMS St. Patrick’s Day Party and Irish Carnival 2012 a smashing success, and here’s looking forward to our 2013 Irish Festival! Read on for photos from the event.

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Frolic Time

by Michelle Tuesday

Sammy, the little wolf-pup, loved to frolic in the sunshine and roll in the grass. It was his favorite time of day, when the trainer threw balls around for him to chase and catch. He especially liked the little light-up ball, the one that flickered every time it landed. Sammy would pick that one up and flick his head, firing the ball up and over his back, so he would have to twist to see where it landed. Sometimes, the lion cubs on the other side of the fence would wander near his pen, and Sammy would go crazy, growling and barking, showing them how mean he was. It was so much fun!

Lately, frolic time was getting weirder.  Photographs inside →

Last month, we talked about reading rhythms. Today, we’re going to talk about reading pitch.

Now that you know how to count notes and pitches, how do you figure out which string to pluck, which key to strike, or how high or low to sing? The location of the note on the staff tells you the PITCH of the note. Photographs inside →

So you want to be a lyricist! Congratulations, because the drive to create is the first thing you need to write a song. You know you want to do it, and you think you have the passion, but you’re not sure what comes next. Start by asking yourself this question: For whom are you writing? Song lyrics are meant to be heard, so you’re writing for an audience, not for yourself. This cannot be emphasized enough! Keep it in mind as we go through the steps of writing good lyrics.

Step 1: The premise. Photographs inside →

On Saturday, February 11, and Sunday, February 12, MTMS held its 2nd annual Valentine’s Recitals. For some, love was in the air. For some, bitter nods to Single’s Awareness Day were the tune of the day. All in all, our students had a lot of fun. We had some debut performances from young and adult students, and everyone did a fantastic job. As usual, MTMS would like to thank the family and friends that support our students, and the students themselves for their hard work in preparation for this outstanding performance event. See below for pictures from the concerts. Please scroll all the way down to see all the photos, because we’ve uploaded photos from two different cameras, and the best pics are at the bottom! Enjoy.

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So, you want to read music! Maybe you sing: You’re in the choir at your place of worship, or you landed a part in the local community theatre musical, and you’d like to practice at home. Perhaps you play an instrument by ear, or you read guitar, bass or drum tabs, and you’d like to learn more. But those symbols all over the page look like a foreign language to you, and the task seems daunting.

You’re right about one thing: Music is a language all its own, and you have to learn what the symbols mean before you can interpret the language. The good news? There are a finite amount of symbols to learn, and the list is much shorter than your German-English translation dictionary. You can learn it, and it’s easier than you think. Photographs inside →

New Coke: it was possibly the biggest marketing blunder in history, except maybe the Chevy-Nova-in-Mexico fiasco (get it? “No va” is Spanish for, “It doesn’t go.” Yeah, Chevy didn’t get it, either, at least not in time to stop the launch.) Photographs inside →

As a business owner, and a relatively new one at that, I’m just in the learning stages on managing entrepreneurial work/life balance. But I had a bit of a head start thanks to my plethora of part-time employment and music gigs, and I have a supportive network of family and friends, which helps. Here are some of the tricks I’ve employed to manage a schedule that includes business management, family time, friends, church, music practice and writing. Photographs inside →

Last week, I judged the December video entries for Ohio Idol. The competition was fierce this round! I’m looking forward to judging the January 80′s entries and, eventually, the live competitors.

Some of the videos were taken in a quiet, home setting, but many were recorded at live shows. I was struck by how the audience reacted to some of the performers, and it gave me pause to consider my own performance and how it touches my audience.

Almost all the singers had great voices; they have an amazing amount of talent and should continue to nurture that talent, because they could easily become professional singers even if they don’t advance in the Ohio Idol contest. But in comparing performances – not just singing, but performances – the performers who had their audiences engaged win hands down. Photographs inside →

As a musician, I have eclectic tastes in musical instruments. I like my pianos Boston, keyboards Yamaha, acoustic guitars Breedlove, drums Pearl, cymbals Sabian, and electric basses Schecter. I like my electronics Roland and my amplifiers Marshall. I like Line 6 Pod pre-amps. I’d love a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, though I haven’t dropped the cash to buy one. But those are just my own preferences. Photographs inside →