Category: MTMS Blog Posts

MTMS is taking next week off in observance of Thanksgiving. Take this opportunity to play something you enjoy for your friends and your family. When we take a week from lessons, it is great to keep up your practice. Choose something you used to struggle with but made it through or something that just makes you smile.

Always remember that music is fun. Learning is great, and occasionally it can be easy to forget when you’re stuck in a single piece of music that maybe isn’t coming together the way you want. You can take a break from the piece, and play things you enjoy to remind yourself why you wanted to learn this instrument in the first place. Enjoy your family next week, too, because that’s what holidays are all about.

Music History: The Harlem Renaissance was a period in the 1920s that celebrated Jazz. Now 100 years later our music history station is going to be focusing on that. Listen to some very famous examples and meet some of the most famous musicians of the period!

Composition: Matching our Music History station, composition is going to be covering the Harlem Renaissance! Listen to some of the famous music from the time and even try making some of your own!

November Young Students Blurb: This month, we have brand new autumn-themed coloring pages for our young students! We also have a note naming game that has really good practice for students working on the notes on the staff! 

MTMS is extremely proud of all of our music students. Both teachers and students work hard to make their music come alive. Our Halloween Playlist shows what they’ve worked so hard for, and what they continue to achieve. Come watch it with us!

Feel free to share with family and friends. These musical talents are meant to be shared.

Today (10/25) is the deadline for the Halloween Youtube Playlist for MTMS. Please get those submissions in today if you haven’t already!

Our playlist will come out on Halloween (10/31). We’re so excited to share it with everyone because we love our students and we appreciate all of their work to be ready to share with families and friends.

Tentatively planning an in-person recital in January. Stay tuned.

I always call this kind of background music “muzak” but I didn’t know until today that Muzak is a brand name of background music. It’s been a brand since 1954 with several different channels that mostly use original artists to create the music.

Do you mind music in a shop or a restaurant while you’re in there? It might depend on volume or the type. I don’t mind it much when I’m out in public shops.

There is pushback for music in public places – some societies are reaching for the quiet instead. I wonder what that looks like. Pipedown in the UK is one such organization and they seem to be marketing it as noise pollution.

The other place we hear a lot of piped music is music on hold – every time we’re on hold for a telephone it feels like we have some sort of music with “Thank you for calling. Your call is important to us. You are number (pause) 6 (pause) in the wait.”

Companies are out there to market this to everyone who needs to keep people on hold. I find that’s more annoying than elevator music, but there is that idea that it keeps the customer engaged while they need to wait. Better than total silence? I think that’s a matter of opinion.

What are your feelings on elevator music? Does it make you want to leave public spaces? Does the music on hold make you want to hang up the phone? Or are you engaged more because there’s something there? I would love to know.