Category: MTMS Blog Posts

🎶 Soak Up the Sounds at Gahanna’s Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival – June 13–15, 2025

If you love live music, good vibes, and local flavor, the Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival in Gahanna, Ohio, is the place to be this June. Now in its 26th year, this beloved music festival brings three days of nonstop performances from some of the best blues, jazz, funk, and even bluegrass artists around.

Set in the heart of the charming Creekside District, this festival has become a summertime tradition for fans of Gahanna music and anyone who just wants a fun weekend with family and friends.

🎷 What to Expect

• Over 30 live performances across three main stages—including national acts, local favorites, and rising stars.
• Genres go beyond blues and jazz to include funk, reggae, bluegrass, and more.
• This year’s lineup features artists like Vanessa Collier, Jessy J, Tony Monaco Trio, Marion Meadows, and Groove City Big Band.
• There’s even a Kids’ Stage on Saturday and Sunday with family-friendly shows and activities.

🥁 It’s More Than Just Music

There’s something magical about enjoying live music with the creek flowing nearby, local food trucks sizzling, and artisan vendors lining the walkways. Whether you’re grooving with friends, dancing with your kids, or soaking up a sax solo under the stars, the vibe is pure summer joy.

🎟️ Tickets & Tips

• Kids 10 & under get in free.
• Youth and military discounts are available.
• You can grab a single-day ticket or a full weekend pass for all the fun.
• Free parking and a shuttle service from AEP Ohio make getting there easy.

🎺 Why You’ll Love It

• It’s one of the best Gahanna music events of the year.
• It’s family-friendly and affordable.
• The setting—Creekside Park—is beautiful and walkable.
• There’s a real sense of community and celebration woven into every note.

Whether you’re a die-hard jazz fan, a blues lover, or just looking for a lively weekend outdoors, the Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival is your ticket to summer fun. Bring a blanket, grab some local eats, and let the music carry you away.

🎭 Opera — Where Music Lessons Meet Epic Storytelling

This June at Michelle Tuesday Music School (MTMS), we’re stepping onto one of the grandest stages in music history—opera! As part of our monthly theme, students will explore this powerful blend of music and drama in their lessons and lab activities. Whether you’re brand new to opera or already a fan of the big, bold sound, this is your chance to see why this classical art form has stood the test of time.

What Makes Opera So Unique?

Let’s start with the basics: opera is a fully sung drama. Unlike a play where actors speak, opera performers sing everything. That’s right—dialogue, emotions, even arguments are delivered through music. And not just any music—classical vocal performance supported by a full orchestra.

This makes for some seriously dramatic storytelling, where the music isn’t just part of the background—it drives the story forward. That’s why opera is such a great theme for a music lesson. It blends voice, instruments, language, and emotion in a way few genres can.

From Arias to Ensembles: What You’ll Discover

In lessons this month, MTMS students will learn about some of the building blocks of opera:

• Arias – Beautiful solo pieces where a character pours out their emotions.
• Recitative – Quick, speech-like singing that moves the story along.
• Chorus and Ensemble singing – Where groups of performers create rich harmonies and dramatic tension.
• Character voice types – Like soprano, tenor, bass, and baritone—each with a special role to play.

You’ll also explore famous opera themes, learn how opera connects to history and storytelling, and even try composing or singing with opera-inspired flair in the Music Technology and Learning Lab.

Why Opera Makes a Great Music Lesson Theme

Opera combines many different skills students work on during their regular music lessons: vocal technique, dramatic expression, ensemble awareness, and even foreign language exposure. It’s theatrical, emotional, and full of life—exactly the kind of immersive theme that makes music education exciting.

Whether you’re working on piano, voice, or another instrument, opera opens the door to new techniques and deeper appreciation for classical music traditions.

Join Us In June

MTMS students will dive into opera all month long—through themed lab time with a listening station, composition station, and music history station. It’s a chance to connect your music lesson to centuries of performance history while having fun with one of the most over-the-top (in the best way!) styles of music ever created.

So come ready to explore, perform, and discover why opera has captivated audiences for generations. 🎶🎭

🎶 5 Things Parents Should Know About Ohio’s New Music Standards

At Michelle Tuesday Music School, we keep up with the latest in music education. That way, your child always gets the best. Ohio just updated its Music Learning Standards for 2024, and we’re excited about what that means for young musicians.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s new—and how it connects to what we already do every day at MTMS:

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1. Music Is More Than Playing Notes

The new standards focus on four big ideas:
🎼 Creating – coming up with new music
🎤 Performing – playing or singing music
🎧 Responding – listening and understanding
🌍 Connecting – relating music to life

It’s not just about reading notes. It’s about making music that means something.

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2. Goals for Every Age and Stage

There’s a clear path for students from Kindergarten through high school. In high school, students can follow different levels—Proficient, Intermediate, Accomplished, or Advanced.
Wherever your child starts, there’s a standard that fits.

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3. Ensembles Based on Skill, Not Just Grade

The new standards recognize that music groups often include a mix of ages.
So, ensemble goals are sorted by ability, not grade level.
That means your 6th grader and 10th grader can both thrive—at their own pace.

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4. Built for Real-Life Flexibility

Every music program is different.
Some have more time, others have fewer resources.
These standards were made to be flexible. That lets us personalize your child’s music education without skipping the essentials.

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5. Tech + Culture = A Richer Experience

Today’s students use tech everywhere—and that includes music.
The new standards encourage tools like composition apps and digital instruments.
They also include music from many cultures, helping kids see music as a universal language.

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🎵 Want to see how your child can grow with a well-rounded music education?
Let’s chat! We offer private lessons, group classes, and an awesome Music Lab that brings these ideas to life.

We discussed K-Pop not too long ago, and this month we’re celebrating J-Pop as our monthly theme for May.

J-Pop began with a cultural influx from the West, eventually influencing K-pop. (Korea is pretty close to Japan!) It began before World War II, but afterward with many Americans stationed in Japan bringing their own music like rock and roll, pop, and country, J-Pop emerged as Japanese youth were influenced by the artists they heard, and began to mix these sounds with their traditional music styles.

What started as a mix of styles, became perhaps the most versatile musical genre out there. The export of J-pop, along with anime and video games, has influenced music and culture around the world.

While you may not have heard of J-pop, you’re probably been listening to J-pop at some point without knowing what it was. Listen to our playlist. Ask your students what they love about it and where they’ve run into it. Enjoy!

When I was young, my grandmother had a white lacquer upright piano. I would play this despite not having lessons. I loved that old piano. We moved away when I was seven, and I started taking lessons with my cousins. They had a spinnet, which was just fine. When we moved again, my parents found an old upright from a Shaky’s pizza with many layers of paint. My mom refinished it down to the wood, and I loved that piano, too. It had a gold harp and sounded lovely.

If you get the feeling I moved a lot, I have. I had to let go of that piano when I was sixteen and we moved again. I bought a 1915 Baldwin upright for $2.50 in college – the piano tuner said I stole it – and the adventure to move it into my second floor apartment was on. That piano is still in storage with my dad, and I’ll have to look in on it soon.

I bought a house last week. In my lifetime, this is move seventeen. I’ve been traveling a lot for my day job and juggling the everyday stuff (like moving is everyday stuff) while I’m home.

Last Wednesday I signed the papers. Movers were scheduled for Thursday. I sent a message about a piano ‘free to a good home’. In the reply I got a phone number and was told to call a woman about her piano. The movers weren’t even gone by the time I had called her, so I asked them if they wanted to move a piano. They enthusiastically agreed.

Several years ago, I received a keyboard as a gift. It did not have 88 keys. When I tried to play a whole note, the sound didn’t last as long as I needed it to. There are some things a keyboard like that is good for, but it never satisfied the longing I had for a real piano.

The keyboard did get us through the practice my son needed when he took piano lessons. My daughter played a little but was never serious about it. At the time she preferred violin.

When the boxes all arrived from the movers, I had an empty space by the stairway. I realized a real piano would fit right there. I know there are keyboards that would fill the void. Some are sophisticated enough to record music digitally with computers. But my love of “real” pianos made me want to fill that space.

After several calls to the moving company and the woman with the piano, I had a moving crew meet me to pick it up. She had owned that piano for 40 years. The harp has 1926 scrawled on it. The outside isn’t in the best condition, but it has been recently tuned and sounds lovely.

Not long after the moving crew brought the piano in, my daughter wanted to play with it. My son held the cat so the cat could play it, though I’m not sure the cat appreciated it as much as the kids did. I smile watching the kids and the cats – they remind me so much of my childhood with pianos and cats.

Be careful on Marketplace, though. I may have also purchased a backpacker guitar (which I forgot on this business trip) and a djembe drum for my son. I may have placed myself in Facebook timeout for a while. I can’t wait to get home and play on my real piano.