OUR TEACHERS

The instructors at Flatts & Sharpe are fluent in a wide variety of musical styles and techniques, and most teach several different instruments.  They can teach students of any age, from small children to senior citizens, and at any level of proficiency.  Flatts & Sharpe can thus provide students with individual instruction specially tailored to their particular goals, abilities, and temperament.  Many of our teachers are professional performers, and can play a wide range of music, including classical music, the many kinds of jazz, bluegrass and country, folk music, rock and roll, and heavy metal.  We currently offer instruction on drums, piano, all string instruments (including acoustic and electric guitars, bass, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, dobro, cello and violins,) and woodwinds (including clarinets, flutes, and saxophones.)  We are in the process of adding a vocal teacher and a theory instructor as well as home recording classes.

Amidst this wide variety of musicianship, all our teachers  are a committed to ground students in aspects of music that cross all stylistic boundaries and skill levels: a keen sense of rhythm and time, an awareness of common harmonic practices, and an ability to produce clear melodic lines.  By stressing these and other fundamental aspects of musicianship, we help to foster the artistic drive that can add a deep level of pride and satisfaction to individual lives, and ideally help to create musicians who are confident in their ability to share and communicate this talent with others.

We maintain that musicians develop best through individual instruction, and so nearly all of our lessons are one-on-one sessions.  While group lessons can be a lot of fun they can also prevent instructors from noticing the subtleties of each student’s performance that require adjustment, as well as allow students to use the crowd to hide their deficiencies or incomprehension.  In every way, we maintain that personalized instruction is necessary for any musician’s progress.  And the personal relationship that develops between teachers and students is itself a major component of successful practice and performance.

On the other hand, we also like fun!  Because many musicians hope to play with other musicians, we make group playing a regular priority of our program.  Twice a year, using students’ ages and skill levels as a guide, we group all interested students into different bands, assign each band a set of songs we think will be pedagogically useful, and schedule weekly band practices to coincide with their individual instruction.  With teachers facilitating the band practices, our students learn to work as a team, to listen to one another, to develop to their sound as an ensemble, and even to work up their own original material for performance.  Needless to say, they also have a lot of fun.  These band practices culminate in a recital show, with a real audience, with real microphones, and with real bursts of pride and accomplishment.       

OUR STUDENTS

INSTRUMENT RENTALS
We also now offer guitar rentals for $15.00 a month for students

LESSON RATES
30 minute private lessons are $21.00
1 hour private lessons are $36.00