The Murray Music Conservatory is our in-home family music studio dedicated to teaching students of all ages the love of music! We teach private lessons in piano, guitar, violin, ukulele, and pre-piano. We also teach pre-music lessons for kids ages 3-6, and Mommy and Me classes for those who are looking to get a start musically learning songs, dancing, beat and rhythm and a chance to experience playing all sorts of different instruments. We have 2 in home studio locations with 4 studio rooms available for lessons. We have a grand and 2 upright pianos, a full sized electric keyboard, and 3 smaller sized electric keyboards. We have an electric drum set, box drum, floor drums, tongue drum, kalimbas, accordion, clarinet, melodicas, autoharp, chimes, hand bells, xylophones, recorders, a variety of classroom instruments, and more. We also have 14 guitars of all kinds and over 20 ukuleles. We absolutely LOVE music!
But--how did all of this begin???
When our family began, we didn't have any idea of what the future would hold. Some of us imagined going to sporting events and cheering on our kids' t-ball games or maybe watching a chess match or other activities. Little did we know that our kids were not going to be interested in team sports or chess club or other events. Each one of them was unique, and they each had such different interests, yet, one thing they were all fascinated with from a very young age was MUSIC! We watched some of our young kids who wouldn't speak or interact with others sing and re-hum melodies. We watched our hyper active kids be able to put their time and energy into dancing along or singing with music. We saw the magic of music when our young son only spoke in stutters, but could sing beautifully with smoothness.
We began allowing our kids to be in elementary choirs, and bought on old piano and started to see what they would do. Soon each of our kids attached to different instruments and began learning from a young age. Some tried more than one. Some changed from one to another, and some found out just how many instruments they could enjoy. As our children have grown into young men and women and into adulthood, we have witnessed the incredible power of music in their lives. While they may have struggled with making friends, or shyness, or the frustrations of school or life, we found that they could open up with their music. They could speak through music if not with words at times, and we could see the proud look on their faces when they learned to play an instrument, sing a song, or create a song of their own. We became the "musical family" and loved sharing our music with anyone who would care to hear. And it wasn't about being perfect, it just about being able to make music and finding out you could do it and have fun! As parents and a family who have watched so much joy from music as we have grown older, we magically found that we could inspire and encourage others to find the joy in music and that many of us had the ability to share that by teaching! Mom worked as an elementary school music teacher for many years and loved the joy that she could see in the kids' faces when they said they weren't good at anything but then they could beat out perfect rhythms on the drums, or learn to play the ukulele, or how to play recorder, sing songs or figure out notes on a piano. And slowly, our own kids took their great love of music and the instruments they most excelled in and sought out to teach others. Our oldest began teaching guitar and then next son began teaching piano, then sister in violin....our studio has grown and we have such joy in seeing kids that started from no musical experience to playing music and accompanying their own families. Our family also works as music volunteers at Primary Children's Hospital and we have been humbled by how much music plays an important part of peoples' lives especially in the face of hardship and despair. We know and have seen miracles happen through music and how it can spread joy and heal.
