Piano Lessons for Kids in Barcelona

Posted on January 18th, 2023 by shineuser

Piano can be a great way for small children to learn about music. It is a superb instrument for building a strong musical foundation, and with the right teacher can open up a new world for kids, filled with far-reaching benefits. At our studio in Barcelona, piano classes are one-on-one with a dedicated teacher, and can even be arranged online in conjunction with our handy instrument rental options. What could be better than doing a music lesson from the comfort of your home?

It’s all in the science! Music has long been touted as an important element in the development of our brains, and giving your child the opportunity to explore that can help them in a variety of ways outside of the music realm. Unlock their musical creativity, help them learn in a fun and engaging way with teachers who are adept at connecting music to games as well as learning. At Shine Music School in Barcelona we are also offer siblings the chance to form small group classes, which can make learning the instrument more dynamic and versatile.

Piano is an instrument which is fantastic for accompanying singing, as well as other instruments. Not only can learning piano boost your confidence, but also your serotonin levels. Music has been proven to improve our immune systems as well as provide a literal workout for our brains! If you can instil a love of music in your kids from a young age, you will be benefitting them in the long run, helping them to become well rounded humans as well as expanding their minds.

Finding the right teacher is key. A teacher that can share their love of music and actively engage their students can be hard to find! Teaching kids a musical instrument is a special skill that requires a good understanding of psychology as well as music. Our teachers at Shine encourage their students, and boost their confidence while teaching them their favourite songs. We do not follow a particular curriculum but goals are set by the teacher during the course of organically learning the piano. For older children, we have been training those that wish to, in the Trinity music exams, and each child can track their progress through the grades. Shine prides itself on matching the right teacher to your child to ensure that learning music stays fun and engaging.

Begin early! Children from the age of 5 are encouraged to start music, as at this age they are beginning to read. This ties in with being able to recognise and read notes. Although students younger than 5 can learn an instrument, we prefer to offer our smallest musicians our Music Awareness courses which introduce rhythm, notes, songs, and teach them to recognise tones through movement, dance and musical interaction. Students who have attended these classes are easily able to continue onto our private music classes with their preferred teacher.

Barcelona is a city filled with musical history and at Shine we encourage the continuation of this musical exploration with the youngest generation! Check out our online piano classes for kids!

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Conversations with Katarina Ruvidic

Posted on January 25th, 2022 by shineuser

Katarina Ruvidic is a piano teacher with more than six years of experience, teaching all ages and levels, from beginners to advanced students. In her classes she presents various musical styles to keep even the smallest music students interested. Katarina provides the foundation for learning with individualised lesson plans. In addition, Katarina is a music therapist with two years of experience in developing music therapy knowledge with diverse patients.

What was the first thing that got you interested in music?

Since I can remember, I always listened to music at home. I loved to sing and
dance while I was discovering different musical styles that my parents introduced me too.

Who inspired you to make music?

In kindergarten, we had music classes, and I was always impressed with the teacher
when she was playing the piano. When I got home, I used to “play” the radiator, while imagining that it was a piano, singing, and giving music lessons to my parents. Then when I was six years old
I would dance while listening to my cousin play the piano, imagining that the movements I was creating an energy that was connecting with the music.

Where and how did you win your biggest prize?

My biggest prize was the laureate (overall winner) In the “Nikolai Rubinstein” contest in Paris, also in the international pianist contest “Davorin Jenko” in Serbia. But my favorite is from 2009, when I won a special award for the best sonata performance by F.J. Haydn at the “International Pianist Competition” in Serbia, where I was also the overall winner of the contest.

How would you describe your lessons?

I always adapt the musical classes and styles with respect to the person I am with working with. Carl Maria von Weber said “Music is the true universal language”, so it is a powerful tool that allows us to transmit and exchange energy, emotions, moods. It opens a new door for us, a new space where we are creating an atmosphere that allows us to feel free and in contact with the inner world of oneself.

Of your concerts, which one have you enjoyed the most and why?

The truth is that I always enjoy the moments when I give the concert, and each one is
special for me. But I remember that in one of my first concerts that I gave at the Academy
Serbia de Ciencias e Arte
, I felt very happy before giving the concert, because it was the first time all my family and friends were able to come.

What famous musicians do you admire?

It is a difficult question, because I admire each one. It’s not easy being a musician, it never has been. Musicians always had difficult times, their art was often not accepted. Dating back to
the Mozart era, or in the Stravinsky era when he performed his ballet and concert
orchestral “The Ritual of Spring”. People find it hard to accept new, innovative things, which
makes sense too, because when we’re used to certain types, everything that’s
new challenges our limits, we need time to get out of the bubble and digest it. So
I admire each musician and his music, because being a musician is a creative risk, equally a
vocation that should have no limits.

When did you find out that you wanted to be a music teacher?

When my sister turned two, I wanted to teach her to play the piano. From that
moment, the desire was born, and I always thought that one day all the knowledge and the
experience I have, all the tricks and wisdom received from the best masters, I want to share
with my future students.

What advice do you have for piano lovers who are starting to study the instrument?

Everyone deserves to have the opportunity to learn to play any instrument,
regardless of age and abilities. I always believe that when desire is what
guides us, everything can be learned. The learning process is very nice, although sometimes
it can be frustrating. You have to be persistent, believe and enjoy the process.

How do you think the internet has impacted on music teaching?

Lately I have been seeing the ads “How to learn to play piano in x days”. So I wonder, why did I go to school and learn to play the piano for 15 years, when could I do it in x days? Apart from this, I think the internet is offering us many good and significant things, especially now with the current situation, where the the internet makes it easier for us to continue giving classes online.

Do you think music can be good for people’s health?

“Music is the most direct art, it enters through the ear and goes to the heart.” Magdalena Martinez
Music is one of the main engines of feelings and reactions, due to the brain activity that it creates in people. Music reduces stress, and gives a feeling of tranquility that allows you to acquire the necessary comfort to be able to carry out various activities. It is proven that music has a direct influence on emotions and people’s moods. Plus it boosts learning, increases concentration,
and much more.

Can you explain Music Therapy a little?

If we are talking about music therapy, it is very important to distinguish it from music lessons, where you study an instrument. Music in this case, is used as a tool for therapy depending on the health diagnosis of the client or in specific areas for rehabilitation. The therapeutic objectives and methods are then organised according to the needs of the person receiving music therapy. Any activity with music becomes much more bearable and enjoyable.

Does music help improve the health and mood of people? Why?

Yes, music helps improve health and mood, this is scientifically proven. First, music releases dopamine, which stimulates the subcortical brain circuit in charge of generating responses on an emotional level. One more benefit is that music reduces stress, because it produces a series of chemicals in the brain that help achieve total relaxation and relieve tension, thus promoting calmer breathing and a feeling of well-being. When one is listening to some song that moves you, instantly you begin to sing, dance, laugh, and likewise, your mood (and motivation) are lifted in a very simple and natural way.

Katarina provides piano lessons for children, as well as music therapy sessions at the Shine Music School in Barcelona and online.

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Long Term Instrument Rental

Posted on September 7th, 2020 by Milos Sajin

 

Music is an important part of the human experience. Be it through song and dance, listening to music in a cafe or at home, going to a concert with your friends, or jamming with your band. People connect through music. Sound and rhythm are learned from early childhood, in fact babies start to hear and feel sound in the womb. Music helps us to develop and learn language as toddlers. It is part of our daily life, through movies, radio, and other places. You can sit on a terraza and buskers may pass you, playing on their instruments or singing. Music is such an integral part of being human.

As a parent you probably want to encourage a love of music, or as an individual maybe it is a hobby you would like to take up. Music can be an interesting career, with many aspects. From music production to teaching and performing. As a music school we understand the benefits of studying music and creating an environment where we can enjoy learning.

But studying music can also be daunting for a beginner, and without expert advice, it can be expensive and at worst, not a positive experience! With so many health benefits, from improving your cognitive abilities to actually being a physical workout and a stress reliever, studying music or learning an instrument should not be scary.

One vital aspect is your instrument! At Shine we offer fantastic rental instruments from our instrument rental department.

Imagine that your child wishes to start playing a musical instrument, or it’s been your dream to take a guitar class, but you just don’t know where to start. Perhaps you are spending a semester in Spain and don’t want to stop playing music, but shipping or flying with your instrument is not an option. Whatever situation you find yourself in, playing an instrument can be an expensive and often confusing endeavour as any professional musician will tell you.

This makes so much sense!

Test & Try

Hiring a musical instrument instead of buying one is an option that just adds up for multitude reasons. Not only can you try and test out a variety of instruments, but you also don’t have to make a huge investment in an instrument without some musical knowledge and know-how.

Grow with your Instrument

This is especially relevant when looking into instruments for children. More often than not, the instrument has to grow with your child. This can mean buying numerous instruments as your child requires a bigger size. A disaster if your kids decide they don’t want to play anymore, and also extra work if you have to keep buying and selling instruments.

Quality Instruments

Unfortunately as you will quickly discover, cheap instruments are difficult to play, tricky to tune, often sound bad, and in the end a cheap instrument regularly results in the player getting frustrated and not wanting to play. What a lost opportunity for musical discovery!

All your questions answered!

Long-term instrument rental is an affordable and flexible way to play an instrument. Hiring a digital piano or cello to play at home makes practice easy and practical. If you happen to move, you don’t have to lug a heavy or expensive instrument with you! You find that your musical experience will improve when you don’t have to worry about your instrument. If you are interested in finding out more, get in touch with us or head directly over to our website, where you can hire your instrument online through a few easy steps!

We have a wide array of instruments from quality brands, from beginner instruments to advanced instruments.

Want to know about how it works? 

CONTACT US
Click to WhatsApp: +34 930 11 2282
Click to Call: +34 930 11 2282

Posted in guitalele, Guitar, instrument rental, instruments, kids music, music, online classes, Piano, ukulele, violin | Comments Off on Long Term Instrument Rental

Mary Lou Williams

Posted on August 14th, 2020 by Milos Sajin

“The first lady of the jazz keyboard”

Mary Lou Williams, born in 1910, was a pianist, arranger and composer from Atlanta, U.S. She was the first woman to be ranked with the greatest of jazz musicians and an important contributor to every aspect of jazz.

Her career began in the late 1920’s and lasted for more than half a century. She first started playing piano because of her mother, a classically trained pianist, picking out simple tunes at age two, she was a prodigy with perfect pitch and a highly developed musical memory by the time she was four years old. At age ten she was known as “the Little Piano Girl” and was performing for small audiences throughout Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her professional debut with big bands came in 1922, at age twelve, when she substituted for a pianist in the Buzz and Harris Revue, a traveling show.

By 1925, at just 15 years old, Williams was a full-time working musician with a  solidified status as a jazz great. She helped develop the Kansas City swing sound of the 1930s. And in the 1940s, she mentored some of bebop’s most famous innovators like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.

Williams was an expert at her instrument and whatever she apparently ‘lacked’ for not being a man she made up for on the bandstand. Her musical ability allowed her to gain the respect of many men, both inside and outside of the jazz community. Mary Lou focused on the plight of her race and mourned the loss of the jazz heritage, and even later in her career tried to educate young blacks of the next generation about their jazz heritage. Mary Lou’s concerns and activities were noble and based on her preoccupation with racism.

She often had to legitimize her place on the bandstand through a demonstration of her musical ability. Simply because she was a woman, the men in her field did not expect her to have abilities equivalent to that of a man. The culturally appropriate place for Mary Lou was not on the bandstand, but rather in the home. Mary Lou broke the culturally appropriate gender roles by pursuing her music rather than motherhood. 

In the 1960s and ’70s she composed a number of liturgical pieces for jazz ensembles, including Black Christ of the Andes (1962), a cantata; Mass for the Lenten Season (1968); and Music for Peace (1970), popularly known as “Mary Lou’s Mass.” In 1970 she also recorded a comprehensive performance-lecture entitled The History of Jazz. Five years later she was appointed to the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and in 1977 to the faculty at Duke University.

Mary Lou was privy to many race issues throughout her life and time as a jazz pianist. Race and gender combined to make life as a composer difficult for Mary Lou. Not only was Mary Lou Williams a woman, but she was a black woman, and black women in the first part of the twentieth century were not afforded many rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktmyulf11sQ

Critics had a difficult time responding to Mary Lou’s music and classifying her as legitimate. While working for and touring with Andy Kirk’s band, the Clouds of Joy, Mary experienced first-hand the difficulties of segregation. Travelling even to a ‘northern’ city such as Kansas City, the effects of segregation remained rampant; even musicians’ unions were segregated. Luckily for Andy Kirk and the band, this did not prevent them from performing at many different venues. Conversely, later in her career, Mary Lou worked at Café Society Downtown, a club in New York City that practiced full integration and treated blacks and whites equally, and also she volunteered her time playing benefits for the NAACP as well as for the Committee for the Negro in the Arts.

For Williams, jazz was a vast and mighty tool of expression and one that, she believed, could serve as a crucial and necessary portal for black peoples to commune with and convey the complexities of their past. On many occasions, she set to writing — informally in unpublished essays and letters but also at times in public forums — in order to elaborate on the ways in which her own “modern music” was both a statement in aesthetic “progress” and yet, likewise, constitutive of old forms.

Her last recording was “Solo Recital” (Montreux Jazz Festival, 1978), three years before her death, a mixture of spiritual themes, ragtime, blues and swing. In 1981, Mary Lou Williams died of cancer in Durham, North Carolina, at the age of 71. Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman and Andy Kirk attended her funeral at St. Ignatius Loyola Church. She was buried in the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Pittsburgh. Looking towards the end of her life, Mary Lou Williams said, “I did it, didn’t I? Through muck and mud.” And to this day we remember her as “the first lady of the jazz keyboard.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk4nZe6bjRg

Research from: Npr Music, Cedarville university, NY Times, Wikipedia

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A look back at our past concerts

Posted on July 2nd, 2020 by Milos Sajin

Each year the Shine School of Music in Barcelona hosts a concert. It’s a unique opportunity for students to perform for a live audience, and get a taste or experience of performing for a crowd and certainly a chance to show off what they have accomplished with their teachers.

Our concerts have grown, from one small concert once a year to now a series of concerts during the year, and each one just gets better and better! As we get ready for our first online music concert, we want to take a look back at some of our student’s and teacher’s performances over the years.

We hope that you tune in with us for the concert this year. It will be a first for us, in that it will be streamed online. We really look forward to what our talented students and teachers have put together.

Posted in banjo, Concerts, guitalele, Guitar, instruments, kids music, music, Piano, Singing, teachers, ukulele | Comments Off on A look back at our past concerts