John Franzosa Music Projects
Music for Weddings, Functions & Events
Reeds and Keys Music Studio
For the past eight years, I've been teaching from my home studio in Hampton, NH. For many years prior to that, I taught woodwinds, piano and jazz improvisation at the Southern NH Community School of the Arts.
While I do encourage adult learners - because the best thing about music is that you can always learn and grow from whatever age or level you find yourself - most of my students are in the 8-16 age group.
What
I've learned over the years is probably best articulated in Kenny Werner's
book Effortless Mastery. Music is about as rich and diverse and
rewarding an endeavor as you can find. It's fun to make noise. It's more
fun to be able to shape that noise to express your feelings and ideas.
And it's a delight when that sound is shared by others who hear and acknowledge
and respond in kind.
Learning how to play an instrument should be a natural outgrowth of that desire to shape sounds to express and share. Yes, you have to practice. Yes, you have to do drillwork. But that's just the technical part, the physical part, the part that's just like learning to ride a bicycle, shoot a basket, kick a goal, or throw a curve ball. And that physical part - if you like making sounds - can be fun in itself.
Then comes
the real fun: using those sounds to express yourself. It's important to
spend time in the 'woodshed' getting your fingers working properly, but
it's even more important to get out there and share what you've done.
Each year, we give the students a chance to show what they can do. Here
are the performers from Recital 2006.