Dublin School of Music hitting all the right notes in Old Bawn

MUSIC, like everything else, suffered greatly during lockdowns and restrictions with people unable to access meet ups and events.

Months of inactivity can have consequences for a person who may have moved on by the time things had opened back up.

“Pivoting to online classes helped to keep us afloat during the pandemic, but if you stop playing music for a while, some people never go back,” said Craig Wynne, owner of the Dublin School of Music, a Terenure based business that has recently opened a new premises in Old Bawn Shopping Centre.

Now that things are opening up again, Wynne’s schools welcome in their clients for one-to-one training, which they believe is key to building up the skills for an aspiring musician or singer.

“We prefer in-house training. Very sparingly we used online, if someone is a close contact, online is an option. Part of music is routine, practicing at the same time each week. It makes more sense to keep that routine rather than try catch up two lessons the following week.”

At the Dublin School of Music, they cater for all types of musical and singing tastes.

“In order our most popular training is piano, guitar, singing and violin, but we also do flute, which is big now, saxophone, clarinet, drums,” said Craig.

“We tailor for one-to-one. No two people are doing the same thing. You might start off with a piano book, some will take off like a rocket, others might say they are enjoying it but they would prefer to learn something more modern. You are constantly tweaking to fit into their interests.”

The school used to provide group training but found one-to-one worked so much better for the individual.

“Even if a couple of friends are doing singing together, there may be some inhibition. You can only really sing when you give it socks. Once they have learned that, they are confident enough to go out and sing in front of others.”

The school’s mission is to make music accessible for all, and it’s teachers pride themselves on being extremely customer focused and flexible to suit family arrangements and schedules.

A key learning objective is that the school is a “safe space to make a mistake”.

“It should be a safe space to make a mistake. Music is all about scaffolding, from one level to the next. You wouldn’t do fractions without learning to multiply,” said Craig.

“You can never do too much practice. Even for a beginner, a little like two five minutes a day, and if you are doing exams up to 45 minutes a day.”

“Mistakes are how you grow as a musician, and after all, if everyone could play perfectly already, they wouldn’t need a music school!”

Visit www.dublinschoolofmusic.ie for further information.