Music has been part of my family for generations.  My father started the string program in our hometown of Guilford, Connecticut in 1969 and nurtured it into the award-winning program it continues to be today.  My father played violin, my grandfather played violin, my great aunt played piano on the radio in New York City, my father's cousin sang with the Metropolitan Opera and her mother taught piano in Hungary until her 90s. 

I started playing piano in second grade and cello in fourth, played cello in numerous ensembles in middle and high school, provided piano accompaniment for singing groups throughout high school, played cello in the Connecticut College and Williams College orchestras and taught piano and cello for decades.  In 2014 I went back to my musical roots, spending three years as the orchestra assistant in Guilford's Baldwin Middle School.  This gave me the opportunity to watch and participate firsthand in my father's amazing legacy.
 
For the many years that I taught piano and cello, I used the standard methods - asking students to count out loud to learn rhythms and teaching them mnemonics like "FACE" and "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” to help remember note names.  The problem was that students continued to rely on the mnemonics long after they should have learned the notes and they wailed and gnashed their teeth every time I asked them to count.  There had to be a better way!

Years of experience had taught me that nearly any complicated concept can be made simple with the right approach.  Often, all it takes to go from scratching your head to “now I get it!” is a new perspective.  Twenty-five years as an attorney had given me plenty of training explaining complicated concepts in a way others could understand.   But what finally led me to discover how to make musical concepts easier came neither from my musical experience nor my legal training.   

In the early 1990s I decided to learn to fly.  Flight training required me to learn complicated concepts that did not come easily (to put it mildly).   I used all sorts of study aids, but found it easiest to assimilate information from those that provided pictures – especially pictures combined with colors.  Years later, when I started teaching music again, including the ukulele, it became clear that pictures combined with colors made learning easier for children too!  This realization formed the guiding principal of Fireside Music & Motion.  Based on the idea that “a picture’s worth a thousand words,” Fireside’s classes and products rely on fun and easy-to-recall images to help children and adults to learn to read music.  Drawing, clapping and movement (kinesthetic) activities (yes - even for teens and adults!) reinforce the images and make learning fun.  This multi-sensory learning process allows information to sink deep into the mind where it's not easily forgotten.  

So give us a try - and see for yourself just how fast, fun and easy music can be!

Jennifer Sills Yoxall
Founder, Fireside Music & Motion
50 Cooks Lane, Guilford CT
www.FiresideMusicAndMotion.com
Phone: 203-738-6787
Email:  FiresideMusicAndMotion@gmail.com