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Welcome to the NEW Elite Music Academy website!

Why Students Need to Perform

Students come to guitar lessons to learn how to play guitar. Seems pretty obvious, but many music schools do not give students the full experience of playing guitar. They just teach a student how to play the instrument and read music. As the student becomes a more skilled player, they might want to take their guitar on stage. Without a performance component as part of the music lessons, many students do not get beyond the classroom. This is not just true of guitar, this goes for piano lessons, singing lessons and all other types of music lessons. There is only so much that a student can learn in a classroom, even with the most skilled music instructors available.

Performing live requires a different skill set than playing or singing behind closed doors. Budding musicians need to develop their musicianship, teamwork and cooperation skills and stage presence. Otherwise, they will have a talent for playing an instrument and no idea what to do with that talent. Here are some of the skills performers need that can’t be taught in the classroom.

Cooperation. For many students, performing means doing something they don’t typically do in their lessons: working with other musicians. This requires a lot of unique abilities beyond the general teamwork. Working together to create set lists, determine how they will play each song, learning to rehearse cohesively, getting tuned together, and so forth. Students will also learn to accept other peoples’ mistakes, which is a necessary aspect of being in a band.

Stage presence. This cannot be taught without a stage and an audience. While you can work on the concepts behind it by, say, using singing lessons to teach a vocalist to make eye contact and emote, the real knowledge comes from experience. Students need to know how to connect with the audience and be physically expressive in ways that work with their music. More importantly, they need to learn how to be comfortable taking up space on stage – and that is something that often needs to be learned through experience over a period of time.

Musicianship. Along a similar vein to stage presence is learning how be a musician. When guitar strings break or when the drummer misses the beat, it takes practiced performers to recover quickly and keep the show going. As many mistakes as one might make in their piano lessons, goofing up on stage is a different experience that strengthens the performer and teaches them how to rapidly move past mistakes. The same goes for bandmates:.

Confidence as a musician. Students who are interested in a music career need the experience of performing. The earlier they start getting on stage, the more confident they will be as their talent develops. This helps them become more successful as they branch out into Toronto’s music scene and beyond.

Building performance skills takes time. For students to develop their musical talents, they need more than music lessons; they need the opportunities to experience the life of professional musicians. Through our student showcases, glee club and rock band groups, as well as other performances throughout the year, we are teaching Toronto’s youngest talent to do more than play behind closed doors. We are teaching them to be musicians.

Why Students Need to Perform

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March Break Camp Links

March break camp: Click here.

Summer Camp Links

July 8-12

Sax violin spot: Click here
Drum spot: Click here.
Guitar spot: Click here.
Bass guitar spot: Click here.
Piano/Keys spot: Click here.
Singer spot: Click here.


July 15-19

Sax violin spot: Click here
Drum spot: Click here.
Guitar spot: Click here.
Bass guitar spot: Click here.
Piano/Keys spot: Click here.
Singer spot: Click here.

July 22-26

Sax violin spot: Click here
Drum spot: Click here.
Guitar spot: Click here.
Bass guitar spot: Click here.
Piano/Keys spot: Click here.
Singer spot: Click here.

Aug 12-16

Sax violin spot: Click here
Drum spot: Click here.
Guitar spot: Click here.
Bass guitar spot: Click here.
Piano/Keys spot: Click here.
Singer spot: Click here.

Start a trial or inquire