Matthew Winter Academy of Music in Adelaide, South Australia | Music school

Matthew Winter Academy of Music

Locality: Adelaide, South Australia

Phone: +61 427 534 101

Address: 67 Davis Ave 5163 Adelaide, SA, Australia

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23.01.2022 There's a debate among musicians about whether to buy a traditional piano or a keyboard. I'm going to tell you the advantages of owning a high end keyboard over a piano. I've had a Roland 88 key keyboard for about 20 years. It has semi weighted keys but many keyboards these days have fully weighted if you want. This gives you a good real piano feel to the action. Keyboards are portable. Keyboards don't need tuning and mine has a transposing or tuning adjustability for play...ing with other instruments. Keyboards are usually less expensive to buy. Quite often you can change instruments. Mine has samples of real instruments built in. My piano sound is a sample of a Steinway, one of the best and most expensive pianos in the world. You can also plug in an amplifier for concerts. The keyboard has all all the conveniences of a portable piano with none of the draw backs. See more

23.01.2022 Starting violin and piano lessons on Friday morning at All Saints primary school Seaford. Looking forward to meeting all the new students.

22.01.2022 Unless you have been living under a rock and haven't seen the movie by Pixar "The Incredibles" we all know that "Mozart makes babies smarter". Evidence has shown that not only Mozart but many earlier composers from the Baroque era (JS Bach, Handel, Vivaldi etc) also stimulate the young child's brain into creating more connections. Great, but does it stop when the child gets older? Well, apparently not. After the billions of extra microscopic connections in the brain improvin...g creativity, learning and other traits grow, more macro improvements can be made at the toddler, primary, middle-school and even high-school level. The co-ordination of left and right brain through the timing of limbs, fingers, breath, and eyes (reading the music) also encourages brain growth in both sides of the brain. Being able to think four dimensionally ( the fourth dimension being time) also puts your child above the average. www.newsweek.com/music-children-mozart-brain-well-being-558

22.01.2022 School for music teachers starts next week. Don't forget to sign up for lessons, you might miss out.

16.01.2022 This is the most difficult time for a part time music teacher. School holidays. No money coming in but centrelink thinks you have. Compounded with gearbox issues this is not good. Looking forward to the start of the school term and possibly teaching drums at Minlaton.

11.01.2022 I was asked today about what age can students take up an instrument. It all depends on the particular child and which instrument. In very generalised terms instruments that don't involve fine motor skills can be started much earlier (like drums) than say piano or classical guitar. Rhythm guitar my be started earlier than classical or lead guitar. Other instruments involve lung power such as saxophone or trumpet which is another developmental factor not involving fine motor sk...ills or maturity of the mind. Drums can be started at 5-6, Guitar 6-8, Piano 6-8, Bass 8-10 (size restriction), woodwinds and brass 8-10 (lung power) violin 6-8. The range allows for differences in child development and that girls mature, on average, faster than boys. Early music lesson providers will often use the "Kodaly" method name after its founder Zoltan Kodaly. I like a lot of his ideas but i feel that the dumbing down of musical notation is unnecessary and will need to be unlearned later on. See more

11.01.2022 It's coming up to the end of the school term and it's the perfect time to contact your local music teacher (me) to sign up for classes next year or even arranging holiday classes. Classes for your kids or even for yourself so that you will be able to help your kids practise during the week or even pursue your own dreams.

11.01.2022 A student asked me how to tell a good quality stringed instrument. There are a few things to look for ado that you are not ripped off. 1 usually you get what you pay for (cash converters not always ) 2. Varnished not painted. Paint covers up the flaws. 3 action. The gap from the strings to the fretboard should be as small as possible. Steel string guitars have adjustable actions electric guitars even more so. 4 quality hardware. 5 brand name. Should be a person's name not a animal.

11.01.2022 A few of my students don't practise their instruments very often and may go from lesson to lesson without practising at all. Sometimes they can still improve doing no practise but in all cases the improvement is very small if anything. To reach your potential (whatever that is) you need to practise regularly and for a reasonable length of time. Talk to your teacher about how much time. For beginners it is usually 4 to 5 times a week for 15 to 20 minutes each time. intermedia...te should be 30 minutes +. Some kids say, "I've got too much homework," and at the same time play two different sports during the week. Some kids will say that by the time they get home, have dinner and do their homework they have no time before bed. If 15mins cannot be found before bed I would be surprised. A lot of kids say they hate practising and so they avoid or refuse to do it. This I can relate to. I hated practise too and I made it worse by not discovering "smart practise" for years after I started, (see my first post about smart practise). Parents: 1. Have practise as a routine. Not fun, but something that gets done at a particular time every weekday. 2. Give a reward for completing practise. 3. Take a privilege away for not completing. 4. Explore other instruments. Students don't often get a choice of instrument and end up hating the instrument rather than the practise. 5. Ask your teacher if your child can play a particular song that they like. A lot of teachers can accommodate requests. See more

09.01.2022 Which instrument should you choose? Statistics show that a child (or adult for that matter) will persist with an instrument to a competent level of they like the sound of it. Sounds obvious but you'd be surprised how many students play instruments they don't like the sound of. They are encouraged to play a family heirloom merely because it is available rather than they like the sound of the instrument. Some kids have preferences for high pitch while some like low. Get your kids to listen to different instrument sounds before making them play something that they hate the sound of and they will stick with it much longer.

09.01.2022 Really want to share something cool that was a complete success. I've got a very young and small drum student that is too small for the adult drum kit at school. We sat him up on the drum stool and he couldn't reach the pedals. Next step was to get a lower stool but then the drums were too high. We went for a few weeks using a plastic box that used to slip off the bass drum pedal then I came up with an idea. If I could get some guitarist foot stools and use a strap or velcro to attach them to the pedals then he could reach. I did this and put some velcro on them and it worked. The foot stools are also height adjustable so they can be lowered over time.

02.01.2022 It's a bit of a disappointing way to end the year. I have had serious nosebleeds and I have had to be hospitalised. I hope that my students can continue next year at school with me. Please let me know at [email protected] Holiday lessons can be done by appointment. Thank you all for your patience and best wishes. ... Have a great and safe holiday season. See more

01.01.2022 To follow up on the piano verses keyboard article, the next step is which keyboard to buy. For a teacher like me I look for number of keys first. My keyboard is full length but I could leave out eight notes to improve portability (76). Touch sensitive keys are also a must. Without volume control through your touch you are wasting your time in my view. Weighted keys are also worth having as they help with finger control. Keys with no weight can be played too fast too easily o...r they are too thin and you can snag underneath them. Good quality brand names that have been around for a long time are also worth paying for. (Rowland, Yamaha, new Casio). Next to look at would be features. Some have a recording studio built in with 780 different sounds while others have 8 keyboard sounds. If you want to write music from your keyboard straight to your computer all you need is to have a midi port or a plug'n'play usb connection. Ask the salesperson. See more