Brill Music Academy JULY NEWSLETTER July 1, 2014 Welcome to our MONTHLY NEWSLETTER! In This Month’s Newsletter:  Are YOU Our Contest Winner? See Last Page…  FREE MONTH OF LESSONS - Enter our drawing (Ryan Murphy was our winner last month) Will YOU be next?  July Birthdays  Wunderkeys for Pre-Schoolers WE WILL BE CLOSED ON THESE DATES: There are NO holidays that we will be CLOSED until next Thanksgiving in November Please welcome our NEWEST students! Jessica Gettinger Daniella Thomas Sanyin Xu Ambika Gandotra Brandon Perry Mazie Losonsky Lilah Todd Laura Halvorson Larry Halvorson Kalyaan Lim Sovannjet Lim Emilia Naylor John Naylor Euriel Valles Emma Marrufo Graydon Russell Evan Ogilvie Ian Ogilvie Lindsey Schmidt Aaron Murphrey Manon Alpe Alex Danoski Ethan Andrews Zachary Jacobs Take advantage of our Referral Program and win a FREE LESSON!! Thank you for checking us out on the internet. We hope that our monthly newsletter and other information will show you that the Brill Music Academy is the best choice for your music education. Stop by and see us any time. WHY Do We Like Music? SOUND IT OUT…. You might instinctively choose to sniffle to sappy 80s ballads when you're down or blast hard rock to rev you up for an afternoon of housecleaning, but music's effects could be more powerful than you think. Tunes don't just alter your mood; they can also affect your ability to learn and heal. Music activates the “pleasure center” of the human brain, says Laurel Trainor, Ph.D., director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The ebb and flow of music's rhythms and tones activate the same area of the brain that responds to drugs and good food, which means music has a similar ability to relax and stimulate you. Need more proof of music's power? IT MAKES YOU SMARTER…. Music lessons can boost language and speech skills, memory, and attention span, according to research by Northwestern University in Illinois. This researach noted the long-term effects of childhood music lessons and the way musicians can more easily pick up a new language. And it might sound counterintuitive, but blasting that Metallica album for a few minutes before buckling down may help you learn. Listening to a fast-paced song you enjoy makes you more alert— at least for a little while. “It’s only a temporary effect,” Trainor says. IT HELPS YOU HEAL…. Many hospitals’ rehabilitation facilities, senior centers, and hospice programs routinely employ music therapists, according to the American Music Therapy Program (musictherapy.org). A study published in the Cochran Review in 2010 found that people recovering from a stroke were able to walk stronger and longer when they listened to music during physical therapy sessions. And patients who listened to Mozart sonatas had reduced blood pressure and heart rates and subsequently had much less need for sedatives, according to a study in The Medscape Journal of Medicine. IT PROMPTS RELAXATION…. Unwind after a stressful day by listening to slow songs with downwardfalling tones and gentle rhythms, Trainor says. Simple tones have traditionally been used as a kind of sound therapy to quell anxiety. Happy July Birthday to our Students Jordan Backman 1 Jul Alexander Marcozzi 3 Jul Justin Vargas 3 Jul Marci Adolfo 6 Jul Emma Cole 8 Jul Kevin Lemus 8 Jul Kalen Mullen 8 Jul Jessica Moulder 9 Jul Shayley Shimkus 11 Jul Jacob Lyles 14 Jul Abby Johnson 20 Jul Kelsey Beck 31 Jul Happy July Birthday to Our Teachers & Staff Pam Posey 28 Jul Here is the photo for our next contest. A “sandy guitar” at the beach. Submit your favorite line, post, or text to go along with this photo by Monday, July 28th, and a drawing of all entries will be held to choose a winner…. Steve Geller 31 Jul What caption would you put in this box? The winner will receive ONE FREE MONTH of lessons at the Brill Music Academy!! This contest is open only to current students. Email your entries to: Poster Contest at [email protected] Include your name, phone number, email address, and of course, your contest entry text for the poster. The winner will be announced in our August Newsletter. Our Winner for Last Month was: Ryan Murphy (saxophone student of Bob Vanacore) Ryan has won a FREE MONTH of lessons Congratulations!! Music in the Summer We hope you will be with us for the summer. Without the “distractions” of schoolwork, sports, and other activities, now is the time to really push forward to accomplish your musical goals and improve your skills as a musician. Talk with your teacher about what you can do this summer to really find what you enjoy about music and about the instrument you are learning to play. If you are in the band or orchestra at school, your efforts during the summer could move you to 1st chair in your section to the amazement of your friends, the delight of your band or orchestra director, and make your parents even more proud of you. But even with all that, the sense of self-worth and accomplishment that you will feel is worth the time and effort you can put into your music this summer. Determine now to end the summer a better musician than you are now. You can do it! Your teacher at Brill Music knows you can do it and is willing to do all they can to help you. Director's Corner: Get the MOST Out of Your Music MusicTheory.net This cool website is one of the great music education resources out there. You can use it to quiz yourself on note names and chords, or work on your ear training and listening skills. It offers theory lessons, a chord calculator, and tons of other great tools. You can even print your own blank staff paper from the site, ready for your new composition! One of the coolest features is a pop-up piano, ready for you to play on your computer, iPad, or iPhone. When you don’t have access to a piano, you can still make up tunes or play simple songs on the go. Make sure you check out this great tool.... www.MusicTheory.net A referral poem: If you LOVE your music school, And you'd like to see it grow, Think about the friends you have, And make sure to let them know. If they enroll and give your name, you'll happily discover, a thank-you gift from us to you, one lesson you'll recover. (One FREE Lesson!) See the Referral Program details on the next page Yes! We have been around for a loooong time. Former teachers and students drop in from time-to-time to say hello and tell us how they are doing. So, even if life takes you in a different direction, you are always welcome to come see us at the Brill Music Academy. Refer a Friend & Get A FREE Lesson! If you have a friend who might like to take lessons, if you refer them to the Academy and they take 1 month of lessons, we’ll give you a lesson for FREE! It’s very easy to refer someone. Just visit: http://BrillMusicAcademy.com/referafriend.html Free Lesson Gift Certificate Thank you ______ (YOUR NAME HERE)__________ for referring ____________________________________ to our Academy!! To redeem your free lesson, call 702-212-8745 and sign up for an additional lesson with your teacher, or any other of our teachers. You are welcome to try another instrument if you like, or give this to a friend. Lessons cannot be rescheduled once they have been made. Certificates cannot be used for refunds to your account or for cash. Given by: _______________________________ Date: __________________ Type in your name, their name, and their email address, and we’ll take care of the rest! There’s no maximum to the amount of free lessons that you can receive! WunderKeys!! Do you have a younger brother or sister? Do you have pre-school children? We are here to better prepare our youngsters for a lifetime of music. WUNDERKEYS PIANO for PreSchoolers Wunderkeys is a piano lesson series designed for 3, 4, and 5 year-olds. It is taught as a one-on-one, half-hour piano lesson, given once a week. Each lesson incorporates 5 different activities to ensure the child is always focused, engaged, and active. Each activity is designed to reinforce concepts learned in the student's book. The program teaches beginning piano skills, and includes a music/math relationship, which gives students a head start on kindergarten math concepts and a positive first exposure to math. By engaging in musical games on the piano keyboard, students learn sorting, counting, comparison, classification, and pattern recognition. The lessons are designed to correspond with the developmental stages of 3-5 year olds. Students explore the piano in ways in which they are capable for their age. They will learn everything they will need before being able to read notated music. Wunderkeys “duets” allow the students to play “real pieces” along with the teacher, ensuring success and enjoyment. Home activity sheets are completed with your child during practice time at home. They don't require that parents have prior musical knowledge. Wunderkeys leads directly into further piano study. After completion of all 3 books, students can continue their studies with a piano series designed for ages 6 and up. There are 3 books in the Wunderkeys series. The books include lesson activities and homework sheets. If you have children in this age group and want them to get a head start in music and math concepts, call the Brill Music Academy (212-8745) and ask for details. SHARE THE NEWS: If you would like to share upcoming events, great information, or anything that would be of general interest to other students and parents, please feel free to submit it for possible newsletter publication to: [email protected]. Gift Certificates are for Anytime! Looking for just the perfect gift to give to your loved ones? Why not surprise them with a Gift Certificate for Music Lessons from the Brill Music Academy! SPECIAL DISCOUNT Four 30 minute lessons or Two 60 minute lessons - $100.00 Call or see us for details! 702-212-8745 Did You Read Your Newsletter Contest June 2014 To increase readership of the Brill Newsletter, each month we’ll feature a new contest winner or announce a new contest. Be sure to read your newsletter each month to see if your name has been drawn or you might miss out! This month’s winner is: Tazreann Ahmed (piano student of Jennifer Loss) Tazreann has won a free music lesson from the Brill Music Academy (a $35 value). To redeem your prize, please contact the front desk to schedule your FREE lesson. It is good for 30 days or until the next winner is announced. Congratulations, and everyone be sure to read your newsletter each month!