Brookline Music School

Fantastic school! I went there as a kid and am now going again as an adult for piano lessons. Friendly admin and high level teachers.

The teachers are generally very competent and kind and work well with children. A special shout out to Julianne Johnston for flute, Tomoko Iwamoto and Konstantin Arakelov for violin, and Tom the dance teacher, who are all excellent. The school as a whole maintains a nice community feel.

I called BMS to inquire about flute lessons. I was told I needed to speak to X. Since he was not available I left a message. After back and forth messages, X and I finally had a conversation. After I asked about flute lessons, X described payment policies and tried to commit me to a lesson day and time for the school year. When I hesitated and asked about meeting the teacher, possibly a trial lesson or just being able to talk to the teacher directly over email or phone, X told me that scheduling music lessons "is not like scheduling a hair appointment". We will never go to BMS and I am advising all my friends to stay away.

Since we've only been part of BMS through the musical adventures class, this is really a review of that class. In one sentence, the Musical Adventures class for preschoolers would get 10 stars if possible! For more details, read on. I signed up my three year old for the winter session in January and halfway through that, he was having so much fun that I signed him up for the current (spring) session.

The teacher, Ms. Tahlia Cott, is WONDERFUL. She is warm without being fake (I firmly believe that kids can sense insincerity a mile away); sweet, calm, funny, and patient with the kids. She has a lovely singing voice, and she knows how to engage the kids in the various parts of the class--from the first minutes of the "Hello song" to the last floor-drumrolls of the "hey goodbye it's time to go home" song.

As I mentioned above, we are now on our second session. The winter session focused primarily on the piece "Carnival of the Animals"; the kids would hear excerpts while Tahlia read from a colorful kuds' book that went through the different movements. Each class would then go in-depth on one or two animals (movements) --as much as you can go in depth in a class for 3-5 year olds! Tahlia did a lovely job of pacing the class --alternating listening and repeating activities with movements and dancing marching activities to get restless kids up and moving.

My little boy, who'd never had even a casual structured class, quickly caught on to the routine and basically fell in love with the class. I will further add that for the first two classes he was only watching/minimally participating. Tahlia assured me that this was totally normal end sure enough, at the start of the third class, it was as though a switch went on on his little head--a "oh yeah, this is a safe and fun place" switch.

He was in his element--uninhibited, happy, excited to participate and to learn. By the end of the session, he could basically identify all the movements of the entire Saint-Saens piece and describe the qualities of each piece. It was really impressive to see how he internalized all the information--all while having a great time! As an added bonus, each class ended with a few minutes of coloring and at the session's end, each child got to take home a booklet made up of the coloring pages the kids did.

The spring session is an "around the world" theme got and each session we travel to a new country. As with the winter session, there is a nice mix of instrument exploration (including my favorite, the giant rain stick); dancing (in circles, with partners, as a group);, call and response, rhythm play, and of course, singing. And the kids get a "passport page" to color and will get a compilation of the pages at the end of the spring session. In short, if you are looking for a fantastic introduction to music and movement, and want to nurture love of music in your child, look no further than this wonderful class!