Learnin’ in Austin

georgia fink

Band at Band Aid School of Music

A look inside Austin’s music schools.

Do you have an instrument sitting in the corner of your room that you have always wanted to learn to play, but it was always so intimidating to look for somewhere to learn? Are you planning on getting an instrument and don’t want to end up like this?

Austin Texas has been the Live Music Capital of the World since the 1970s, so it’s a very popular place for people who want to make it big in the music industry. This also means that there are lots of music schools. From people moving to Austin to play and opening music schools along the way, to people already living in Austin wanting to teach music. This makes it so that there are tons of options to choose from. However, this also makes it very intimidating to choose one. So the question is, where should you go?

lived in Austin, he feels as though the music scene hasn’t changed too much. There are still many places for playing music, and many young bands performing. The biggest changes that he has seen are the music club’s names and locations. People are still wanting to learn to play instruments, “we’re still in business after 16 years, so somebody’s still playing and learning, you know. And so I haven’t really noticed that so much” Stroia said.

Before he opened the school, Stroia was teaching privately out of his house for 5 years. He said that “Once I discovered that I liked it and it seemed like I was getting better at it, I was like, well, I don’t want to just keep teaching out of my house. I’d like to have something.” Then, over those years he decided to open a music school. It took years of planning to put the school together. “It’s not like I woke up one day and went, oh, a music school, great idea!” he said.

One of your many options is Red Leaf School of Music, a music school in South Austin that offers a multitude of instruments, from guitar, bass, and piano, to violin and music theory.

Geno Stroia, the owner of the school, started Red Leaf in Austin 16 years ago, back in 2007, but he hasn’t always lived in Austin. Storia grew up in Alliance, Ohio and went to College in Arkon, playing guitar through college. During the late 80s and early 90s, the Austin music scene was buzzing with big bands and musicians and guitar magazines talking about famous clubs in Austin like Antone’s. So moving to Austin as a musician was a must. “I came to visit Austin and that’s how I fell in love with it. And that’s how I chose Austin”.

In the ‘80s, when Stroia moved here, and throughout the time that he’s

When Red Leaf first started Stroia was the co-owner with Dan Barrett, a local Austin musician and producer. Stroia said that “the biggest challenge was that and then just learning how to be a business”. Another challenge for them was having the finances, as it was tough with no financial backing. One accomplishment for Stroia, though, was that they never went into debt. In the process they learned about what they had to do while running a business, “We bumped our heads a few times like, oh, didn’t know about that. Oh, you have a franchise tax. You didn’t know about that.” Barrett eventually left and Stroia bought out Barrett, leading to Stroia being the sole owner of Red Leaf.

Stroia says the biggest achievement throughout the 16 years of Red Leaf being around is “surviving it” and “staying in business”. Another accomplishment was when Red Leaf used to do semester-long group lessons for both kids and adults. For

10 years straight Stroia would book a gig at the end of the semester for the students to play. Stroia said that he “love[d] seeing these kids, you know, when people work really hard at something and then you get them there at a gig and they get the lights are on and they play in front of people” because this was something that they worked so hard for, and he was proud of them.

When you come to Red Leaf after a long, hard day of school or work, Stroia said that he “never want people to feel like when they have a lesson here that they’re going to a job, it should be a place that they want to come.” He feels Red Leaf should be more like a getaway from boring, stressful life.

It was 1987 when Ted Hall, the owner of the school, opened it. Before this, he was a traveling musician and a manager of a music store up in Houston, though he has been teaching guitar part time since he was 15. The owner of the store in Houston wanted Hall to come down to Austin and open a store there, so he did.

Throughout the time that Hall has been in Austin and teaching, he has seen the music scene grow very proportionally. When he first moved to Austin, there weren’t too many music magazines, only the Austin here every day. They still come here all the time, and it’s a melting pot of creativity”.

While working at the store, Hall always wanted to teach guitar again, so a few years after he moved to Austin, Hall decided to open up a music school. He started with 15 students in the back of a music store. The name, Austin Guitar School, was then registered. “Within about a year and a half, I left the music store I was in and I got a space. And Willie Nelson was my landlord and I rented a 500 square foot space and they gave me

Another option you have is Austin Guitar School. This school is located on Burnet Rd. and is the oldest one in Austin, being around for about 35 years. Some of the different instruments offered here are guitar, electric bass guitar, banjo, keyboards/ piano, drums, but there are many more, most being string-based instruments. They also have a teen after-school band camp.

Chronicle and a few others. On top of that, most of the music scene was downtown. He has now been able to witness the music scene diversify and spread out. Although it is still downtown, it also has spread into Sixth Street, which was somewhere you didn’t want to go in the ‘80s. Hall says that now “Musicians flock and they gave me a carpenter and a bunch of building supplies and then said, build your rooms out any way you wish, and here’s a carpenter.”

When the school was opened, Hall put an ad in the Chronicle. He then suddenly had 75 students and needed more teachers. He moved around Austin for a little bit, being in the Austin Opera House from ‘89 to ‘95, he’s currently on North Lamar and Burnet, but he moved buildings there a few times.

The school only taught guitar when it first opened, since that is the instrument that Hall knows best, but then as it got bigger he was able to hire more teachers, so there were more instruments available to teach. The first two instruments other than guitar available were bass and banjo.

When you go to the school, something Hall wants the students to experience is to “enjoy playing an instrument and playing their instrument so much that they never stop learning,” To learn enough so that you can keep teaching yourself.

After keeping the school open for about 36 years, Hall says that “I’ve kept it open so long, and I’ll just keep it open and. Until I can give it away or let somebody else take it.” and the biggest accomplishment is him “giving people the lifelong passion to play music.” He has seen this multiple times, once when he was called by an old student from 1987 to jam and visit with him, and another time with a bassist that took lessons at the school about 21 years ago and wanted to get a job teaching at his school.

There is one aspect of this school that is the make or break for some people; the dogs. At the Austin Guitar School, Hall brings the Guitar Dogs, Rufus and Ferris, to the school with him every day. There was a dog before Rufus and Ferris that he started bringing to the school due to her tearing up the home. Everyone loved her, so he kept bringing her to the school. Rufus later came and everyone loved him too, so he decided to keep bringing his dogs to the school.

One more of your many options of schools is BandAid School of Music, another local music school with two locations in South Austin and Westlake. They have both private lessons and a band program for both kids and adults (8 years and older). They teach many instruments including piano, guitar, voice, brass, woodwind, and more.

Kayla Altemus, the marketing coordinator, said that they “really love to focus on bands, which is why we’re called Band Aid and we like to take our students that are in private lessons and put them together in bands.”

Band Aid was opened in 2009, so it is the youngest school on the list, but it isn’t to be disregarded. Band Aid was founded by owner James May. May is from Austin and before starting his school, worked as a producer at South By Southwest and many other places, he is also currently a musician along with owning the school and teaching since 1991.

Altemus said that Band Aid is a “performance-based school”, so along with teaching you how to play an instrument, there are a lot of opportunities to learn how to perform. Many of these opportunities come 3 times a year when “the school organizes three performance events per semester, so like six a year. Those performance events are designed to help kids, like, get on stage and perform in front of people and get comfortable in front of people on stage”

The biggest mission of the school, with it being a performance school, is to be “teaching people how to make a living in the music industry, doing what they love” The teachers want the students to have a living in the music industry, and there are many opportunities for students to learn how to do this from Band camps and Band classes, to music video summer camps.

If you ever miss a lesson, instead of rescheduling it (which is a big hassle) you can instead get credits for this program called Band-Aid Extras. They are virtual lessons like videos usually made up of subjects that you wouldn’t normally cover in a normal lesson.

Band Aid also has something big in the works. As they are “striving to be one of those big name brands” their goal is to create an online music education platform to reach people all over the world so they don’t “just reach people locally” It is an exciting thing for Altemus and the rest of Band Aid, but also a little daunting. This is a goal that they are getting closer and closer to every day.

These are just three of the many other, cool, good, music schools in Austin. They offer many things from private lessons to group band programs. There are many other fun music schools that you can find, these are just some of the best ones.