Any plans for the weekend?

It's never to early to learn!

Every term, around 150 children aged between 4 and 12 years come to St Mary’s Music School on a Friday afternoon or Saturday morning to learn new musical skills and improve existing ones in a fun and informal environment that’s rooted in expertise. Before lockdown (autumn classes are currently online until restrictions are lifted) we asked parents and children why they love coming to school at the weekend and how they’d describe the classes in three words!

child-centred professional fun amazing sociable interesting extraordinary friendly exciting caffeinated gregarious

“I first came to St Mary’s Music School when I was four years old. I started with Kodály and I’ve been doing choir, guitar and theory since. It’s all fun in different ways and you know you’ll have a chat first and then get to sing with your friends. In theory you get to work away at your book and learn more about music - how rhythms work and how different parts of music work - and that’s really interesting. I always get that warm feeling when I wake up on a Saturday – like “Yeah! It’s Saturday Music Classes today!”

Amelia (11)

“I think music is important for children because it’s part of the picture of their life. Learning music is good brain exercise! You learn to make different sorts of connections that you can apply to other fields later in life. Music is fun. From an early age, because of Kodály, Amelia could sing a tune and keep a rhythm and she had an appreciation of music too. It’s been good for her confidence – meeting people outside of her normal friendship group, working with them and hanging out with them – it’s good training for being broadly sociable and she’ll cope with high school all the better for it.”

Amelia’s dad, Martin

“I’ve been coming to St Mary’s for three years now – you might play singing games, you might do clapping and you also learn about the notes as well.”

Ellie (11)

“I think music switches on different parts of the brain and you can see the way that it transfers into English and into Maths, understanding patterns, understanding rhythms. It gives you confidence in learning something from the beginning and seeing that through. The teachers here are very good at making sure each child has their own voice. It’s a very friendly environment, a very warm environment – everyone is welcome. People come from all over Edinburgh and beyond for Saturday Music Classes.”

Ellie’s dad, Roy

“They make it fun because the teachers are mostly very funny and we get to do stuff that I really enjoy.”

Kirsty (7)

“Children learn a lot through play and that’s very much the model at St Mary’s Music School. The preschool classes, for example, are so much fun and it’s just amazing how much the children take away from them – the movement and the songs – because it doesn’t feel like learning. I think it’s a great place to bring very young children to. I would really encourage parents to try it out and see what your child thinks – I bet they’ll have lots of fun.”

Kirsty’s mum, Victoria

For more information about our Friday and Saturday Music Classes, please contact: smc@st-marys-music-school.co.uk