Community First Programming
At Arabella’s Voice Studio, we don’t use a set “curriculum” as we find that a lot of our students come to us for lessons because they were looking for something a bit more personalized.
Instead, all of our teachers are trained on vocal anatomy, pedagogy and frameworks that can be used to teach. These frameworks are a mix of tried and true techniques and modified by our teachers to reflect the uniqueness of who we are and who we serve.
One framework we have as teachers is a program is to make every private lesson feel like a total jam session whether that be playing along on their instrument, helping students write chord charts, or teaching leadership as the singer is more than likely leading the band.
We see the great benefits of this teaching approach in our adult vocal lessons, as we’ve built an entire structure around our community-first programming. This shifts the focus away from the studio environment and encourages students to get out and perform in the wider Boston community—at local pubs like The Bebop or karaoke nights at Viva in Downtown Crossing.
At least once a quarter, we are organizing an event or master class where adult singers can meet up with another to show off what they’ve been working on.
Impromptu Jam Bands
Yet, for our young singers something was missing. That is, it was missing until recently.
What we noticed is that we had a ton of siblings and friends sign up to take lessons at the same time to make scheduling for their folks and guardians easier. So, what we did at the end of these hour long private lessons, we reserved ten minutes where we invited friends and families and siblings into the room to share what they learned in a show and tell, or to perform together on a song that they were all learning.
In essence, what we created was an opportunity to turn a private lesson structure to an informal opportunity for social learning.
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Practice
A further benefit of this is that the young singers started to feel motivated to practice because they felt a responsibility to each other to know the songs, and positive pressure to perform what they’ve been working on.
We started getting emails from parents with lines such as “they’ve been playing together all morning” or “they wrote their own song last night”. To us, this is real evidence of success. Most of our teachers grew up playing in their informal family bands or meeting up to jam with friends, and we absolutely love that we’ve passed that on.
Band Shirts
We launched this approach in January 2025, and after six months of programming, we celebrated by having the kids come together to design their own band shirts.
While it’s not unusual for a summer music camp to break out fabric markers and plain white tees, we took it a step further. Students were introduced to design software, and we scanned in their artwork to create digital versions to print. Alongside this, we helped families compile programs that listed all the songs the students had learned together. By the end of the six months, the kids had designed their own merch, created a program of their music, learned a ton of songs, and made memories to last a lifetime.
Become a Rockstar
We teach three core tenets with our impromptu bands:
- Listen more than you play
- If you make a mistake, just keep going
- If something feels too hard, modify—don’t quit
While these rules of thumb certainly apply to music, we see them as bigger life lessons, too—encouraging kindness, resilience, and creativity. These young rockstars walked away with much more than a ten-minute jam session.
If you’re interested in learning more about our programming, book a consultation—we’d love to hear from you!