About Carolyn
Carolyn Iga, owner of Neighborhood Music School, has a bachelors degree in music education and a master's degree in music and has taught for over 20 years. In 2000 she opened her school as a home service, offering lessons at her home studio and in the homes of families in Malibu and Santa Clarita.
She recently expanded her school to include Arcadia and San Gabriel based studios with teachers of various instruments and programs. Her school was featured in the Glendale News Press section of the Los Angeles Times when 30 of her 45 personal piano and voice students performed a recital at the Glendale Public Library.
Carolyn has been music and choir and orchestral conductor, pianist, and organist to churches and performing groups across Los Angeles, Louisville, and Honolulu. She is versed in a variety of instruments including the piano, organ, ukulele, guitar, trumpet and other brass and woodwind instruments. She taught young children for Yamaha Music School and was trained in a variety of music educational methods. Carolyn is a member of the Music Teachers Association of California. She continues to develop her own conglomerative style of teaching and believes music lessons should be a life-giving experience that lends to the overall growth of the whole person.
Article published in the Santa Clarita Magazine:
MUSIC and MEANING
By Carolyn Iga
Jarred was a lanky, awkward but eager 11-year-old when he started piano lessons with me. He had a high aptitude and progressed rapidly through the first year. Then the music got harder and he became a teenager struggling for identity as I struggled to connect with him. Jarred came in with black painted fingernails one day and began wearing a hooded sweatshirt every week which he refused to remove from his head. I asked him one week to memorize a music theory principle and came back to give him a test. I saw that he had lightly penciled in the answers on the test sheet ahead of time. This was a teachable moment. I asked him, "Why would you cheat?" He shrugged and looked me straight in the eyes with defiance, "I always do, because I can." "Look," I said, "I care about your development and you have to realize that you only have one chance to be a kid. Once you're an adult you're going to have to sacrifice other things to be able to take classes and learn. If you can't learn how to do a simple memory exercise now, you are going to struggle when you become an adult." (My wording was probably a few notches higher in intensity, but you get the point.) Jarred and I connected that day. He knew that I cared, not so much that he did the work I gave him, but that I cared about his development as a person. I affirmed Jarred in his innate talent and aptitude. We explored more rhythms and styles that match his teenaged culture. Jarred is now a 15-year-old still struggling through adolescence but aware of his competence through his accomplishments in music. Music has provided an expression as well as a place that helps to center his life.
Julie came to me as an 8-year-old, shall we say, "brat." Aware of my buttons, she'd try to push them to see how I would respond. Julie, it turns out, is an outstanding musician. Once we harnessed that energy she became one of the most diligent students I've worked with. Julie is exploring becoming a music teacher.
Chelsea and Jordan were two elementary school vocal students who obviously had raw talent. With some coaching and breathing and tonal exercises, Chelsea got a lead part in a musical at a local college production. Jordan continues to audition for and receive roles in local community productions, and was just asked to sing at her soccer coach's wedding.
Music lessons taught me that if I applied myself, I could not only play my pieces, but I could also run a marathon; I could get straight A's; and I could contribute to society. Eventually when I gave my Masters Recital, it showed me I could lead people into another world through the beauty of refined expression. That's why music lessons are important.