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The Making of a Musician

Jam Sessions at Jon’s School of Music

     “We’re going accelerando, Mommy!” That’s what my 3-year-old told me one afternoon as we merged onto Interstate 580. Sure, he could have simply said “faster” like most people. At one time he would have. But something very special has changed the way my kid experiences the world so that now he commands “ritardando,” when he wants me to slow him down on the swing, or asks me to play the radio “forte” when he can’t hear the song. What has caused this change? In a word: music. But he’s not going to just any school of music. He’s going to Jon’s School of Music.
      ”The most important thing is for the kids to have fun,” says Jon Merker, founder and sole teacher at Jon‘s School of Music. Merker‘s unique curriculum, the foundation for which was developed from his experience as an instructor with a past Bay Area program, Music Time, aims to teach music theory in a way that puts to rest the cliché image of being trapped in a cold recital room with a tightly-wound instructor wrapping the music stand with a conductor‘s baton. Merker‘s style is all at once engaging, energetic and downright zany. “A love of music is all I‘m looking for,” he says.
     Of course, parents should not be fooled by all the wacky fun. Merker runs a very tight and well-organized ship that relies on a firm partnership with participating parents so that no one is running wild. Everything from a quick game of hide-and-seek to a round of follow the leader is calculated to incorporate amusement with advanced musical knowledge. A bunny puppet inching its way out of a hat is really a crescendo in disguise, while a parent-child tickle fest is simply the best way of getting kids to think a measure of sixteenth notes is the most hysterical thing ever. Uh-oh … the drum stack is stuck to the floor? Just sing the major scale – 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1 – and poof! The musical day is saved. “It’s quite a tool, the magic numbers,” says Merker, who uses musical number patterns and drumming combinations as magic words, like abracadabra. “Pretend the light doesn’t work and just ask a kid to do kick, kick, snare (foot, foot, hand) to turn it on. Grownups could use it all day long to train a child to become a musician.”
     While the entire 45-minute period constantly nourishes the ultra-absorbent little minds in the room, not a single precious moment is spent consciously considering, say, the difference between an eighth note and a quarter note. Students are way too busy jamming on a pint-sized drum set, cello, electric guitar, trombone, xylophone, keyboard and just about any other instrument you can think of (and some you would never think of). “I imagine after my class they know what instrument they want to play, which is a big deal,” says Merker. Like most kids, my little one is partial to the drums and the “sampler,” which he has dubbed “the kookamonga machine.” While Merker believes that proper technique is important, it is only through his madcap, repetitive approach and catchy tunes that the “correct” way of playing sinks in. “Eventually they’re going to say, ‘what does that mean,’ and they will notice what they’re doing.” Before you know it, you don’t simply have a child who loves music. You have a musician.
     Take a brass instrument. To someone who has never played, the instinct is to wrap your lips around the mouthpiece. But thanks to Merker’s quirky chant about how to play — “you close your mouth tight, you put your lips together, you blow really hard like this: (insert raspberry noise)” — my son made a trombone bigger than him sing like Glenn Miller — at least to this mother’s ears. Perhaps the first time Miller blew on his horn he too turned to his mom, triumphantly yelling, “I did it!”
     While no one’s putting down the other popular music programs out there, parents would be hard pressed to find anything like the experience Merker offers. “I wanted a class that was more than a singalong/dancealong,” says one parent, whose children began classes at JSOM when they were 2 and 1. “Jon’s was the only school I found that offered that. They’ve learned so much over the years — terminology, rhythm, pitch, even musical notes on the piano.” Merker now provides them private lessons at their home.
      Merker has cut six albums of beguiling songs designed to convey everything that is covered. Little did I know when we began the class that my son and I would both know the difference between a dotted half note and, well, any other note in existence. But after singing “Quar the Quarter Note,” a bazillion times at my son’s request, it is understandable. Hey, if I could learn the words to “Material Girl,” then why not those to “D Is In The Doghouse” — a song about the D key on the piano. Smartly, every time you sing “D,” you’re actually singing that very note. Same goes for C Car, E-laphant, F the Frog, G-orge, A Train, B the Bee and, well you get the point.
     Merker offers a free trial for any of his Berkeley or San Francisco classes, which group kids by age range starting at 9 months up to 6 years. You might want to bring your checkbook anyway, as I find it difficult to believe anyone would be able to resist signing up. If anything, the lyrics of the closing song will get you. Adults: “I am so proud of you!” Kids: “That’s me!”

Jon’s School of Music, (415) 971-5435, jsom.com