At Guitar Lessons Ithaca, we always say, “it’s not what you know, it’s what you can do.” Recording a piece of music is a permanent demonstration of what a musician can do. It’s where the rubber meets the road.

Like performing, making a recording is a deep expression of who you are and what you believe in musically, yet the type of skills it hones are completely unique and can’t be gotten nearly as well with any other musical activity. That is why those students who participated in Student Album Vol. V benefitted greatly; not just because they can show their friends and family saying “check out what I made!” but because their musicianship has taken a leap upwards with skills such as:

• Choosing, or composing, a piece of music that they love enough to want to explore in detail and practice for weeks
• Finding, transcribing, or otherwise obtaining the various parts, and seeing how they integrate together
• Making arrangement decisions of their piece to suit the vibe and context of the recording
• Playing each part in time to a backing track or metronome
• Repairing mistakes by playing small portions in time with their own recording
• Learning about the recording, editing, mixing and mastering process using a DAW (digital audio workstation)
• In some cases, learning about digital effects and tone settings on their instrument and making conscious choices on which ones support the mood of the piece

We are very proud of every single student who contributed to this album, and invite each of them to reflect on the fact they attracted this achievement through sheer willpower, focus, persistence and creativity. This is what successful musicians do every day!

And for those of you who aren’t students, do you want an experience like this for yourself, or know someone who might? We at Guitar Lessons Ithaca believe that teachers who think they have to fill their student’s heads with knowledge before they can play are wasting valuable time.

There’s only so much you can tell about swimming before you lead someone into the water. There, all the theoretical concepts suddenly make a lot more sense! So if you want an environment in which you can learn by doing, face your fears head-on, and force yourself to expand your horizons with new challenges and joyful experiences, Guitar Lessons Ithaca could be for you, too!

Congratulations, students!