Every child can grow through music
Here’s what that looks like
At Dr. Ben’s Guitar Academy, lessons are warm, joyful, and built around each child’s personality. When young students start, the goal is not just progress, but enjoyment.
THE REASON STUDENTS STAY FOR A DECADE
Most parents sign their child up thinking, “My kid wants to learn guitar.” That makes sense. But over the years, they realize something surprising: the guitar was just the beginning.
In fifteen years of teaching, I’ve heard the same stories again and again. Parents tell me about the night their teenager sat down to tackle a school project and said, without prompting, “I’ll just do a little every day, like we do for guitar.” They tell me about the pride they feel watching their shy six-year-old walk on stage in front of a crowd and play from memory with confidence. They tell me about realizing the child who once couldn’t sit still for five minutes has learned to focus, listen, and keep going when something is hard.
Former students have gone on to schools like Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, the University of Michigan, and the University of Toronto. None are professional musicians. But the guitar is still part of their lives, and so are the habits, confidence, and resilience they built along the way through lessons.
What is really being built:
- The ability to learn hard things and enjoy the process
- Perseverance, focus, and the confidence that comes from genuine mastery
- The habit of showing up every day and doing the work, even when it is small
- The experience of being truly heard, guided, and believed in by an adult who is in their corner
- The comfort of standing in front of people and sharing something they have created
The guitar is the vehicle. Your child’s growth is the destination.
“My son has been taking guitar lessons with Dr. Lougheed for eleven years. It is absolutely amazing how much he gained in skill and self-confidence. The instruction is very individualized and balanced between learning techniques and acquiring expressivity.”
SOMETHING YOU WON’T FIND ANYWHERE ELSE
At most music schools, lessons look like this: you drop your child off, hope they pay attention for 30 minutes, and spend the rest of the week arguing at home about practicing a piece they don’t understand. Within a few months, frustration sets in, and another child quits music.
You want your child to experience the enrichment of music, but you don’t want it to become another stressful chore on the family’s calendar.
Lessons at Dr. Ben’s Guitar Academy are different; they’re a partnership between the child, the parent, and the teacher. Parents come to lessons with their child, take notes, and serve as the home practice partner during the week. They watch their child grow in real time and are a major reason it happens.
Parents talk about lessons as one of the things they are most grateful for, not just for their child, but for themselves. There is something powerful about sitting next to your seven-year-old while they play a piece of music that was intimidating just last month and being the person who helped them get there. About having this shared thing, this experience that belongs to just the two of you, running through all the years of their childhood.
You don’t get that from a drop-off.
“We love seeing our sons’ excitement for music grow and we are so grateful for your patience, support, and all the fun you bring to their lessons.”
Here’s what makes lessons with Dr. Ben different from most guitar instruction for kids:
We start by listening. There is a moment that happens with most of my students, usually about a year in: a child sits down and starts figuring out a piece I haven’t taught them yet because they heard it enough times that their hands want to find it. Before your child plays a note, they begin listening to their future repertoire. By the time we sit down to learn a piece, they already know it. Learning becomes recognition rather than confusion, and the difference in progress and enjoyment is remarkable
Parents are trained alongside their children. Especially for young students, parents learn alongside the child. You don’t need to know how to read music or play an instrument. During weekly lessons, you’ll learn the exact praise phrases, games, and physical cues to use at home. You become your child’s biggest cheerleader, building memories and confidence that last far beyond the guitar.
We build on small wins. Each new skill is introduced after the previous one is solid enough to support it. Your child is always making progress and always succeeding at something. That feeling of forward momentum is what keeps kids engaged and coming back.
We play together. For the first several years, every performance your child gives is with me beside them. This means they always have a teammate on stage. Confidence in front of an audience is built slowly, carefully, and joyfully, never forced.
“Dr. Ben is a great guitarist and an awesome teacher. He helps me learn every song – not too fast, not too slow, but just the right speed so that I really start to understand the piece and play it very well. He sets goals that help me learn, like “Practice this section at least five times a day.” These goals are simple, direct and easy to achieve, and at the same time help me learn. Dr. Ben has so many different ways to teach one skill – if one idea isn’t helping, he has many more to help you with. Dr. Ben is an amazing, helpful teacher and guide.”
Learning to play music alongside other children does something that no individual lesson can replicate on its own.
In addition to private lessons, students at Dr. Ben’s Guitar Academy participate in group classes, community performances, and recitals as essential parts of their growth. In group class, they make music together, help each other, play great games, and learn from students who are both ahead of and behind them. In recitals and performances, they experience what it means to prepare something carefully and share it in front of an audience.
The friendships formed here, the sense of belonging to something, the experience of making music together with other kids who get it – these things matter. They build character in ways that a lesson alone never could.
“Getting to see all the kids perform together at the end of the year is such a beautiful event. Group class is sometimes tough to get to, but those end of year performances show that it’s worth it.”
THE TRADITION BEHIND ALL OF THIS
Everything described above isn’t something I invented. It’s part of a century-old tradition of music education called the Suzuki Method, one of the most carefully researched, widely taught, and genuinely transformative approaches to teaching children in the world.
Developed by Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki, the method is built on a radical idea: that every child has the potential to develop exceptional ability, given the right environment and the right support. Suzuki was the first to apply to music the same conditions that allow children to learn language: immersion, listening, loving encouragement, and daily practice in small, joyful steps.
Suzuki studios around the world have produced generations of musicians, scholars, and leaders, not because the lessons were focused on achievement, but because they were focused on the whole child.
“We have loved the Suzuki program for our child and how he has grown with it. He has been a part of it for many years now.”
I hold a Doctor of Music degree and have completed all nine units of Suzuki teacher training, making me the only guitar teacher in the country to do both. I have been teaching guitar for over 15 years and am regularly invited around the nation to guest teach and perform. I have spent my career doing one thing: figuring out how to help children and the families who love them get the most out of learning the guitar.
Every week, when a student sits across from me, the only question I’m asking is: What does this child need right now? Not what my ego says they should be able to do. Not what the next milestone is. What does this kid, on this day, need from me to take one more step forward?
I’ve been in students’ lives for over 10 years. I’ve watched children go from stumbling through their first note to walking across stages at some of the best universities in the country. I’ve had conversations with teenagers about anxiety, hard choices, and big dreams. I’ve been the adult in the room who told them the truth, supported them through the hard parts, and meant it when I said I was in their corner.
That’s what I’m offering. The guitar is how we start. The rest is everything else.
“Dr. Ben is the most generous, friendly, patient, and understanding person that I have ever met in my life. Meeting him has truly changed my life for the better. I would not be the person I am today without him. I’m so thankful that my mom randomly asked me if I wanted to play the guitar one day. Getting to know and bond with Ben throughout the years has been one of the most memorable moments of my life and has built one of the best relationships I have had in my life.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Lessons at Dr. Ben’s Guitar Academy are designed for children ages 4 and up, though I’ve taught students as young as 2 and as old as 89. I’ve found that the ideal starting age for guitar is between 5 and 7, but the most important factors aren’t age: they’re readiness, curiosity, and a family that’s excited to be part of the journey.
This studio is for families in the area (Glenside, Jenkintown, Wyndmoor, Chestnut Hill, and beyond) who:
- Value quality, connection, and long-term growth over the kind of unfocused lessons that are common in most places
- Are willing to be involved, in lessons and at home, because they understand that involvement is how their child succeeds
- Want their child to be part of a community of learners, not just a student in a room
If that sounds like your family, I’d love to meet you!
“In one word, Ben is extraordinary! In many more: Ben’s approach to teaching is inspiring and his love for music shows in his passion for teaching. He has a calm, disciplined and approachable demeanor that invites students of all ages to connect with him as a relatable teacher. He not only teaches “notes”, he teaches artistry. He talks to and with the students, not at them. Having observed class, I see that his lessons go beyond music, and he shares lessons that relate to life. Ben is a wonderful influence, and my daughter’s life is enriched because of Ben.