We are truly loving working with Martin Metzger. Our 12-year old son looks forward to his lessons…read moreand is excited to play the music he and Martin choose together. Martin strongly believes in allowing kids to follow their interests, and has the talent, interest, and patience to help them do so in a wide range of genres. Martin is knowledgeable and dedicated both as a musician and as an educator. We travel a bit of a distance for lessons and are convinced it's well worth our time. We recommend him highly to anyone at any age looking for a great guitar instructor.

Choosing the Metzger Music Studio has truly been one of the best decisions of my and my wife's…read morelives! Our daughter goes to Martin for guitar lessons and I fear I may not be able to convey here just how amazing he is and what his instruction has meant for our daughter as a musician! I would recommend Martin and his crew any day! We wanted to get our girl started on guitar very early, only because she was exhibiting an affinity toward music and guitar that got us thinking it wouldn't hurt to try her at guitar, so we contacted Martin. He readily welcomed the notion of trialing and the rest is history. Besides being a phenomenal guitarist, his being an amazing person and having a Masters in Education have both manifested in the amazing way in which Martin teaches our girl to play the guitar. He works with her at her own pace, taking cues from how she learns in order to tailor his instructions to suit her learning, all the while making the lessons equal parts guitar and fun, entertaining our girl's every whim to be jovial and enjoy learning the guitar. He shows her the utmost respect and teaches her in a way that has inspired her to look up to flamenco legends. For her age, that level of aspiration itself is awe-inspiring and the credit goes to Martin. He doubles down on skills that our girl is good at while helping her elevate those she needs more work on, from strumming to chords to rhythms to percussion to improvising. We love his holistic approach of teaching the pupil to actually feel music and rhythm rather than just to learn to play the guitar. His methods have resulted in wonders! We have been fortunate to witness moments of our girl's performance that have impressed even Martin. That is the level of quality of instruction one can expect from Martin. He stresses on practicing, practicing and practicing some more. He also encourages playing at recitals that he arranges for his students, which is a great way for the student to be inspired and be audience-ready. He has also started our girl on sight reading, which is helping her to learn to play the guitar while reading music. I would characterize Martin's overall approach as informed (no unnecessary attachments to old or new methods just for the sake of it), inspiring, feedback-loop-based, very disciplined and simply amazing! And his guitar skills? Incredible! Let me put it this way, we have considered migrating to a warmer climate and one of the top considerations that have kept us in Chicago is that we don't want to lose Martin as our friend and our daughter's guitar teacher. And he's been a great friend to our daughter too. There are great guitar teachers everywhere, but there's only one Martin. Our girl's weekly guitar lesson is one of the highlights of her week that she looks forward to. It is a joy to see her learn to play the guitar and have the time of her life while at it! As for the rest of his studio, Martin has 16 teachers on every instrument (and even voice) who travel to people's homes for lessons, which is convenient for many families. The teachers are well-educated, passionate about their instruments and art, and they are wonderful with children. As I alluded to earlier, the studio also puts on three recitals free of charge every year! I only give online reviews when I feel the recipient absolutely deserves it and reviewing Martin and his studio was a no-brainer! I wholeheartedly recommend the Metzger Music Studio for any potential student interested in developing a lifetime love for learning music!

My daughter has been going to violin lessons for the last few years and loves it. Her teacher has…read morebeen patient, kind, and extremely helpful with feedback.

My daughter has taken piano, voice and music theory lessons with Audie for seven years. He has…read morehelped shape her love for music and the way she approaches each song. We love the many opportunities that Christopher Laughlin provides for their students to practice performing in front of an audience, building up confidence and comfort as well as plenty of fun. Great experience, highly recommend this school.

Both of my kids do the Little Tones class and they love it. They've learned a lot in just a few…read moreclasses. Highly recommend!

This is my go to coffee shop in the area, especially when I have a hankering for a non-chain cup of…read morejoe! My latest pick-me-up has been that oatmeal cookie latte. The secret (or part of it) is the oat milk! So comforting and so delicious! Mondays are double punch card day! Instead of one punch per drink, you get two! Also, February is North Shore restaurant month, so RH is giving 15% off purchases! Tag's Bakery (Evanston) makes the goodies (donuts, cookies, scones) sold here. Me thinks I'll have to pop in tomorrow! Easy street parking outside.

I sent my 8 year old to a Glee Camp at Bach to Rock with friends on a day off from school last…read morespring. All the kids came out smiling from ear to ear saying they wanted to take singing lessons. But my own spirited daughter said forget singing...she saw a drum set at Bach to Rock and thought that looked way more fun. She's asking for a new activity every few weeks so I tend to ignore her requests until she asks at least a dozen times...and she kept asking. Finally I agreed to drum lessons if she went to Glencoe Academy of Music since it's so close to my house. I'm all about the least amount of driving possible being a busy working mom of 3 kids. She agreed and I sent an email to Glencoe Music Academy asking for info...and very quickly heard back from Brandon who got us scheduled with Mark. Glencoe Music Academy may be convenient, but the lessons would be well worth it even if we had to drive there. Mark is patient, fun and my daughter comes out with a huge smile every week. To be honest I thought drumming was just making a lot of banging noise, but I've been really surprised (and pleased) with how much coordination is involved w/ playing the drums...and it's been fun to see her make progress. She also has a bunch of friends who take guitar lessons with Carlos and are very pleased as well. The lessons themselves are pretty expensive, but I think that's to be expected when it comes to private music lessons. I haven't agreed to an expensive (and loud!) drum set quite yet, but Mark has offered a few times that he can come with us to the store to help us pick one out when/if the time comes. In the meantime, I'm happy with her playing on her little amazon pad to keep the noise down a bit in my house.

If you are interested in picking up a new hobby or just getting back to playing something you used…read moreto years ago, Glencoe School of Music is the place to be. It brings downtown and area musicians to the North Shore. Carlos and his staff are amazing, talented and fun people who know how to motivate the young and the old! Situated in the middle of downtown Glencoe, next to Foodstuffs, the studio is easy to get to and has plenty of parking with a public lot right behind the building. If you are thinking of taking up an instrument or want to work on your karaoke skills (seriously Kay Rutherford is an amazing vocal instructor), GAM is the place to go. All the instructors are performers in their own right and have the skills, patience and knowledge to make you a better performer!