My crazy 13-year-old wants Ukulele lessons and I'm like..."JC, who teaches that?" Lucky for me, the Studios by Sarah Strout teaches yuke and more! Central to my East Dallas abode, on the northeast corner of Abrams and Mockingbird...Hillside Village for those in the know, nestled between Steinmart and Lakewood's 1st and 10 (excellent place to park as you wait for your spawn's lesson to finish). In a nutshell, Sarah is the broker between aspiring and broke musicians. She provides beautiful studio spaces and matches teachers to students. So far, so good, but you do pay for the overhead of studio space. Lessons are a bit (but not much) more than in home lessons. read more

I never do this but this place has me hoping mad. I tried to sign up for guitar lessons for my daughter. I received a confirmation on the time and date, mind you this place has strict rules on not showing up and prepaying for lessons, showed up for the lesson only to find out that Sarah had booked a second student for that time and the teacher was in with another student. We waited 10 minutes for someone to help us try and figure out the situation but the only people there were other teachers who did not know how to get a hold of Sarah. We went home and I checked my email and found that Sarah had sent a confirmation and changed the time to 4:30 instead of 4pm which had been on all the previous emails. We jumped back in the car and rushed back to her studios got there on time for a 4:30 guitar lesson and again the teacher had a different student scheduled and took them back and just told us sorry. No one could find Sarah to speak to me. I decided to take a break and try to find another guitar teacher. But then emailed Sarah again a few weeks later and asked her to sign us up for Guitar and voice lesson. We had one lesson last week and then this week I get an email half an our before our lesson time canceling on us because the teacher cannot make it. NO phone call just an email. Thank goodness I was right at my computer when it came in. But thats not the best part of this here is the email exchange from today. I cannot believe it. My advise is find somewhere else to take music lessons. On 11/12/14 3:19 PM, "studio" sarah@stroutstudios.com x-msg://155/sarah@stroutstudios.com wrote: HI Tracy, I am so sorry for the late notice. Nick just called to let me know that he was having a hot water heater emergency. His hot water heater exploded and his having to deal with flooding and plumbers, etc. He is not able to come in today.. He will be emailing you guys to schedule a make up possible Friday.. or when you guys are available. So sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks so much, Sarah Strout Talley On Nov 12, 2014, at 3:22 PM, Tracy Nymeyer Re: Olivia's lesson today Ok then we need to cancel the voice lesson too. Please let the teacher know. Also Olivia does not want to take voice at this time she hated that class but loved the guitar class. She is too shy to sing in public she says. I know you have strict rules for last minute cancelations but I hope that since you have cancelled on me last minute that I will be allowed to cancel the voice lesson. Thank you, Tracy Nymeyer On 11/12/14 3:46 PM, "studio" sarah@stroutstudios.com wrote: Dear Tracy, So sorry for your disappointment. The fact that you enrolled for voice where we scheduled you a lesson during the week is a very different cancelation then one of our teachers having an emergency and not being able to come in. We never cancel lesson without offering a make up (as in Nick's lesson today) When you enroll in a lesson you are reserving a spot with one of our teacher for the semester, unless you give the studio 30 days notice that you will be withdrawing. I feel that you are not or have not been happy with our studio from the beginning. Hearing from you that Olivia "hated" her voice lesson is not what we want to hear and feel that maybe we are not a good fit for your family. I haven't received payment from you for lessons( November) so lets call it even and not continue with either guitar or voice lessons. We are so sorry we were disappointing to you. Thanks so much, Sarah Strout Talley Baffled I wrote back to Sarah: When I signed up you took my cc for payment on your system, I thought you were billing automatically. Olivia did not hate the teacher just having to sing in public. But you seem to have made your mind up and don't want us at the studio. I was more than happy to pay for my lessons and thought I had signed up for you to bill my cc. If you need me to give you 30 day notice then that is not a problem on the voice but it has certainly been very difficult working with your studio and things seem to have been a challenge at my inconvenience but when I say I don't want to come today after you cancel on me all of a sudden you are kicking us out. If you don't want Olivia back then let me know. Thank you, Tracy read more

My son takes Piano lessons at Studio of Sarah Strout in Lakewood and he loves it. He is learning quickly and looks forward to his weekly lesson. In December he did his first recital. Their recital was at a retirement community which we thought was great. I recommend this place for anyone wanting to take music lessons. read more

The facilities are very nice, with individual rooms for the students and their teachers. Our teacher was great, BUT Sarah is very rigid in the way she does business, with the pendulum swung 100% in her favor, and no consideration of her customers' time and money. For example, if your teacher has to cancel, for whatever reason, YOU and the teacher (who is a contract employee) are expected to reschedule. If you don't, or are unable to find a mutually available date/time, you are still charged for the lesson. Our teacher cancelled many times, thus I experienced this requirement several times. Also, in the summers, regardless of your out of town plans, if you wish to take lessons, you MUST commit to a certain number of lessons (determined by Sarah, not you), to fit within a very short timeframe. I would stay away unless you have loads of extra time and patience laying around to spend rescheduling lessons you didn't cancel, and spending money catering to a business that is completely one sided. read more