Story of the Studio
Fun and progress come from meeting each student where they are with music that inspires them.
“The wand chooses the wizard”
—Mr. Ollivander
I began piano lessons at 7, using method books designed to guide the learner step-by-step toward proficiency in reading & writing traditional sheet music: notes on the staff, various technical symbols, and a cornucopia of Italian terminology. If you’ve ever taken a piano lesson, this may sound familiar. In my experience over 20 years as both student & teacher, it was—and remains—a fair summation of most options on the market.
I memorized series of exercises, checklists, and short study pieces. I learned, but I wasn’t excited or inspired. Colorful stickers couldn’t mask that these melodies simply didn’t fire my imagination. I pressed keys. I played notes. But I rarely felt like making music.
The books provided structure and accountability: necessary components of any study. But they provided it in a fixed package that wasn’t the best fit for that student, at that time.
And much to her credit, my teacher recognized that. She saw a young boy who enjoyed constructing & deconstructing patterns and referred his parents to a local jazz pianist. I fell in love with that art form and have been playing jazz ever since. And as an older student, in my own time, I came back to classical piano and grew to love it too. I’m using piano as an example, but the point applies to any instrument: given the right spark, we are hardwired to learn and to enjoy learning.
1998
2007
Making music can be magical, but it’s not magic. Everybody can play.
“Where do big words come from?”
—Dr. Joshua Larabee
In the Information Age, there are resources to teach yourself almost anything online. Offerings for piano are everywhere: from YouTube channels with tutorials for specific chords to gamified apps using a miniature keyboard. As an evangelist for all music-making, I’m genuinely glad that platforms like this exist. “The first step is the hardest,” as the saying goes, and they make plucking out a catchy melody quick and easy.
However, the learning model still relies primarily on rote memorization and copying from prompts—analysis, synthesis, and creativity are relegated to second fiddle. As another axiom goes: “Give a person a fish, and they eat for a day. Teach them how to fish…” …and I don’t even need to finish it. If you don’t know the saying already, you can infer the rest from what came before and from what you instinctively know about people, time, eating, and fish.
Everything Dr. Larabee demonstrates about English also applies to music, “the universal language.” Akeelah and the Bee was a favorite of mine as a child, and I often think of this particular scene when teaching, composing, and performing.
And here’s the thing: our fingers run apps—apps don’t run our fingers. A browser window is bursting with distraction, and even the slickest video can’t adjust and respond to you in the moment. If we discovered anything from the Zoom-ification of daily life, it’s that learning is social: there truly is no substitute for learning from, and with, other human beings.
Bring music you love and an openness to learn, and we’ll get you where you want to go.
Graphic credit: Haley Silva, Sunnyland Elementary music teacher
So what’s this all add up to? What is the Peak Valley Music ‘approach?’ It’s a question I’ve thought about a great deal, and to which I continue to refine my answer. At this point on the journey, I would define it thus: engaging multiple senses, from as many perspectives as possible, through songs the student loves. It's what's served my own study best over the years and has many benefits:
Music becomes a lens for broader learning. The links to math are well-known, but connections abound with visual art, history, and sports (if you ask any of my current students to explain scales & keys to you, be ready for basketball metaphors aplenty 🏀).
Multi-sensory musicianship is the essence of playing—whether by yourself in the living room, with friends around a campfire, or on a professional stage. In my experience, neither solely sight-reading nor entirely ear-training can fully unfurl the joys of music-making, and so I always teach both.
I bolded those 5 words above because they're at the heart of all the rest. The impetus to learn music grows first & strongest from love of music: something I daresay we've all experienced. Someone can come in loving classical, or jazz, or pop, or metal, or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: they're just different entrances into the same pavilion wherein thrums the living, breathing, unified craft of this art form. Rather than frog-marching the long way 'round to try and force people through whichever door I came through, or chucking random lessons out of random doors at random times, my role as teacher is to bring students in through the door(s) where they already are, to then guide them in exploring further from inside the tent.
Meet the Teacher
Hunter Dunn grew up on the forested outskirts of Bellingham, WA, and began his musical journey on the keyboard at age 7. The fretboard followed soon after, and singing with the Bellingham High Showstoppers and Chief of Staff convinced him to pursue music professionally. After earning a B.A. magna cum laude in Music Composition at Whitman College, he served two years through AmeriCorps as a classroom teacher for preschool—8th grade. A lifelong student himself, he knows firsthand the value in lessons of both structure & creative freedom, and commits to finding the right balance for each individual.
Hunter is in high demand as a multi-instrumental performer, playing regularly across the region with artists including Andy Timmons, Donna Dupras, Dakota Poorman, Kitty Mae, Cody Bartels, The Problem Collective, and many more. Alongside music, he is an experienced & avid:
Chess player (serving on the advisory board of Washington’s Chess Enrichment Association; coaching services available!)
Actor (with favorite roles including Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest and Hänschen in Spring Awakening)
Outdoorsman (currently working through the Pacific Northwest Trail—700 miles down, 500 to go!)
