If there’s one thing science has shown us, it’s the positive effects learning to play an instrument have on children’s development.

This is a guiding principle for longtime local musicians and music teachers Terry Double and Richard White, who for the past couple of years have offered lessons to both children and adults.

The two have known each other for the better part of 30 years, and when the opportunity to have their own space came up, they couldn’t refuse. They had been instructors at Katzin Music for decades and then continued with Stillwater Music after Katzin closed in 2018.

As members of local bands (Double plays in the Kitchen Jam Band and White has played in a lot of local bands, worked with national acts and teaches at Fort Lewis College), chances are you’ve seen these two around. And their camaraderie and the fun they bring to their lessons is something that makes the whole operation enjoyable.

Now, Double and White offer lessons both in person and online. The studio at 570 Turner Drive, Unit C follows strict safety protocols, including mask-wearing, social distancing and disinfecting. Double even held a lesson outside last week, he said, adding that the pandemic hasn’t really affected enrollment at all.

The two teach plucked string instruments, including mainly guitar, but also: five-string banjo, tenor banjo, mandolin, mandocello and ukulele. White also plays the sitar, and if you’re in the market for Renaissance/Baroque lute lessons, Double is your man.

“I am the finest lute teacher in the Four Corners. I am the only lute teacher in the Four Corners,” he said, laughing. “I had a threat of having a lute student one time, but it never panned out.”

Double and White currently teach about 15 students each and are always looking to add students.

“If you are the parent of a kid, you want your kid to be exposed to music, not only for the richness of out-of-school stuff, it’s so important – it helps them in their math skills, it gives them a diversion, it teaches them focus, it teaches them problem-solving and it teaches them a language that they don’t know. It helps them socially,” Double said.

White agrees, adding that the skills acquired learning music will carry on into adulthood.

“Social, emotional and cognitive development is so important; they’re learning a little bit of each one of those categories, and so the social-emotional thing is getting involved, getting frustrated, finding out that there’s an answer to the frustration other than taking it out on somebody else,” White said. “The social thing, ‘Well, I’m meeting somebody who I would never meet in my entire life and I’m sitting in a room with him, so I’m building social skills that are beyond just my buddies at school.’ And the cognitive thing has been proven – there is so much information on this about what it does to the brain, how the kids that play music are much better at connecting cognitively. And so music, what it does is it actually develops the whole brain.

“It’s a lifelong skill for these kids,” he said.

katie@durangoherald.com

Take a class

For more information and to sign up for classes, call Terry Double at 903-8738 or Richard White at 749-6854.