My name is Tara Scheyer.  

I've been teaching music since my college days (around 30 years) and have been playing music since I was five and my Grandaddy- who was the Justice of the Peace back home in Union, MS- paid me a quarter a pop to play "Here Comes the Bride" on the piano when he officiated in our home. 

I grew up playing piano in the Baptist Church, and went on to study music performance and education at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.  I moved to Augusta the day I graduated from college and started accompanying and teaching piano lessons and group classes at Augusta State University.

I moved to Nashville when Reba McEntire hired me as a songwriter for her publishing company, Starstruck.  In Nashville I wrote for Reba for two years, then worked at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music for 4 years.  I also got married in Nashville, and when Kevin and I were ready to plant some roots we headed back to Augusta, where some of his family still lives.

Kevin and I ran a little dog bakery in Surrey Center called Fetch for nine years before deciding to focus on our bigger passions: kids and music.  We now have two boys- Felix is 18 and Nopa is 13- and perform together in a family music project called Tara Scheyer & the Mud Puppy Band.

I believe in teaching children to LOVE music, and to help them feel safe and confident performing it. My teaching method/mission is a little bit of classical method, theory and composition mixed with a whole lot of technique (pitch, dynamics, phrasing) and ear-training (we sing solfege nearly every week).  And above all, making it fun and engaging.  Learning disguised  as play is a great way to keep children returning to music as a dear friend, hopefully for the rest of their lives.

I use the following electronic supplements: PreschoolProdigies.com, Musicplayonline.com, DustBusters2 app, Staff Wars app, and Rhythm Cat app.