Hudson Valley Homeschool Music

To provide music education to homeschool students through intergenerational experiences in the Hudson Valley of New York.  The purpose of this homeschool music program is to deliver an interactive, non-traditional, flexible, supportive, sociable, and extracurricular opportunity for homeschool students who strive for creativity.  We are inviting parents, at no extra program cost, to join their students in their journey to discover and perform music together.  Through this collaboration, parents and students will experience an outlet to express, animate, emerge, diversify, shape, and mainstream creativity through the intersection of music and life.  The focus of this program is to provide the resources to inspire and captivate active music learning with the intention to encourage lifelong community music making.

The intergenerational homeschool band program will be designed for homeschool students (age 9 and above) and parents with any to no level of music making experience of standard brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments.  We will help students and parents select or encourage an instrument they are passionate about learning.  If you already play an instrument, fantastic as we will help continue your journey by strengthening and challenging your musical skills through this program.  A major goal of this band program is for students and parents to become a whole musician by studying music theory, instrument care and maintenance, music history, and community music, through repertoire-based instruction and live ensemble performance.  Joshua E. Long, PhD, who lives both in Pennsylvania and New York, will be the main instructor for this program.

2024 Fall Rehearsals will run every Friday (except for 11/29/24) from 12:30 – 2:00 pm starting Friday, 10/04/24 until 12/13/24, a total of 10 sessions occurring at St. Paul’s Episcopal Parish Hall (806 Traver Road, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569).  There will be one performance experience in December.  The experience for students and parents will consist of two back to back sessions consisting of a group lesson followed by a large ensemble experience.  The group lessons will focus more on individualized instruction such as tone production, finger placement on the instrument, instrument care, and sheet music understanding.  The ensemble experience will pull all band members together to sharpen and challenge those skills through ensemble performance and instruction.  2025 Winter/Spring Rehearsals will start in January 2025, which will be released at a later date.

A nominal tuition of $160 per student for the 2024 Rehearsals will be due by 10/04/24.  The tuition will include the 10 rehearsals including the performance in December.  Additional children from the same family will receive a 20% discount (contact us directly for such registration).  Tuition will cover instruction, insurance, cost of rentals, and so on.  Parents are encouraged to participate at no additional cost to encourage music making together with their students!!  However, please note that parents and students will need to provide their own brass, woodwind, or percussion instruments and music stands.  There will be instrument rental options available and testing for instruments owned that might have not been played in a while.  You can contact us early or on 10/04/24 there will be a short meeting for instrument selection, testing, and rental needs.

We want parents of homeschoolers to participate!  Even though not required, we encourage parents to perform brass, woodwind, or percussion instruments they currently play, dust off their instrument in the closet, or learn a new instrument with their homeschooler.  This intergenerational experience will provide so much for your child and you through opportunities to make music together during our program and beyond in the community.

As you can see we are just starting out for 2024 Fall.  We are very excited to get brass, woodwind, or percussion instruments in the hands of the students and have parents join with instruments to have a fun intergenerational music making experience!!  Below you will find a registration form and payment options via PayPal below.  Please fill out the registration form and nominal tuition below.  If you have any problems or questions, feel free to contact us!