Alex Born, Founder

B.A., Berklee College of Music (In Progress)

B.m., Music Performance, McNally Smith College of Music

Classical Studies: Musikhochschule Luebeck, Germany

A.A.S., Electronic Engineering, anoka Tech

On paper, Alex looks like a jack of all trades. In person, you will realize that he is a master of many. After teaching tens of thousands of lessons at numerous institutions, he realized that the private music lessons industry had a lot of room for improvement and a lot of catching up to do. So he set out to start a school with the core values of keeping current with modern business technology and upholding musical tradition.

Alex also envisioned a 360 degree approach to learning music, and made strides to earn the credentials to deliver it to others. Not only will students learn their favorite songs and music from day one, over the course of a year a student can benefit from expertise in the following areas:

Experience building and repairing guitars for over 20 years. This will help answer questions such as, “How does my instrument work? How is it built? How can I fix and maintain it?”
A formal education in Electronic Engineering and computer maintenance, in order to understand and repair tube guitar amplifiers, pedals, and software. This will help answer questions such as, “How does music technology and hardware work? What is necessary for success? How do you make it all work together?”
Degrees and courses from McNally Smith College of Music, and the Berklee College of Music, and most of our instructors are planning to earn their Master’s and Doctorates. This will help answer questions such as, “How does music work? How does one practice? How can one play a certain style?”
Our instructors are multi-instrumental, which we believe that makes them especially familiar with how it feels to be a beginner. This will help answer questions such as, “How do other instruments work? And how do all of the instruments and musicians work together?
Our instructors are actively playing professional gigs in solo and band settings. This will help answer questions such as, “How does the modern music business work?”

As a student, you will benefit from a modern educational environment with the following features:

Online payment with automatic billing options: safe and secure, and autopay makes for less awkward money discussions. More time for playing and learning.
Online scheduling: manage/reschedule/change your own appointments whenever you want. Less time spent emailing back and forth, listening to & returning voicemails, etc.
Text and email appointment reminders: less missed lessons, less lost money.
Online lesson options via videoconferencing software: less germs, no driving, no parking, you can also record your lessons and play them back later.
Online lessons feature multiple angles: better views on fine technique, no more clumsy fumbling with the webcam. Your lessons won’t look like a Bin Laden hostage video.
Digital music delivery: all of your custom lesson music gets delivered electronically so you always have a digital backup, no sheet music to carry. Better for the environment!

What Other Schools Won’t Tell You About Learning An Instrument:

IT TAKES AT LEAST 3 MONTHS TO GET ‘GOOD’.

With a perfect storm of hard work, consistent practice, talent, a good teacher, and a good teaching method, it takes at least 3 months to see permanent and significant results. Many other schools, in an attempt to load up their teachers and teaching facilities, will take anyone willing to pay for a week or a month. This sets expectations unreasonably low and often leads to frustrated, impatient students and abandoned dreams.

ENJOYABLE LESSONS ARE PRODUCTIVE LESSONS.

When students are passionate about what they’re working on, they will work harder, longer, more focused, and more intensely than if they were working on something less exciting to them. Most other music schools will drag you through months of boring public domain songs (Hot Cross Buns, London Bridge, Go Tell Aunt Rhodie) and poorly designed method books before helping you with something you actually like or that your friends will recognize. Along the same lines, Rockwell teachers are not going to show off or talk about themselves for your entire lesson, they’re happy and fun people that enjoy their lives and are happy and excited about teaching you.

TO A LOT OF MUSICIANS, TEACHING IS A SIDE HUSTLE.

In other words, it takes a back seat to performing, it’s just something to fill the time until they play, and they’re not the kind of teacher that’s going to prioritize your learning. Rockwell teachers prioritize teaching as much as (and sometimes more than) performing.

AMAZING PLAYERS DON’T ALWAYS MAKE AMAZING TEACHERS.

When something comes naturally to someone, it’s easy for them to lose sight of the struggle that a beginner might experience when they learn it, or the amount of time that a beginner might take to grasp it. An “amazing player/inexperienced teacher” usually copes with this by adopting a disciplinarian attitude and hardline evaluation process with everyone. At Rockwell, we realize there is diversity in the ambitions of our student population— some students want to be virtuosic, some want to play in a band, some just want to impress their friends around the campfire. Whatever your goals, we’ll help you achieve them.

MANY CAREER MUSICIANS LACK VIABLE BUSINESS SKILLS.

Let’s face it, musicians are not famous for their business skills. But in today’s day and age, it’s more important than ever— recording, publishing, and marketing are more accessible than ever. To a student, a teacher with poor business skills might translate to poor customer service, poor negotiation skills, being spread too thin as a result of undercharging for their services, and poor intuition for designing a teaching business that gives value to its customers. Even music colleges are just now starting to teach music business and entrepreneurship classes as a tiny part of their required curriculum, and it’s an afterthought to many students rather than a way of life.

MOST MUSIC SCHOOLS ARE EITHER MUSICAL SWEAT SHOPS OR STRUGGLING TO STAY AFLOAT.

Most other ‘churn and burn’ music schools prioritize short-term cash over long-term success. They’ll take anyone that will pay for for their underpriced services regardless of whether they have a decent instrument, demonstrable commitment, or reasonable expectations for success. As a result, they pack their studios with flash-in-the-pan personalities, quickly burn out their teachers, and spread themselves too thin.

MOST OTHER MUSIC SCHOOL CURRICULUMS ARE NOT SONG-BASED.

The overwhelming majority of players that have succeeded on their instrument did not begin with Rockin Theme #27 from Shmal Lennard Book 1, so why should you??? They heard something that sounded cool to them, and sought out someone to help them learn it or figured it out on their own. HOWEVER, most of them never learned how to teach or create an environment of learning, tried to patch it up with a poorly designed beginner’s method book, and called themselves a teacher for hire. Rockwell remembers the spark that started it all and seeks the song in every student that walks through the doors.