Owner Interview
Please check out our newest youtube video! Music Junkie Studios recently interviewed the owner Kristi and Edwin her husband. The two talk about how the studio has impacted their lives in a positive way, how the business has progressed throughout the year, and how this studio differentiates from others. The script is posted below the youtube link so feel free to read along!
Click here to watch the interview on Youtube.
Introduction:
Hi Im Edwin Judd from Fort Worth, Texas and I’m Kristi Judd from Atlanta, Georgia. We own Music Junkie Studios, a music business right off of Park Place Avenue in Fort Worth. We offer private music instruction in voice, piano, guitar, bass, violin, viola, songwriting, and recording as well as event music.
What inspired you to open a music lessons studio?
Edwin: I definitely wanted to encourage music literacy in the area. Growing up, good quality music instruction was hard to find so I wanted to help bring it to the neighborhood.
Kristi: I’ve been a part of the music studio scene for a few years now. I was managing a studio in Atlanta before I moved here, and so when we got married (about a year and a half ago) I moved out here and we kind of saw the local studio scene and decided it wasn’t really exactly what I was aiming for. It had always been my dream to open my own studio, so Edwin and I got really excited and decided we were just going to go for it. We were going to have the kind of studio that we believe in, with the certain things that are important to us. We want to be able to bring to the table with the superior type of instruction that we’d like to offer.
What role do you play in the local community?
Kristi: The first way that we make sure and attach ourselves to the community is that we make a point to hire local. We stay really active on the neighborhood Facebook pages and we want to make sure that the local community is the first to know of any openings that we have for either instructors, assistants, or whatever it is that we’re needing.
Secondly, we have sponsorships at both Paschal High School and Nolan Catholic High School. It’s important to us to be really involved with the schools, especially the extracurriculars. We also work with a really great nonprofit called Academy 4 at De Zavala Elementary. We have a Music Club for fourth graders there. It’s really common that we give gift cards to either local schools or the Fairmount library for certain auctions or things they have going on for fundraisers.
We also do gigs all the time in the local community: I play at the Winehaus across the street on Park Place every Friday. We also have all kinds of instructors playing all over the DFW weekly. As “Music Junkie Studios”, we have played for ArtsGoggle, the Cowtown Marathon, Fairmount’s Festivus, the Wine Down for the Fairmount Home Tour, we’ve been doing graduation parties and birthday parties lately.. So pretty much, any sort of way we can provide music for an event, we’ve got you covered.
What sets Music Junkie Studios apart?
Edwin: What sets Music Junkie apart for me is definitely our instructors. They are all highly educated professionals. They are musicians by trade, they aren’t just hobbyists. They really like the nuts and bolts of music. I think we all have a philosophy that when we get a student, we really want them to learn music and learn how to go create music on their own or be able to play with the ear rather than just learning song by song on TAB. That’s something you kind of see echoed throughout our philosophy.
Kristi: We definitely have a system where all of our instructors value theory. They value the nuts and bolts of things. We build students’ knowledge from the ground up- its something that we value. We want for our students to know the ins and outs of their instrument, we want for them to be able to start creating things of their own and not just always, you know, rehashing things that have been done before. We have the greatest clients that we can count on for support because- I think- when you walk in the door, you can tell the difference.
We’re definitely believers in “all music has merit”. We’re the kind of people that really believe that. Of course we have our own personal taste and they vary person to person- we’re definitely not all the same people here… but you’re never going to hear one of our Music Junkie instructors either insulting or putting down anyone else’s taste in music.
Our job is to help you be better at the music that you love. That is something that is very different. We don’t just teach classical music. We don’t just teach rock music. We don’t just teach any one particular thing. Our job is to love music, to encourage music, to teach music, and to embrace the music you walk in wanting to learn.
What’s it like owning your own business?
Kristi: We all really enjoy each other and respect each other, and so the aspect of being able to foster that for other people and seeing their lives be better because of it is really super rewarding. The flip side of everything, of course, is a lot goes into managing any business… but the people that we have working here under this roof with us really really make it easier. We have people that we know we can rely on, we have help when we need it, we have a really great family thats really supportive, and at the end of the day we have a lot to be proud of.
What’s your favorite part of teaching music?
Edwin: My favorite part of teaching is kind of breaking down some of the more complex theory into simpler, easy-to-understand things for the student. Like a lot of times, they get their mind blown because they think certain things are “so hard” and really they aren’t. Being able to see them kind of grow in theory and also in technique, I like just totally seeing them progress where months down the line, they are just a completely different student that can play on their own.
Kristi: My favorite part about teaching is when I can tell that my students are developing their own sense of musicianship; where they are starting to make decisions for themselves about what they want a song to sound like- what cool things we can do to songs to make it not sound like we’re singing so and so’s song, but now its something that is an extension of them. It’s their personalities put into their song. Their musicianship goes into making executive decisions. Maybe we’ll record it and maybe they’ll like the decisions that they made or maybe they will think “oh that was a bad idea. Lets try to tweak it in this way or that way.” When a student of mine really steps into making decisions about the music is one of the coolest things for me to watch.
