McAllister Music Studio

I can’t say enough nice things about McAllister Music Studio. The studio is well equipped for teaching music during lessons as well as building community during music nights and recitals. The business itself is super organized. Most importantly, though, the teachers do an amazing job of building a curriculum around core pedagogy, your goals as a musician, and the music you want to play.
I’ve been taking piano/​vocal lessons with Lizzie for the past year and a half, having no prior experience in either, (grew up playing violin,) and it’s been a fantastic experience. So far we’ve been focusing on arranging pieces of music with incomplete source material (audio and chord charts or lead sheets). Lessons are a ton of fun and I’ve learned a lot about what gives a piece of music its character and how to adapt that to how I want to play the piece. Lizzie is very knowledgeable and makes new musical concepts accessible. Additionally, she’s super encouraging and makes lessons a safe place where I don’t feel nervous about messing up.
To anyone who wants to learn to play music in the SF Bay Area, I 100% recommend McAllister Music Studio.

MMS is the center of my musical universe. The place simply teems with knowledge. The instructors on staff here are nothing less than the best and brightest in San Francisco. The community I’ve found here during my two years studying piano with Ciara has made an immeasurable impact on my skills as a musician and composer, and continues to connect me to the great musical minds of San Francisco.
When someone opens a storefront business like this in the Lower Haight with such a welcome, warm disposition, it inevitably attracts the attention of passersby and the musical talent in the area like a high-​powered magnet. In the summer of 2015 MMS hosted Lower Haight Music Night at their storefront on Fillmore St (a half block off of Haight) every two Fridays. I was lucky enough to catch most of them, and those that I missed I regretted. Each LHMN, students and friends of MMS as well as talented neighborhood musicians jammed out to old favorites on either of the two in-​house pianos, guitars and percussion. We had songwriting contests and shared personal compositions and prepared pieces, often losing track of the time and playing into the wee hours of the morning.
LHMN turned out to be such a hit that MMS decided to extend it through the end of the year, with more and more students participating. Personally I found it to be a safe, supportive environment to practice performing, which is a rare opportunity for schools to offer so frequently! This puts a lot less pressure on the two major recitals MMS hosts per year and allows the private students to interact with each other, many of whom have become good friends of mine.
In sum, MMS offers an experience that frankly doesn’t exist elsewhere in the city. They are lovely, very talented people and I am privileged to be their student!

can’t say enough good things about this studio!
the teachers are wonderful, there is a sense of community, and the studio is adorable.
i take lessons with lizzie, who by the way rocks. she manages to offer the right balance between theory, drills, songs for improving technical ability, and songs you’ve always wanted to play. i’m sure she’d let me rebalance as i wish, but i like the mix! she’s also incredibly patient and has a knack for explaining abstract concepts in an easily digestible way.
the studio is also great because they provide opportunities for students to play for others. they host music nights (where you can meet other students and jam out in a safe space) and an annual winter recital for adults. i only mention adults because, if you are anything like me, i would be embarrassed to be outdone by some 5 year old prodigy… lucky for me, they thought through this and it can’t happen!

McCallister Music Studio is fantastic. My 2015 New Year’s Resolution was to give a piano recital. Although I was self-​taught, I’d never taken a lesson before and had a litany of bad habits. It’s for that reason that I’m so glad I found Ciara & MMS. I started taking piano lessons from Debbie last February, and learned more about piano in a year than I had in the previous 10. The studio is beautiful and all the other teachers are wonderful, patient, and knowledgable. Oh, and I participated in the MMS Winter Recital, which was a magical night. If you’re thinking of taking piano (or voice, or guitar) lessons, I could not recommend MMS more highly.

I’ve been taking piano lessons at MMS for a little over a year, and I have nothing but positive reviews. I played piano for a few years as a kid, then stopped playing for about 20 years, and then started lessons with MMS. My primary teacher has been Lizzie, who has been excellent. We work through the exercises and pieces in a very comprehensive lesson book, but we also explore and develop several other skills outside of the book — such as scales and chords; basic music theory; even some musical history. We’ve also begun working on more complex, long-​term pieces that I was interested in playing. The lessons have been great, and it’s also a fantastic, community-​based organization. Ciara runs the studio seamlessly. I’ve also taken lessons with Ciara and several of the other teachers on staff, and they have all been kind, thoughtful, and talented teachers. It’s been a great experience and I highly recommend MMS to anyone interested in learning or improving their piano (and I know they teach several other programs/​instruments that I’m sure are great!).