By Sarah CR Clark
Walking into Kelly Weeks’ Twin Cities Music School, 1553 Como Ave., you immediately become aware of the many ways music shapes our lives.
The sounds of practice sessions overflow from closed studio doors, concert posters and a variety of instruments are displayed on the walls, and in the school’s common room, students waiting for their lessons have the option to play Rock Band 4 on the school’s PlayStation 3.
One might hear bits of the Beatles, Hank Williams or the Muppets’ “Rainbow Connection” coming from Weeks’s studio. Or at this time of year, his favorite, Bing Crosby’s “Mele Kalikimaka”).
Proficient in guitar, ukulele, banjo, mandolin and piano, Weeks teaches it all.
“Currently, my youngest student is 6-years-old and my oldest is 83 — I’ve been teaching him for 20 years.,” Weeks said. “We’re ride or die, if you will.”
Weeks, who grew up in St. Anthony Village, described his childhood as revolving mostly around sports. But he remembers being in eighth grade, at his friend’s house, when everything changed.
“I remember my friend said, ‘Hey, Kelly, check this out. My dad gave it to me.’ It was a red electric guitar. He started to play it, without knowing how to play anything yet. And then I did the same thing. I picked it up and started faking it.
“Another friend, at the same time, was taking guitar lessons and could play Nirvana and I thought to myself, I need to figure this out immediately! I knew then that this was what I was called to do.”
“As soon as I started to learn to play the guitar, I dropped everything else. It was way better to me than any sport,” Weeks remembered with a laugh. After four years of private guitar instruction at The West Bank School of Music, Weeks graduated from Totino-Grace in 1999 and moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music.
“That was the craziest four years of my life, living as a college student in Boston during that time,” Weeks said. “I mean, 9/11 happened when I was there. The Patriots won their first Super Bowl and the Red Sox won the World Series when I was there and the town just went crazy.”
Which is not to mention the amazing musicians Weeks learned from and experienced while in Boston.
“Every year Berklee invites an honorary doctorate recipient to graduation and the year I graduated it was Steven Tyler (of Aerosmith),” Weeks recalled. “The night before graduation the students always give a tribute concert to whoever is being honored and I remember Steven Tyler getting up there with the student musicians and singing ‘Dream On.’ It was so surreal.”
It was at Berklee, where Weeks studied guitar, that he first envisioned himself as a teacher, thanks to an undergrad class.
“The class was designed for anyone who wanted to teach private lessons or work outside the public schools,” he explained. “It taught the basic framework for starting a business.”
So, after graduating from Berklee, Weeks moved back to Minnesota and began teaching music lessons at Schmitt Music in Brooklyn Center (now closed) and later at a music school in Maple Grove.
At the same time Weeks was teaching in Maple Grove, he also worked as a para-professional at a charter school in St. Paul.
“That was a huge eye-opener for me,” he said. The experience inspired him to learn more about the practice of teaching, so Weeks enrolled at Hamline University and eventually earned a master’s degree in K-12 music education as well as a K-12 instrumental music teaching license.
In 2015, Weeks started the Twin Cities Music School, which quickly outgrew its first location at 21st and Talmage avenues in Minneapolis. In 2018, the school moved to its current location.
Weeks, the school’s director of operations, reported, “Today, 10 years after opening, we have 130 students and six teachers, including myself.” Every year in February, the school’s music students put on a concert at Can Can Wonderland.
As if that doesn’t fill Weeks’s days enough, he also has a YouTube channel called Kasey’s Music Method, which is named after his brother and is dedicated to music education. Currently, his channel has 175,000 subscribers and is growing quickly.
“It’s basically the other side of the coin to what I’m doing with music education locally at Twin Cities Music School,” he explained. The easily accessible platform and far reach of YouTube appeals to Weeks.
“I love both. They’re different from each other, but I love doing them equally.”
Weeks lives in Como Park with his two kids, Sadie and Cody. His favorite concert of all time was in 1994 (‘Edgecapades’ sponsored by 93.7 KXXR), when he heard Oasis play “Wonderwall,” and he wishes he could somehow take his kids to experience the Beatles live, playing “Please Please Me.”
Sarah CR Clark lives in St. Anthony Park and is a freelance writer for the Bugle.
