Making Music Lessons Harmonious : Teaching: Parents and children praise lighthearted, no-stress method used at three academies in county.

Cookie Marck Lynch of Thousand Oaks remembers sitting at the piano with her music teacher as a child, tense and nervous lest she miss a note.

A generation later, her children are enrolled in music class. But their experiences now are as different from their mother’s as a dirge is from a joyful hymn.

“It’s really fun; we play really neat songs,” said Tyler Lynch, 11, whose favorites include “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Greensleeves” and “Chariots of Fire.”

Music with his teacher, “Miss Susie,” at the Junior Music Academy in Thousand Oaks is lighthearted and strictly no-stress. It is an atmosphere that for Tyler and his 6-year-old brother, Ian, translates to a love for music at home.

“It’s a way I can relax,” said Tyler, who has studied at the academy for five years. “Sometimes when I’m angry with my mom or dad or my brother, I go in my room and lock the door and play music.”

The 20-year-old Junior Music Academy--with studios in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Ventura--includes fun and games as part of its mission.

More than 300 children from 3 to 12 are enrolled in classes in Thousand Oaks. Another 300 are enrolled in Ventura, 200 in Simi Valley.

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In classes of up to 10 children, students learn to read and write music and play piano, guitar, recorder and percussion instruments.

“We make music fun and positive,” said Thousand Oaks instructor Susie Wilber, known to her students as Miss Susie. “Music enhances learning of other skills. It engages the brain.”

Attitude is even more important than aptitude, said Wilber, standing in the Thousand Oaks studio with the clamor of children and instruments behind her. There, each music station is painted to look like part of a train to mimic the classic children’s story, “The Little Engine That Could.”

“ ‘Think I can,’ is probably the most important lesson we learn here,” Wilber said.

The Junior Music Academy was founded in 1974 by Carole Cutler Rubottom, who said she saw a need for a private music school as music and arts programs were being cut back in public schools.

“We’re the only source that parents can go to for group classes,” Rubottom said.

There are few musical outlets for young people in Ventura County, Rubottom and others say.

The New West Symphony, for example, sponsors two youth symphonies for which children must audition. But those musicians are older than academy enrollees, with a minimum age of 10 and maximum age of 21, said Carol E. Alexander, conductor of the Conejo Youth Symphony.

Although she had no direct knowledge of the Junior Music Academy other than having heard parents’ praise, Alexander said the private program fills a definite need.

“Music programs in the public schools have suffered,” she said. “It’s a very bad mistake for school boards to cut music programs.”

At Rubottom’s Ventura and Thousand Oaks studios, one-hour weekly classes run from September through June, at a cost of $53 per month. Although the academy is a private, for-profit company, Rubottom said she offers at least 10 scholarships in Ventura and Thousand Oaks each year.

Rubottom also founded the Simi Valley school, as well as Junior Music Academy programs in Palmdale and Orange County. But those studios are now operated by licensees.

Chrys Berri bought the Simi Valley studio from Rubottom last year. His classes cost $49 per month; he offers three or four scholarships per year.

All the Junior Music academies use a curriculum that Rubottom wrote and developed, and all academy teachers train with her twice a year.

After more than 25 years in the business--Rubottom taught at a Yamaha music school in Ventura before founding her own company--she still finds fulfillment in music classroom work.

“It’s the joy we receive from touching children’s lives and their parents’ lives,” Rubottom said. “It’s the feedback you get from the kids and their enthusiasm.”

James Woolley, 6, of Ventura is one of “Miss Carol’s” students.

“It’s cool,” he said. “And we play music and we get to dance.”

His mother, Margie Woolley, said she enrolled her son in the academy to help round out his extracurricular education.

“We had done soccer and we were getting ready to start T-Ball and I thought this would be a good balance for him,” Woolley said. “He was 5 then, and he loved it. Kids are like little sponges. They soak it up.”

Some parents have a pretty high learning curve as well, Rubottom said. “We teach the parents right along with the children,” she said. “We don’t charge extra for them. Sometimes mommy does right hand and the child does the left hand in a duet.”

At the end of a visit to the Ventura studio this week, James ran up to Rubottom and threw his arms around her.

“See what I mean about the feedback?” she said.