Today we’d like to introduce you to Adrianna Rhett.
Hi Adrianna, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I taught my first guitar lesson when I was fifteen, when a classmate asked me if I’d teach her after school. I made five dollars! I already knew that I wanted to go to college for guitar and start a music school when I grew up, and this felt like the first step towards that. After college, I moved to the Bay Area and worked as a guitar instructor at different studios before developing a curriculum of my own, and I created a program that provided music classes and summer camps to kids in the cities of Oakland, Piedmont and Alameda. It grew faster than I’d expected and quickly became my full-time job, but I was always working for someone else.
I returned to San Diego with a plan to build a new program from scratch. I taught in-home lessons and worked as a youth counselor for the Rancho Santa Fe Community Center— among other jobs— until I had enough money saved for a down payment on a physical location. I found a small office on Cedros in Solana Beach and began teaching lessons out of there.
One pandemic and a couple years later, I outgrew that space and relocated to the studio we now have on Santa Helena. We’ve been operating there since 2022.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In the early stages of growing the business, I worked a handful of side jobs and taught as many lessons as I could to make ends meet. It was really humbling to start over, but I didn’t mind the hustle because I knew it would pay off one day.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
My business is called Spark School of Music, and we give lessons in guitar, bass, piano, voice, drums, ukulele, oboe, clarinet, saxophone and flute. We also offer group classes, youth rock programs and summer camps. We teach adults, too! Throughout the academic year, we provide after-school enrichment classes to local schools and community centers. Our trademark is that we combine elements of traditional music education with the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, and we’re proud of that.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I wasn’t always the best student. I failed AP Music Theory in high school and had to take it again my senior year. In college, I flopped my Upper Division Qualifying Jury. (And by some miracle, they allowed me to redo it.) I once walked out of my ear-training class because I got so frustrated with my inability to do some of the exercises. I was constantly late to choir, and the only reason I was in it was to fulfill my semesterly ensemble requirement. If you were a jazz guitar major, you got to play in the jazz band. But the classical guitar players needed a place to go, and most of us ended up in University Choir with the less-experienced sight-readers and non-majors. We made it known to our director that we didn’t want to be there. I feel awful about that now.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://sparkmusicarts.org
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/sparkschoolofmusic
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/sparkschoolofmusic
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianna-rhett/
- Youtube: http://youtube.com/@sparkschoolofmusic
- Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/spark-school-of-music-solana-beach
