Guitar Center’s Donny Gruendler On His Work With The National Association For Music Education
Guitar Center is the largest company of its — a music retailer chain — in the United States with nearly 300 locations. Recently Guitar Center released an authoritative survey that compares the behavioral effects of replacing 1 hour of screen time a day with 1 hour of dedicated music lessons in children ages 7 to 17. The new research study explores how mastering scales in music lessons can lead to mastering skills in life. For children, there are a number of positive effects for students participating in supplemental music lessons including self-imposed limitation of screen time, increased problem-solving skills, better time-management, and increased self-awareness and social skills.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Donny Gruendler — Vice President of Music Education for Guitar Center — by phone about that survey done with the National Association For Music Education and plenty more, including Gruendler’s success as a musician and composer; the Berklee Institute graduate’s credits include Rick Holmstrom, DJ Logic, The Funk Brothers, DJ A-Ski, Kenny Burrell, Art Bleek, and John Medeski. As part of his day-to-day operations, Gruendler (who instructed GRAMMY-nominated musician Anderson .Paak) engages with nearly 2,000 music educators nationwide and has expanded Guitar Center’s lessons program, multiple student offerings and achievement programs.
My full September 2019 interview with Donny Gruendler is streamable below, as embedded from YouTube, while more on Guitar Center’s recent survey can be found at www.guitarcenter.com.