Those sounds are coming from the Gillette Music Academy, one of the newest businesses at the mall.

Located next to the former Younkers store and across from the Tony Bacon Racing League, the academy is a new venture for Melissa Gillette, Webster City, who opened the school with 30 years of experience teaching children and adults how to play violin and viola.

Gillette has been in Fort Dodge since 2012 and had worked at private studios before branching out on her own.

“My studio has grown since then, and just recently I decided I would branch out,” she said. “Instead of renting space from somebody else, I’d basically start my own space.”

-Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Peter Kaspari
Emma Ouverson, 16, of Webster City, left, and Alexa McHone, 12, of Fort Dodge, perform during the grand opening of the Gillette Music Academy at the Crossroads Mall Sunday. Both are students of owner Melissa Gillette.

She teamed up with Mavis Chen, a piano teacher that she’d known for several years.

Gillette didn’t initially think of the Crossroads Mall as a location for her studio, but after discussions with mall officials, she decided that it would be the right place for her and Chen.

“I never thought before that I might afford the mall,” she said. “But they’ve been really great to work with and they’ve helped out.”

In fact, much of the furniture in the studio, including benches and tables, was provided by the mall.

At the studio, Gillette teaches both private one-on-one lessons and group lessons to students. The youngest students she teaches are 3 years old, but she also has some teenagers in her class too.

She enjoys teaching children when they’re young.

“I like starting the kids on violin when they’re in preschool or grade school,” she said. “That’s my target range. But I’ll start kids that are older. Lots of students start when they’re 12 or 13.”

The reason she enjoys teaching young children in particular is because they’re able to make more progress in the program.

Gillette teaches the Suzuki method of violin and viola education.

It’s named after Shinichi Suzuki, a Japanese man who dedicated his life to teaching children to play violin. When he came to the United States for a concert series in the 1960s, Gillette said American teachers saw his shows and were impressed with his teaching, so they began adopting his methods when teaching music.

“It’s designed to be a very immersive experience,” Gillette said of the Suzuki method. “They listen to the recordings of music they’re going to play and are asked to listen to the recordings every day and as much as possible. The idea behind that is that they learn music similar to how they learn their native tongue.”

Gillette is looking forward to her new space at the mall.

“Being at the mall and having the exposure of mall walkers walking by and just stopping if I’m teaching a group class, and they can see what’s going on here,” she said. “It’s more public visibility.”

She added that she would love for the public to attend any recitals that she has at the academy.

There’s one coming up on May 23 at 6:30 p.m. that her students are preparing and practicing for.

“My students love to have an audience,” Gillette said. “Of course, the parents are always the best audience, but it’s nice to have other people come and visit as well. Hopefully we’re a place that people know that we’re trying to promote the arts.”

And even though she’s just opened, Gillette said there are opportunities to expand the services the academy offers.

She and Chen each have their own studios, and there’s space for more studios as well.

“We’re open to seeing where things go,” she said.

Chen agreed, and said she enjoys teaching music to her students.

“I really enjoy when the kids give me feedback and tell me how good they like they music,” she said. “Or something they play with their peers or at school. After they learn piano, they can play some other instrument too. It’s very easy to pick up.”

She added that it’s been proven that students who learn musical instruments perform better academically.

“Kids that learn music, it’s really good for their subjects, like mathematics and language arts,” she said.