Capitol Harmony School of Music

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Grant Willis

via Google

I am highly recommending Larisa and the Capitol Harmony School of Music based on my own current experience of being an adult who (finally) decided it was time to tackle a life-long goal of learning to play the piano and take it seriously with the help of a teacher. I feel very lucky that teacher has been Larisa. I knew beforehand that learning anything new was going to be hard for my brain and hands to do, but I underestimated the challenge. Despite that, Larisa always meets me where I'm at, always encourages me and every lesson - to her great credit - has allowed me to meet the moment and come away feeling a sense of reward. I can't even say for certain that I would be continuing with lessons if it were not for Larisa's kindness, patience and ability to target my abilites as they have evolved. She seems to know just where and how I need to be pushed. So, I love learning! I hope this note gives other people who have a dream of learning the world's greatest instrument (sorry Guitar! sorry Julien!) the feeling that they can do it too, at any age, and there are people at CHMS who can help! I know they are helping me realize my dream, so thank you Larisa and Julien (the founder and really great guitar player!). Grant

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Min Li

via Google

I rarely write reviews. But today, I wanted to write a special thank you note to Ms Larisa for teaching, helping, nurturing our 5 year old son’s love towards music. At the first time, I paid attention to how she interacted with my son and I noticed that she’s a really talented musician as she started to hum the tunes. She patiently guided my son even though he was not in a well prepared mood. Ms Larisa’s gentle approach and her calmness have been so helpful and we deeply appreciate her ever since then. Now, my son always looks forward to seeing her every Friday. Today my husband shared with me that our son was doing really well with Ms Larisa again. Thank you so much, Ms Larisa~!

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Shawn Chen

via Google

My 5-year-old has been participating in the Early Childhood Program at Capitol Harmony School of Music since September 2025. The teachers are incredibly kind, professional, thoughtful, and very experienced with young learners. It is my kid’s favorite program. In the first few weeks, my kid didn’t always follow the teachers’ instructions, but we trusted them and continued with the program. Over time, we saw steady progress, and today my kid picked up new skills and performed unexpectedly well. It was wonderful to see the thoughtful strategies the teachers use to help each little learner grow. We are very grateful for this affordable and excellent program. Thank you so much!

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Kimberly Stietz

via Google

My 3 and 4 year old participated in Capitol Harmony's children music class. While the instructor is surely a nice person and a talented musician, she was not good with children. Very controlling and not at all fun. The parents, childcare givers, and other adults who attended the class all agreed. Then, sadly, when I gave notice that we would be ending our lessons, I was informed that there was a 30 day notice period for cancellation. This is included in the fine print of a policy that I'm sure no one reads. I've never heard of such a lengthly notice period for a children's class. Very off putting, especially when the reason for leaving is due to our lack of satisfaction with the instructor.

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Andrew Tricker

via Google

Julien was my guitar instructor for about two years, and it was a fantastic experience! (Work, unfortunately, took me out of the DMV recently.) I started with zero functional knowledge of the guitar and music; this was the first time I had picked up an instrument since middle school band about 15 years ago. From the beginning, he let me guide the lessons to what styles and songs I was interested in playing. Initially, we focused on basic chords and strumming patterns, and he had songs to practice with the new materials, so it always felt like I was playing music (instead of just mind-numbing exercises). Julien was also diligent about explaining and correcting hand and finger movements, so I could have the most efficient playing. As I got more advanced, he was able to keep the material challenging and we ultimately got into more classical guitar work and finger picking. For any song I wanted to learn to play, we would find the tabs for the song – or he would write them up on the spot by listening to the song. Of course, Julien is very knowledgeable about guitar and could answer any question I had about the instrument or the music or anything of the like. As an instructor, Julien is patient, encouraging, and easy to work with, and lessons were relaxed, which made it easy to stay motivated and have fun while improving. Thanks to the strong foundation Julien helped me build, I can learn how to play most any song on guitar now from online resources. So, to anybody trying to learn an instrument, I cannot recommend Julien or Capitol Harmony highly enough!

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Laura Chapman

via Google

We hired Julien to play guitar for a corporate happy hour/party and he was great. He arrived early with plenty of time to set up. The music was just the right volume for people to still talk and it added a lot of energy to the event. In addition to the guitar he had some castanets and other hand percussion which sounded great looped with the guitar. Before the event he was very responsive and communicative. Highly recommend!