Music lessons for all

STRIKING A CHORD: The Band Room owner Tom Foley gives student Justin Holland a guitar lesson in the Westerly music shop. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MACDONALD
STRIKING A CHORD: The Band Room owner Tom Foley gives student Justin Holland a guitar lesson in the Westerly music shop. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MACDONALD

In July, Tom Foley opened The Band Room in Westerly. It’s a music shop offering lessons in guitar, bass, saxophone, piano, drums, clarinet, flute, trumpet, ukulele and bagpipes.

The company’s tagline is “music lessons for everyone,” said Foley, and in the first three months the four instructors signed up 70 students, ranging in age from 6 to 72.

Seven years in the making, the shop was born out of a move Foley made to get back to his roots. A Rhode Island native, in 2009 he was working in midtown Manhattan, wearing a suit and tie to work every day.

“I was miserable,” said Foley, who has played guitar and bass professionally for 17 years.

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Teaching was never the plan, rather a placeholder suggested by the owner of Frets, a Westerly-based guitar shop, and Foley’s close friend. But, it turned out to be his passion.

“I want to be there for the moment the kid starts to put things together, when what we’ve worked on for a month starts to click … its electric,” said Foley. •

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