Ready to play the music you want with confidence and ease?

About the quiz author

Jason “Sage” Sagebiel didn't discover the science of music learning in a classroom. He discovered it because he had to.

A former U.S. Marine Scout-Sniper, Sage sustained a traumatic brain injury during his service in Iraq. The injury took away something he'd spent his entire life building: his ability to play music. His VA therapy was designed to help him survive. But he wanted more. So he went looking for answers in the research on how the brain actually learns.

What he found surprised him. Not because the science was new or complicated, but because almost no one in music education was using it.

That research became the foundation of the Arpeggio® learning system and Sage Music, which has served over 10,000 students in New York City, San Antonio, Texas, and across the United States.

Sage has been featured on NPR, and in books by Oxford University Press and Indiana University Press. He served as a faculty member at the City University of New York for 16 years, has performed at Carnegie Hall as both director and soloist, and was named Veteran Small Business Champion of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

He has shared the stage with Grammy and Pulitzer Prize–winning composers and performers.

And the students at Sage Music have included everyone from absolute beginners picking up an instrument for the first time to Saturday Night Live cast members, members of the Gipsy Kings, professional Broadway performers, and an Emmy Award winner.

Here's what the research actually says:

Over the past 40 years, cognitive scientists have studied how humans learn complex physical skills, including music. The findings are remarkably consistent. We know what accelerates learning. We know what slows it down. We know why some practice produces results and some doesn't.

The science isn't new. It isn't complicated. And it isn't secret.

Yet it is almost completely absent from standard music instruction.

Most music teachers teach the way they were taught. Most YouTube tutorials show you what to do, maybe how to do it, but leave you to figure out the rest on your own. The research that could help you learn faster, remember more, and actually play the songs you want sits in academic journals that nobody in a typical music studio has read.

At Sage Music, we built our entire approach around that research and our experience teaching more than 234,439+ music lessons. This assessment is built on the same foundation.