Meet Monique Arar

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Monique Arar.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Both of my parents are refugees who loved music but never had the opportunity to formally study it in their former countries due to financial reasons and/or religious discrimination. When my brother was born, my grandmother came across a baby grand piano at an estate sale, and my parents asked me if I wanted to learn to play. I said yes. I was 3.5 years old and, as a result, I learned read music before words. When I was a bit older, one teacher told my parents my hands were too small and I’d never be able to play piano. Thankfully, they took me to a different teacher. When I was 7, I began studying with the teacher I would continue with until college – Nina Polonsky, a former teacher from the Moscow Children’s Conservatory. I am proud to say that I was her first student in the United States. Like most teens, I wrestled with finding time to do all of the activities I wanted to do, and quit and returned to piano several times. However, I kept getting pulled back into music, and when I did go all in, I won competitions and was pretty keen on minoring in music.

I entered college thinking that I would be an international business major. However, during the first week of college classes, when I was denied access to music major courses I had been told I’d be able to take, that I decided to leave Indiana University for Miami University, a school which had encouraged me to audition as a music major and had granted me a scholarship to do so.

Miami University was an amazing fit for me academically, and I went all in, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Russian with a minor in French and thematic sequence in European Studies alongside a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance. I was also able to study harp performance.

Feeling burnt out academically after college, I took a fellowship job doing campus programming in South Florida. Although I took private harp lessons at the time (spending a disproportionate amount of my meager salary on harp rental and lessons), it didn’t feel like enough, and within a semester, I knew I wanted to audition for a Master of Music degree.

During that year, my mom had moved to Las Vegas, where she was also housing the grand piano my parents had gifted me my junior year (an extraordinarily supportive gift). I’m pretty sure one of the reasons I kept coming back to studying piano is my Kawaii grand. I auditioned at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and was not only accepted but awarded an assistantship to instruct group class piano. While I had been teaching piano on the side since I was 16, it was during my assistantship (when I would hear Jingle Bells played poorly by over 30 people on a single day and not go crazy), that I discovered how much I truly love teaching.

While in my master’s, I became the director of a campus student program. Juggling a master’s in music with an assistantship while working 50-hours a week in an unrelated field was a lot. After graduating, the lifelong learner in me recognized that my career was taking off in the non-profit world, and I went on to earn a Graduate Certificate in Non-Profit Management. After Las Vegas, I moved to San Francisco where I worked in non-profit again. Despite me practicing piano at a music store nearby during my lunch breaks, building my studio website and teaching after work, it took me a while to admit that I really wanted to pursue music full-time.

I made the decision in May 2012 to quit my job to prepare for doctoral piano auditions. Quitting a job while still living in San Francisco was tough. I was taking buses to go practice at a community music school’s upright and hustling three part-time jobs. I moved back home to Las Vegas in January 2013 to get an early start in my doctorate, where I had all-access to practice on my grand piano and have family support. I can’t say that leaving a city I loved for one I definitely didn’t was easy, but I’m incredibly grateful to have my doctorate without loans and tremendously proud of what I was able to accomplish as a pianist and academic during that time.

I moved to Atlanta during the last year of my doctorate and was able to receive mentorship and guidance on my thesis with with a professor then at GSU, who was among the handful of people specializing in my field of research (classical improvisation). I completed my degree in 2017 and began 2018 with five part-time jobs: teaching group class piano and accompanying at UNG Dahlonega (a tough drive from Buckhead multiple times a week), teaching piano and accompanying at the Music Preparatory School at Clayton State University, running a nonprofit half-time, teaching at a music school, and teaching private students. I slowly shed each job and began working exclusively for my studio Music With Monique in September 2018.

In April 2020, I purchased a home with a studio space in East Atlanta. The studio has come a long way, and I am proud to teach children and adults from all walks of life, in-person at my studio as well as online. I am also incredibly grateful to have ended up in such a supportive, creative community as East Atlanta.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Deep sigh… I was told multiple times that if you can do anything besides music, you should do it because having a career in music is incredibly difficult. I had so much imposter syndrome and denial of my identity as a musician that, despite my degrees, I didn’t really get over it until I was close to 35. Having grown up around very serious pianists, I had an idea in my head of what a pianist was — someone who seemed to have no outside life and practiced 6-8 hours a day. That was never me. I’ve always been an interdisciplinary person with a lot of interests. I think a lot of the students who were so serious in their childhood got burned out, so I’m grateful that I was able to explore other fields and careers. Music just kept pulling me back.

It was very difficult leaving a relationship, a great social life, and a city I loved (SF), to move back home and be unemployed (I made the conscious decision to not work during my doctorate because I had worked during my master’s and felt like it had stolen from my experience). Piano itself is a solo instrument, and as a social person, all of that academic work and practice was incredibly isolating. After graduating, I was the most educated and poorest person I knew, so I had a lot of doubt. People would suggest careers and pursuing more lucrative fields, and I’d entertain those ideas on sleepless nights. I kept reminding myself that I made a lot of sacrifices to get to where I am and that I need to make the most of it. Teaching music was the only thing I really wanted to do, and I needed to make it work.

In December 2019, I had a freak accident where I fell at home while putting a glass bottle away. The bottle shattered in my right hand (my dominant hand), and I ended up having to have nerve surgery. It was an incredibly traumatic experience. I was told I was lucky to be alive because if I had hit an artery, I could have bled to death. If I hit a tendon, I wouldn’t have full use of my hand. I was in a cast and sling for ten weeks, and I wouldn’t know whether or not the surgery worked until afterward. Fortunately, it did work! I have full use of my hand. My cast came off and a week later, lockdowns happened, so I had two separate quarantines in 2020. The potential loss of use of my hand taught me how short life is and that I need to appreciate everything I have. I am so lucky to be able to play piano. I need to recognize everything I’ve accomplished and throw the self-doubt out the window. I now use that experience to help my students get over their performance anxieties and self-doubt. Put in the work and do your best, that’s all we can do.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I teach piano and music theory to children and adults online and in my home in EAV. I’m very proud of my “United Nations” studio which comprises of students from various nationalities, religious, backgrounds, and ages. When I first started college, I thought I’d be an international business major, so in a way, I’m running a business that serves international clientele. In March, I was just notified that my studio was awarded 2023 Best of Piano Lessons in Atlanta out of 339 Piano and Keyboard music schools on Distinguishedteaching.com. Additionally, my adult students informed me that, according to yelp, I’m the #1 Piano Teacher for Adults in Atlanta. My child students have earned Southeast regional recognitions of excellence for their performances by the Royal Conservatory of Music and the highest ratings at local Music Teacher Association adjudications. I’m incredibly proud of these accolades.
Teaching piano has been my dream and I see myself as both a friend and cheerleader to my students. I’m a coach ready to help my students achieve their goals, and I get to do that through a shared love of music.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Self-doubt is a waste of energy. Do the work, listen to your heart, and own your power.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.musicwithmonique.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/music_with_monique
• Facebook: facebook.com/musicwithmonique
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/DrMoniqueArar
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMVG8QQ1DDo
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/music-with-monique-atlanta-2?osq=music+with+monique
• Other: https://calendly.com/musicwithmonique/free-consultation    https://distinguishedteaching.com/piano-instructors/atlanta-fulton-ga/