Burlington musician Geoff Breen, of hard rock band Forevertree, knows the power of music and now works towards sharing his love of music with aspiring musicians and children.

Forevertree, consisting of Dwayne Jackson as vocalist, Nick Davey as drummer, Sean McGowan as guitarist and Breen as bass guitarist, has been together for almost 20 years and is releasing a new album, Stronger, in the new year.

Breen also recently started a rock band, Black Eyed Barbie, and joined blues band Luckyfool last year.

However, his passion also lies in teaching his craft to others through his music lesson studio, Capstone Music (1500 Upper Middle Rd.).

“I used to be a youth worker and it takes a long time to gain trust working in a clinical setting,” said Breen. “When I was touring, we would perform at drop-in centres and I would have deeper conversations with kids after a show than I did in clinical settings. Music broke down walls. The music school is the perfect combination of working with kids, helping people and working with music.”

Breen said his studio offers music lessons for people of all ages, including children.

“We now have a toddler program,” he said. “I don’t agree children can be too young for music. When you have a teacher investing time with a student, they will definitely learn at any age. Ultimately music is a language. When kids say a word, we don’t ask them to spell it. In music lessons, we don’t want them to spell or read music, we want them to make sounds: slow, fast, happy, sad. We embrace music as a language so kids are never too young to start learning about music.”

Breen’s band Forevertree has catered to a heavier rock sound for almost two decades so he created Black Eyed Barbie as an offshoot for the music he was writing not suitable to his long-time band’s sound.

“Black Eyed is for the songs I was writing for Forevertree but were not as heavy,” he explained. “It’s a little lighter, more rock than Forevertree typically is and I wanted to do something with those songs. I was talking with other Capstone music teachers and we decided to do it.”

Black Eyed Barbie also consists of fellow teachers Colleen Dowbiggin, vocalist, and Amie Sky as keys and vocals, along with Breen playing bass and guitar.

Along with Forevertree, Black Eyed Barbie is also planning to release an album early next year.

Writing and playing with three bands, and running Capstone Music, it is a good thing Breen passes on the art of persistence to his students as well.

“I tell students all the time that in high school I wasn’t the best musician and I’m still not but I play well, I play confidently and I love doing it,” noted Breen. “I’ve just never stopped playing and writing.”