Music can be yours, to have and to hold.
Keep Music Human is a 3-month music mentorship to learn the harp, the guitar, or both, for brain health, longevity, and to open up new channels of emotional expression. For founders, leaders, and practitioners who are ready to play music and use it as a lifelong practice. A neuroscience-informed, somatic and intuitive music method that has led hundreds of people from zero experience to fully-embodied musician in just 3 months.
Feel the freedom, fun, and flow of music.
Twelve weeks · Fifteen seats · Begins March 3, 2027 · Wednesdays on Zoom · Harp, Guitar, or Both
The window to learn music is open. It always has been.
The most persistent myth in music is that adults can't really learn it - that there's a window, and yours has closed.
The neuroscience disagrees. Decisively.
Research published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences confirms what great teachers have always known: the adult brain is fully capable of structural, lasting change through playing an instrument and singing. The question was never your potential. It was whether anyone had taught you in a way your nervous system could actually receive.
Keep Music Human is built on that distinction. We are a program for accomplished adults - founders, executives, physicians, facilitators, guides - who carry a lifelong relationship with music, mostly unrealized, and are ready to activate it. Through harp and guitar, taught through an unconventional, intuition-led, neuroscience-informed method, we teach you to play the way humans have always learned: through the body first, the theory later, the joy throughout. Scarlett de la Torre's unique somatic, intuitive approach to learning music has turned hundreds of adults with zero musical experience into fully-embodied musicians.
Allow us to support you in your vision to embrace music.
This program is a hybrid of live Zoom classes for technique and theory, received in the comfort of your own home or office, and in-person music immersion experiences in Topanga, Bend, Boulder, Santa Fe, Costa Rica, the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil, or your own bespoke immersion retreat with Scarlett.
Twelve weeks. One instrument, or both. One class a week.
Keep Music Human is a live on Zoom, weekly group program for absolute beginners. Each Wednesday at 11am PST, you come to class. You learn music theory the way it was always meant to be taught - through the body first, the brain second. Scarlett de la Torre has led hundreds of adults through the beginning portal of their musical journeys. Her method is unconventional by design: songs come before scales, feeling before notation. You start with sound, with your hands on the instrument - and the theory arrives in a more somatic approach, because it lands more deeply once you know what it feels like. By the end of twelve weeks, you will play songs. You will understand how music is built. You will have a practice that is entirely yours.
Just one live 75-minute class a week, one 30-minute recorded theory lesson, plus 15 minutes a day with your instrument is the whole requirement for these twelve weeks. Come to class, do the work, and at the end of three months you will be a musician. Scarlett guarantees it, and we have had a 100% success rate with this unique music method.
The Curriculum · Level 1
What you'll learn and how.
Twelve weeks, one class a week, and each class builds on the one before. Zero prerequisites, zero auditions, zero grades. Curiosity and 15 minutes a day with your instrument is the full requirement.
01 · Week One · The Architecture of Sound Before a single chord, you learn to listen differently: how sound behaves, and how melody, harmony, rhythm, and bass relate to each other and to the way the human body processes music. This is the map that makes everything else make sense.
02 · Week Two · The Language of Music + Vocal Toning Notes, intervals, steps, scales, decoded without jargon. Your voice enters as a primary instrument. Toning develops your ear, settles the nervous system, and opens the channel between what you hear internally and what your hands begin to find.
03 · Week Three · Chords, Patterns + Instrument Initiation Your hands meet the instrument in earnest. Chord shapes, strumming and plucking patterns, the physical grammar of harp or guitar. This is where the instrument stops being an object and starts becoming a conversation.
04 · Week Four · The Geometry of Music Music follows patterns that mirror the natural world, the same proportions found in water, in plants, in the seasons. Understanding these structures deepens the mystery rather than dissolving it. You leave this class hearing everything differently.
05 · Week Five · Finding Your Voice Technique is the foundation. Expression is the house built on it. This class focuses on what makes your playing sound like you, the particular way you interpret a melody, hold a rhythm, inhabit a song. Presence, fully arrived.
06 · Week Six · Improvisation + Performance Everything comes together in free play. You improvise. You lead. You perform for the group, as celebration, not test. This is where you discover the instrument was always a way of finding out what you have to say.
Weeks Seven to Ten · Songs + Technique Four weeks on your instrument: the songs you love, the chord changes that carry them, and the technique to play and sing at the same time. Replays, chord charts, and the workbook keep you moving between classes.
Week Eleven · Song Circle Everyone shares a song they've learned, on their instrument, in their own voice. This is the class the whole three months has been building toward.
Week Twelve · Held for you Hold the date. If any class in the season is postponed, it lands here. Otherwise this week becomes a bonus Q&A class with Scarlett.
Twelve weeks · Begins March 3, 2027 · Wednesdays, 11am PST · Harp, Guitar, or Both
The Schedule
Your twelve weeks, mapped.
Ten weekly classes over Zoom, a Song Circle to close, a twelfth week held in reserve, and optional in-person immersions in our cities, Costa Rica, or the Amazon. Here's exactly how the season unfolds.
Phase One · 01 · Via Zoom · 3-Month Music Program
- Begins March 3, 2027
- Ten Wednesdays, March 3 to May 5
- 11am PST · Harp, 75 minutes
- 12:30pm PST · Guitar, 75 minutes
- Both: 11am to 1:45pm
- One 30-minute recorded theory lesson each week
Live, weekly, and recorded, start from zero and build a real foundation on your instrument.
Optional · 02 · In Person · Immersion Days and the Rainforest
- Integration days in Topanga, Bend, Boulder, and Santa Fe
- Rainforest Retreat: Musical Activation with the Yawanawa, departing from Rio Branco, Brazil
- Enrolled separately through YawaJourneys
- Dates shared with the group
A living tradition of ancestral chant, ceremony, and song at the Sacred Village, or a full day of playing close to home.
Phase Three · 03 · Via Zoom · Song Circle
- May 12, 2027 · Song Circle: everyone shares a song they've learned
- May 19, 2027 · Held as a makeup date, or a bonus Q&A class
- Your song, your voice, your instrument
Bring everything you've learned back into the classroom and close the arc together, with a song in your hands.
Twelve weeks · Begins March 3 · Wednesdays · Harp 11am PST · Guitar 12:30pm PST
The Investment
$5,000 for the twelve weeks, harp, guitar, or both. Payment plans available.
Fifteen seats. Apply, then join the group Q&A any Tuesday at 11am PST to meet Scarlett, see how a class works, and ask anything before you enroll.
The Science
What happens to your brain when you learn music as an adult.
Adult brains are open systems. The research is decades deep and runs in one consistent direction: active music-making changes the brain in ways that passive listening and most other cognitive activities do not.
When you learn an instrument, you recruit your auditory cortex, motor cortex, cerebellum, and limbic system simultaneously. You build new motor maps. You strengthen the bridge between your brain's hemispheres. Studies on adult beginners show measurable increases in gray matter in regions linked to memory, attention, and fine coordination, within months, not years.
Below cognition, singing and playing string instruments force slow, controlled exhalation, directly engaging the vagal brake, the branch of the autonomic nervous system responsible for calm, presence, and social attunement.
Learning an instrument as an adult lights up motor, auditory, and emotional centers at once, building new connections across the whole brain.
Gray Matter. Instrument learning increases gray matter in regions linked to memory, attention, and coordination. Gaser & Schlaug, 2003
Hemispheric Integration. Music practice improves communication between brain hemispheres, sharpening cognitive flexibility and focus. Schlaug et al., 2009
Adult Neuroplasticity. First-time adult learners reshape motor maps and auditory-motor networks within weeks of beginning. Wan & Schlaug, 2010
Mood & Regulation. Active music-making raises dopamine and serotonin, measurably shifting mood and reducing stress markers. Salimpoor et al., 2011
"Playing an instrument asks for your whole brain, your whole body, and your full attention at the same time. Very little else in an adult life does. That is why it works." Scarlett de la Torre
This was made for you, if:
- You've built a company, a practice, a fund, or an exit, and you want one thing in your week that exists for its own sake.
- You've wanted to play an instrument for years and kept finding reasons to wait.
- You started lessons once, quit, and are ready to begin again, differently.
- You work with sound, ceremony, plant allies, or healing and want a real instrument in your hands for your work.
- You hold space for others, as a guide, a facilitator, or a clinician, and want a practice that holds you and your clients.
- You're drawn to neuroscience or somatic practice and want music as a living tool, more than a hobby.
- You want to learn songs that move you: Leonard Cohen, Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac, the healing songs of plant circles and kirtans, all the way to the songs that make your heart sing.
- You feel pulled toward the rainforest, or an in-person day in Topanga, Bend, Boulder, or Santa Fe, and want the musical foundation to meet it fully.
- You've been told, or told yourself, that music is inaccessible, and you're ready to break through that limiting belief.
Founders, executives, physicians, facilitators, and people who have done a lot of inner work and want something to make. Fifteen seats, filled by application. What happens in the classroom stays there.
This program works regardless of prior experience, zero is welcome, or age. The oldest student in this program's history was 74.
Student Reflections
Real results from real students, in twelve weeks.
"I came to Scarlett while I was still recovering, and I wasn't sure my mind could handle learning something new. My brain healed faster in the couple of months I was learning music with Scarlett than the entire 6 months before in Doctor care. Music became part of my recovery in a way I never expected." Jackeline · Houston
"If somebody had told me six months ago that I would be playing guitar and singing in public, I would've thought they were crazy. I'd always believed music was for other people, people with talent, people who started young. Scarlett showed me it was for me too." Daniel · Costa Rica
"I started these classes with a brain injury, genuinely unsure of what I'd be able to do. It was really incredible what I was able to learn, I'm playing songs now, and I'm so proud of how far I have come. It turned out to be so much more possible than I feared." Kristen · San Diego
"I'd taken music lessons before and always felt lost the moment theory came up. She was the first teacher that actually got me to understand music theory, and now I can transpose and compose in any key! It finally clicked in a way I didn't think was possible for me." Tabytha · New York
"I walked in convinced I had no musical ability whatsoever. Within the very first session I was learning to play songs I love on instruments I'd never even touched before, in a matter of 2 hours! I left realizing how much more accessible music is than anyone ever told me." Sarah · Maryland
"I spent my whole life believing I simply wasn't a 'music person.' I never thought I would play an instrument, and now I do. This is beyond my wildest dreams. Scarlett made something I'd given up on feel completely within reach." Malka · Costa Rica
"I came in with no real background and a lot of doubt about whether I could actually learn. You taught me the most beautiful medicine songs, and I play piano and guitar now! Forever grateful for how gently and clearly you opened that door." Marjolein · Berlin
"What struck me most was how safe it felt to be a beginner. She opens the gates to music so easily, no one feels discouraged, and you are surprised how fast you learn! You leave each class believing in yourself a little more." Dawn · Los Angeles
Individual results vary. These reflections are personal experiences shared by students and are not a guarantee of outcomes, nor medical advice.
Your Music Mentor: Scarlett de la Torre
Scarlett de la Torre has been playing music since before she could speak. Music arrived first, before language, and it has carried her across stages and ceremonies on multiple continents.
Her life as a performer spans the stages of Montreux Jazz and the Royal Opera House, London, to Burning Man and sacred ceremony deep in the Amazon. She is a harpist, vocalist, composer, sound practitioner, and DJ whose musical range moves freely between concert halls, festivals, and indigenous ceremonial fires. She has served as ceremonial musician supporting the tours of Yawanawa, Huni Kuin, and Asheninka wisdom keepers, and she has trained in sound work with some of the most rigorous practitioners on the planet.
Her teaching was born through service. While working with trafficking survivors in the red light district of Calcutta through Beauty for Freedom, she raised funds for instruments, built a music program, and watched something she has never forgotten: people in the midst of profound suffering, singing and playing, and for those moments, returned to joy. She carried that work to Thessaloniki, where she built a music program for Syrian refugees at Elpida Home, sourced instruments, and witnessed parents weeping with gratitude as their children played guitar for the first time.
What she learned in those places became the foundation of her music methodology. Music is far more than talent. It is a human capacity. Scarlett has spent years developing a precise methodology for restoring it, in people who have been told they have none, in people whose nervous systems have been shaped by trauma, and in people who are simply searching for a new avenue of emotional expression.
Adults with zero musical experience become fully embodied musicians inside her containers. Scarlett calls this her greatest gift.
Corporate clients include Lionheart Ventures, the Psychedelic Science Funders Collective, Urban Remedy, and Fastly.
After The Twelve Weeks
Take your instrument further: rainforest, Topanga, or on the road.
After twelve weeks of building your foundation, there's an option to take your instrument somewhere new. You can go deep, or you can stay close to home. Both are complete in themselves.
Option 1, The Rainforest · A 12-day immersion in the Brazilian Amazon Scarlett co-facilitates a 12-day music immersion with the Yawanawa people at their Sacred Village, studying ancestral songs and encountering music as it has always existed within land, ceremony, and living tradition - with your new instrument and musical skills.
Mornings open with song and chant; afternoons turn to hands-on practice on your instrument; evenings gather the village in ceremony. You travel and study together as a small group, departing from Rio Branco, with logistics and guidance held throughout.
Enrolled separately through our partners
Option 2, Integration Days · In-person music immersion days in Topanga, Bend, Boulder, and Santa Fe Join us for a dedicated Keep Music Human integration day, a full day of playing, sharing, and closing the arc together - in the rolling hills of Topanga, and on the road in Bend, Boulder, and Santa Fe. Everyone is welcome to attend. 11-6pm, with lunch served followed by musical performances and dancing.
Dates shared with the group · In person
Whichever path you choose, your instrument comes with you.
Questions worth asking.
I've never touched an instrument. Is this the right place to start? Yes, this program was built for exactly this person. The curriculum begins from first principles and moves at a pace that takes complete beginners to real fluency within twelve weeks. Zero experience is the ideal starting point.
What instrument do I need? A 22-string lever harp or an acoustic guitar with nylon strings, a tuning app (Pano Tuner is free), and a quiet place to practice. Full gear guidance arrives with your enrollment confirmation.
How much daily practice is actually involved? Fifteen minutes a day, for twelve weeks. Fifteen per instrument if you take both. Consistency matters more than duration. The research on adult motor skill acquisition is clear: short daily contact with your instrument outperforms long, infrequent sessions every time.
Are sessions recorded? How does replay access work? Every class is recorded and replay access is included with enrollment. Watching the replay before the following week's class keeps you current with the group. Live attendance is always encouraged. The real-time energy is a meaningful part of the experience.
Can I study both harp and guitar? Yes. The harp class runs at 11am PST and the guitar class at 12:30pm PST, back to back, and Both means you attend both. If you have the space for two instruments, take two. If you have the space for one, go deep on one. Scarlett teaches in a way that honors both.
Is there a guarantee? Yes. Come to class and do the work, fifteen minutes a day, and at the end of three months you will be a musician. If you attend every session, keep the daily practice, and a song you love is still out of reach, Scarlett keeps working with you until it is in your hands.
What happens after I apply? You're invited to the group Q&A, every Tuesday at 11am PST on Zoom. Come to one, or a few. Meet Scarlett, see how a class works, and ask anything. Enrollment follows from there, and seats are confirmed in the order applications are accepted.
Who will be in the room with me? Founders, executives, physicians, facilitators, and people who have done a lot of inner work and want something to make. Fifteen seats, filled by application. What happens in the classroom stays there.
Are payment plans available? Yes. Two- and three-part payment plans are available at enrollment.
I just want to take the music classes and not the Amazon immersion. Is that okay? Yes, absolutely. The Amazon immersion and the integration days are completely optional. You'll also have the opportunity to join different immersions as they arise in the coming years.
Your voice, your instrument, and your calling to learn music have been waiting. So have you.
Twelve weeks. One class a week. Real music, taught the way it always should have been. Begins March 3, 2027. Fifteen seats, by application. Group Q&A every Tuesday at 11am PST.