Private and Group Lessons

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Private Lessons:

       The back bone of every great musician is the private teacher! A student can only learn so much on their own or in a school orchestra. 

All students are dramatically different! 

     I have been teaching private lessons for over fifteen years. I started teaching my last year of high school and have been doing it ever since. 

    Over the years my philosophy of teaching has expanded.  Some of thetechniques by which I was taught were excellent and work well for studentsbut I also found that some students require different teaching techniques because they learn in different ways.  For example: some students are naturals at reading music,  others can hear a melody and pluck it out without learning to read music some students can play with a metronome and others struggle to hear rhythm.  

    The old ways of teaching had to be reexamined.  Every student has to have a lesson that challenges their weaknesses and allows their strengths to be recognized but not pandered to.  Part of my goal as a teacher is helping the student become a balanced musician: able to play by ear, read music, hear rhythm and even learn music theory and composition.  Consequently, I teach from the Suzuki Books because there is much to be learned from the books and they are beautifully crafted to take a student from beginner to advanced player but I do not use the Suzuki method entirely.  I have found that some of the songs, if learned correctly take a while to learn and memorize and they become boring and tedious to students so I have come up with a couple of solutions.

Group Lessons:

    As a response to my students craving for new material (and the popularity of Lindsay Sterling) I decided to have monthly group lessons for all who wanted to come.  The students picked the music and I threw in some wonderful classical pieces.   After looking at over two hundred songs we decided to break the students into groups and of course the groups had to be named.  The groups are divided by proficiency or interests and are as follows:

    Crazy Crew is a beginners group with simple melodies and easy fiddle songs.  Most songs have fingering and very simple rhythms and an introduction to a larger amount of material for sight reading and the beginnings of hearing pitches, melody and rhythm.

    Quarter Knights is an intermediate group with more advanced versions of songs and no fingering or note names. Longer song lengths and more advanced rhythms and several popular songs, duets, triosand faster fiddle music are taught.  

    Orch Dorks is an advanced group which includes arrangements of classical favorites in third position, using difficult bowing and playing with speed.  Accuracy with pitch, rhythms and dynamics is emphasized.  The advanced group leans to play more complex music in preparation for more advanced orchestral playing.

    Know It All Nerds is an advanced group learningmovie, television and anime music. In this group we learn everything from solo violin to four part arrangements of the most popular movie and television scores. The arrangements allow for the student to play every part; from supporting harmony, to the main melody and bass lines which allows for a further understanding of harmony.  Plus it is an exploration of current scoring and harmony in contrast to the music of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

    Geek Brigade is an advanced group which learns video game, anime and other odds and ends, (there is some amazing music written for video games). and even though I know nothing about the games themselves (I have never had time to play them personally) several students have brought in some extremely complex scores. The use of darker harmony, minor scales and several different modes is distinctive in this genre of music which includes more use of dissonance.  Learning this kind of music allows the students ears to develop to the ear of a more advanced musician.  Several of the songs use fifth and seventh position and most are written in flat keys, often using five or six flats and forcing the student to read in much more complicated key signatures. 

      String Quartet is an advanced to professional string quartet group. Several of the pieces learned in this group will have very complicated rhythms, fifth position and higher and will require the student to learn to be a soloist;  thus forcing the student to develop great time, excellent pitch and become a independent player while functioning in a small group. The original and amazing string quartets of Mozart, Beethoven and Debussy (just to name a couple). The use of string quartets throughout Western history has been a place to explore music. The greatest themes for Symphonies were worked out via the string quartet which includes four or five playersbecause most composers did not have an orchestra on call to play though the pieces.

    All Gown Up is an adult student goup composed of three to five people. The group allows for adult students to play together which although slightly nerve wracking at first is excellent training becauseplaying with others is one of the most essential tools in becoming a musician, however, it is NOT REQUIRED of any adult until they feel ready. The groupswork on pitch, rhythm and sight reading.

    I love music of every kind, aspect and style.  Teaching has allowed me to discover, via my students many tastes new aspects of music.   I learn something new every day.

I have been teaching private lessons for over fifteen years. I started teaching my last year of high school and have been doing it ever since.