Music Lessons in Brooke, VA

Instruments: Saxophone Music

My teaching experience dates back to my touring years when I was an active performer. I have more than ten years of formal and informal experience performing, producing, and teaching music. Nowadays I mostly teach and work with music and technology. As mentioned above, I always teach the student to listen first, to appreciate the chosen style or genre and then, reproduce it. I think the most important thing to learn about music is that you need to let it become second nature. Read More

Instruments: Violin Viola

For beginning students, I typically start with Hal Leonard's Essential Elements, Suzuki, and easy scales. Once the student has progressed and appears to grasp the fundamentals, I will begin to introduce etudes and solo pieces. I also teach students elementary music theory related to the pieces they are learning. For advanced students, I focus more on their technique and performance. Scales and etudes are essential as well as having experience playing a diverse repertoire. Read More

Instruments: Cello

My program involves using Essential Elements Books, Suzuki Books/Methods, Scale Books, and Dotzauer Books.Weekly instructions include: practicing scales, skill builder exercises and concentration on individual students' solo selections. Students repertoire includes traditional music books, skills book, etudes and songs. Suzuki Essential Elements are books of choice for music. Dotzauer, Klengel and Popper among others are books of choice for etudes. Scales are chosen from various sources and methods. Read More

Instruments: Cello

In every student/teacher partnership I undertake, we work together to explore how the brain works consciously and subconsciously to interpret and assimilate information so that when we play the instrument we move and produce sound with integrity. Lessons are always based on questions, dialogue, feedback, and interaction in order to organically meet students needs in the most effective and positive way possible. Read More

Instruments: Piano

For beginning students who are children, I usually use the Alfred Music Piano Methods series, and include music theory and ear training as a part of the curriculum. Once students have grasped the fundamentals, I will introduce solo repertoire appropriate for receital performances to encourage and motivate their learning. For adult students, I love to spend time to figure out the students musical interests, and use the types of music they enjoy to guide my instruction so the lessons can be engaging and fun. Read More

Instruments: Drums

Timing is everything with drums. Students will learn the basic beats while learning how to add in appropriate fills to make what they're playing sound whole and professional. For intermediate students I will assess where they are in their playing and style they want to go for. I will then take that and teach them new ways to get to where they want to go. Being a drummer is a very fun activity, but being a great drummer takes patience and work. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice

I see myself as a facilitator, helping students discover new elements of music and music theory and building upon those to create a greater understanding of reading and playing music both for piano and voice. Often i will model by playing a song first so that the student cannot not only hear what is sounds like but observe my technique, finger changes, dynamic ranges, tempo and so on. There are many elements to performing a piece besides just playing the correct notes! Read More