Piano Lessons in Lakeville, MN

Instruments: Piano

I firmly believe in the fact that each student possesses his/her optimal way of learning, and I strive to discover that method and tailor my approach as such. I also believe in tried and true method books and use just the right one for each student, based, on his/her age, ability level, etc. I also believe in helping each student get the most out of lessons, including pure enjoyment and fun. I try to ensure that each student will be able to play the styles of music and pieces that he/she wants in order that each student will be able to achieve his/her musical goals. 

Instruments: Piano Voice

While learning piano at University, I began to teach students in my home studio. Working in Musical theater, I gained experience teaching piano and voice, accompaniment to balllet classes and theatrical plays. My students participate in award and honors recital throughout year. I have taught piano and voice lessons for over 20 years. 

Instruments: Piano Voice

Lesson plans are catered to the needs and level of each individual student. For younger students with maturing voices, I generally work on basic technique like breathing and posture. I will teach solfege and simple songs that help develop the young singer's ear and a relationship to their voice.  For more mature voices, typically above the age of 16, I begin to approach more technical areas of singing like vowel formation, breath energy and management, agility, legato, vocal registration, and a more detailed understanding of the physical anatomy behind singing. I use art songs that will guide singers through these areas of their voices, and will often allow the singer to bring in material of their own choosing within reason. At any age I put a large focus on how to practice outside of lessons. Lessons are for learning new vocal exercises and exploring new facets of the voice in a safe space. Outside of lessons are where substantial growth occurs.   

Instruments: Piano Flute Recorder Piccolo

I firmly believe that the most important ingredient in any creative process is a real sense of involvement, for which genuine interest is an absolute prerequisite. Motivation and emotion share the same Latin root: movere, which means to move Thus, it all starts with what moves you. I consider my primary responsibility as a music educator to be the active engagement of each student in an individualized approach to their learning of music. In short, it is my job to figure out how best to genuinely motivate them: before, during and after our classroom encounter. There are many concepts and techniques I have to share with all my students, but before this happens, I must forge a reliable connection with each.- - Before I meet any new student, I carefully plan specific approaches, based both on my past experience and the current goals at hand. My first interaction with each new student is designed to acquire and sustain their attention, since my primary goal is to pique curiosity: the mother of all thinking. And, according to Einstein, it is Play which is the highest form of research. Playing the flute is the specific form research I furnish, here.- - From here, I encourage as much autonomy in the learning process as possible. The point is not that I know the answer; the point is that students recognize, understand, learn and remember the what, the how and the why, for themselves. Instead of telling them what is amiss in their music playing, I guide them towards comprehension of these issues on their own. Once rapport and consensus is established, I use cognitive science, classical pedagogy and other systems of problem-solving to help students develop effective thinking in the very moment / act of music -playing. I foster critical thinking, elicit technical mastery through both constructive review and real-time instruction, and I encourage discovery and exploration in all my students. Experimentation is the root of growth. But its cultured soil is intelligent preparation (Burne Hogarth). - - I have used the Trivium of Classical Pedagogy to improve the various curricula I have built over the years. Grammar is the art of letters, (here: notes), Logic, or how we come to know is arrived at through both the analytical study of the relationship between things (such various notes on the page), as well as the mindful combination of these things through synthesis (forming a coherent phrase). Rhetoric is the final third of the Trivium. It is all about effective expression, and takes form when the student matures a bit and is ready to share some of what has been learned. The public speaker (and the musician, alike) persuades the audience through reasoned discourse (Logos: for musicians that would be articulation), appeals to emotion (Pathos: for musician that would be expressive phraseology), and a display of moral character (Ethos: for musicians that would be peformance with creative, expression. The means by which all this is achieved, involves the employment of the five canons of rhetoric, which neatly double as the natural steps of creative problem-solving. My more advanced students follow this systematic approach, when polishing a professional piece for performance and/or competition:---xe2x80xa2x9Inventio xe2x80x93 (research: learn about the piece and the composer) -xe2x80xa2x9Disposito xe2x80x93 (outline: with my guidance, create a strategic template for practice sessions) -xe2x80xa2x9Elocutio xe2x80x93 (technical mastery: development of musical skill, specific to the instrument and piece/s) -xe2x80xa2x9Memorio xe2x80x93 (practice: commitment to memory / internalization- individual expression of piece/s)-xe2x80xa2x9Pronuntiatio xe2x80x93 (performance)- x9--- After presenting initial problem-solving tasks to entice students, I then engage them in deeper and more meaningful creative learning of their instrument and the possibilities contained in the studies and piece/s at hand. Along the way, I explain that we can all learn to play music, and that we all have different and valuable ideas about how. I teach them that music is a language which all can gain fluency in, and that the processes behind becoming a musician involve problem-solving which everyone can engage in. I am a guide on this path of many.--