Saxophone Lessons in Fox River Valley Gardens, IL

Instruments: Piano Saxophone Flute Clarinet

I began teaching in 2000, and since then have taught saxophones, flute, clarinet, improvisation, chord theory, piano / keyboard, basic music understanding to young children in a classroom setting, and coached worship teams and group seminars to all ages. It is a great joy to see students excel and expand as they take what they have learned into their own lives! Without focus on achieving this, I have witnessed most of my school-aged students advance to lead positions in the ensembles they are involved with, as well as continuing with a passion in their gifts! Read More

Instruments: Saxophone

I'm a recent Berklee College of Music graduate who loves to perform and to share everything I know with my students. I was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and have recently moved to Chicago after being previously based out of Boston and Cincinnati. My performing experience has taken me all over the United States, as well as trips to China, Italy, Austria, and Germany. Despite my traditional jazz upbringing, I have been lucky enough to be featured on shows and albums by my peers in a variety of styles, such as funk, folk, and hip hop. Read More

Instruments: Saxophone

I believe every student pursues music for a different reason, so I approach every student with a custom curriculum. For all students I stress the importance of scales, arpeggios, ear training and scale patterns (3rds, 4ths, etc) to improve technical facility from the beginning. For beginners I typically use the Rubank Edute book to begin reading music. All students are introduced to 'Top Tones for the Saxophone' by Rascher early on to improve range, intonation, breath support and tone quality. Read More

Instruments: Saxophone

For individual study, I use a number of diverse methods, depending on the needs and goals of the student. Beginner students will start with the Hal Leonard Beginner series, focused on mastering the fundamentals. Once a students has mastered the foundational technical scales, arpeggios, articulation; and understanding of time and tempo, we can proceed to augmenting the classical studies with jazz studies. For more intermediate - advanced students, we continue with the Hal Leonard series and augment with the Paul DeVille Universal Method for Saxophone, Klose 25 Daily Exercises, Voxman Selected Studies Books, and transcriptions of Bach (Cello Suites) and Taffanel (Flute Studies). Read More

Instruments: Saxophone Clarinet

I really enjoy watching the week to week progress of a motivated student and sharing in their passion for the wonderful art of music! I remember when I was a young student and didn't understand why my teacher was having me prepare all those scales and arpeggios? Why couldn't he just make me play better. Well I realized many years later that it just didn't work that way. I had to practice the scales because just like professional sports teams work on fundamentals all the time to keep playing well, so do musicians need to work on fundamentals. Read More

Instruments: Saxophone

My teaching experience started in June of 2023 when I started to work at a summer camp run by the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. During the camp, I worked with children from grades 2 all the way through high school. This gave me a lot of experience finding ways to teach people at varying experience levels. I also currently teach private lessons to college level students. In these lessons, we focus on developing overall musicianship, transcription, time, and improvisation. Read More

Instruments: Saxophone

We will also work to devolope their ability to play with the stylistic expression necessary to perform classical and jazz saxophone. Students will also learn basic music theory and jazz improvisation. Advanced students work to master their classical saxophone by perfecting rapid and exciting technical pieces while learning to play with passion and grace in slower, lyrical selections. Advanced students seeking jazz saxophone skills will be able to take advantage of my extensive library of jazz repertoir and literature. Read More