Carly F  
Instruments: Cello
Styles: Classical, Pop, Rock, Blues, Folk, Musical Theater, Opera, Showtunes, Spirituals, Swing, Avant-garde

I have been teaching since I was 17, both in private lessons and group settings. My individual lessons and sectionals are always with cellists, though I have assisted with high school orchestra classes and chamber groups comprised of mixed instruments. I also have experience coaching sectionals of collegiate cello students and working one-on-one with advanced, non-major cello students. I personally have taken lessons from and performed in masterclasses for cello professors at most of the major colleges/conservatories in the US, the Principal Cellists of the Chicago Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic, and soloist Alban Gerhardt. I also have a special interest in working with students with disabilities and have prepared presentations and professional development trainings for the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) and Florida Music Education Association (FMEA) on this subject. I have successfully taught cellists with limited mobility, hearing loss, and developmental/learning disabilities such as Autism Spectrum conditions and ADHD. If you can be open about you/your child’s needs, I can accommodate you!

Many of my teachers either studied directly with or are once removed from Janos Starker. I prepare beginners to think of the “geography” of the cello as he did, encouraging them to learn the entire range of the instrument from the start instead of restricting them. This will make more “advanced” techniques come more naturally later, as it plays on human cognition’s incredible ability to recognize patterns. I introduce note reading depending on students background. If music as a whole is completely new, I tend to delay it, teaching by ear at first to establish technique fundamentals and aural skills. I prefer to see technical “problems” as something that is limiting their musical expression and that needs to be adjusted and reprogrammed, not as something the student is doing wrong. I have set up students from scratch and re-set up many students that came to me with pain and other concerns. My early background was based in Essential Elements (school orchestra) and the Suzuki Method (individual lessons). I have experience teaching Suzuki group classes and utilizing the books for individual instruction, though I have my own ideas about scaffolding to suit each student. I have created my own exercises to teach basic technique with an emphasis on active listening and body awareness, two critical skills to develop for successful independent practice. Often, I will develop new exercises to suit individual students needs, and I have extensive knowledge of the past 300 years of published cello studies so can make recommendations for those as needed.