Voice Lessons in Lakeside, NJ

Instruments: Voice

One last thing that is important about me and my journey as a teacher is that I am a baritone. This is something I used to fight. I felt like I was being left out of the musical theatre scene because I couldn't sing as high as some of my tenor peers. I spent pretty much all of undergrad screaming in practice rooms trying to gain an upper range. Unfortunately, my teachers at the time didn't have the knowledge necessary to healthily guide me through this process (see above). Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice

What I love about teaching is that each student is unique and has different types of abilities and motivations to study music. Music is a joy, but in order to get the most out of the experience of playing an instrument, there is some work involved. My style is to work on manageable goals that build a strong musical foundation, while maintaining focus on the joy that inspired the student to study in the first place. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice

I always start my lessons off with vocal exercises in order to assess the status of the voice and what we need to work on, and also what progress has been made since our last session, if any. In order to keep my students interested, I like to work on repertoire that theyre interested in and that they select. I definitely suggest pieces that I think might help practice areas of their vocal technique that they would like to improve, but I also want to make sure its music that they like and want to sing. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice Organ Synthesizer

The way I teach is the way I was taught, using methods that were in place when I was a kid, some of these techniques date back to the 1800's. I believe in teaching scales, and also the Carl Czerny exercises and etudes, pieces that are designed to get beginners up to the advanced level. I incorporate elementary theory into the scales by including chord cadence patterns and inversions so as to make the technical transition from method books to playing actual classical pieces and songs as smoothly and as quickly as possible. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice Trumpet Recorder Music Keyboard

All of my lessons, regardless of instrument, begin in the same way: warm ups! I tailor warm ups to the student's repertoire and change it up frequently so the student doesn't get bored or go on autopilot. For all vocalists, regardless of age, we work on breathing properly and posture, then moving on to tone and stylistic choices. For my instrumentalists, we work on breathing, proper technique for their instrument, and age appropriate repertoire. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice Music

I enjoy working at the begining to intermediate level for children as I get to introduce the earliest piano musical skills and I usually spend thirty minutes on teaching piano practice methods and thirty minutes on music theory skills. Currently, I use books like Dozen a Day, Scales and Hanon to build good finger techniques, John Thompson and John W.Schaum books for songs and theory preparation. For adults, I would use books related to adult beginning stages in piano and music theory. Read More