My Studio
The goal of my studio is to provide students of all ages the chance to study in a professional and academic environment with someone who lives and breathes the study of music. I wanted a university level experience without the bureaucracy or cost. I wanted it to be engaging, challenging, fun, and rewarding — but ultimately incredibly useful and practical to a student's every day life. My studio is designed to fit each individual student — and while this creates much more work on my end, it ultimately means your lessons are meaningful to you.
Understanding
Too often I hear adults say they studied music in their youth, but remember nothing of how to play. This is because they were only taught to play notes. This is the equivalent of being able to only read words aloud without knowing what they mean! I often have a little exercise for new students — I'll ask them to memorize the following group of letters and show it to them for only 10 seconds:
A G H T K L D S J K T
I then make a little small talk with them before asking them to repeat the series of letters. I get some pretty creative responses! It's pretty difficult, isn't it? Then I ask them to memorize this in the same period of time:
You are an expert reader.
Pretty easy right? They can remember not only the words, the meaning, individual letters… but it would also never occur to them to mess with the order of the words! Music has a syntax just like language. That is what my students are here to learn. Not just play notes.
Designed to Fit You
My students work entirely through personalized programs designed to fit their learning style, needs, and address their weaknesses in a way that makes them a disciplined, capable musician. Our climb up the mountain often involves music that is specific to you. It is not uncommon to have a course of pieces or songs to perform which are entirely unique to your study. The theory we learn is taught not straight from a book, but through the music that you yourself are attracted to. In learning about any music, I find students' taste often expands to types of music they would otherwise never be able to approach. We have to start where you are.
Becoming a Professional
My students learn in order to perform in real world scenarios, not pretend student performances. My students learn to give their own recitals, their own performances, and record their own work. My students have gone on to the concert stage as classical pianists, written their own compositions, stepped up to the microphone to sing their own original songs at live music venues, or stepped into shoes of a producer and recorded, mixed, and mastered their own material for digital distribution. Whether the goal is the concert platform or simply to summon up music from an unmanned piano for a small group of friends, my goal is for my student to be ready for anything that can be thrown their way.
Extra-Musical Knowledge
It isn't enough to just learn how to play your instrument. Being a musician in this day involves far more than just playing an instrument. Many of my students find they end up learning additional material about: Digital Audio Recording by recording their own material — Computer Skills/Repair by building their own studio rig for their home —Working with Video Editing/Scoring Video by scoring their own movies.
Preparing for AP Music Theory
Many of my high school students find that by the time the course is available to them, they are more than prepared for the rigors of the AP Music Theory Exam which provides college credit for students studying music — a valuable time saver!