About
What is artistic, fun, creative & educational?
Violin Lessons: Traditional & Suzuki teaching methods, with beginners through advanced students of all ages.
Note Reading, Music Theory, Intonation, Technique, Style & Phrasing.
Intensive coaching sessions available to help prepare students for audition tapes and performances, applying teaching methods for each student’s individual needs.
Build life-long skills at a pace where immediate progress will be made.
Zoom/Skype/Facetime, online lessons are available, as well as in-person.
Description of Private Lessons:
VIOLIN:
Music lessons are designed around each student's specific needs and age-appropriately. I use a wonderful collaboration of materials, methods, and exercises to strengthen skills, intonation, dexterity, ear-training, note-reading, sight-reading, theory, rhythm.
I work intently on helping each student to find their passion, desire to excel, and build their self-esteem with the discipline and focus required to achieve their goals, with knowledge, skill, and artistic sensitivity in performing music.
I’ve been teaching for over 30 years in Southern Calif., at youth conservatories, private schools, public schools (Elem., Middle School, High-School), and privately in my own studio. Often I incorporate Group Lessons for students to experience a more social environment sharing their music and learning together while furthering theory lessons and important musical structures.
Also, as a pianist, I engage the violin students using the piano to help them keep in rhythm, hearing intonation, and learning to play along with the accompaniment to their pieces.
Specialties:
Classical performance in all genres.
Music education for Violin (Beg. Thru advance), Piano Lessons (Beg. Intermediate – Soft Mozart “Gentile Piano Method” Chamber Music Ensembles, Youth Symphony and school music coaching,
Credentials:
Graduated with BM in Violin Performance from Eastman School of Music (Univ. Of Rochester)
Univ. Of Southern California in Violin Performance.
Congress Of Strings in Cinn. Ohio - Violin
Aspen Summer Music Festival programs - Violin
Perform with a multitude of professional symphonies, ballets, operas, chorals, chamber ensembles.
Perform for live music concert venues in Calif.
Recording for TV shows, movies, jingles, and many artists' CDs.
Live tours with various groups in the USA, and internationally.
My resume and references are available upon request.
I enjoy working with students to help them find their creativity and expression in their desire to perform from the heart. There are many forms of creative expression, and music is one that helps develop an important aspect of living and experiencing the joy of performing from your hard work and discipline. Music moves the soul with the sound, vibrations, and timbre of particular musical instruments. The key elements in teaching are Pitch, Duration, Dynamics, Tempo, Texture, Structure, Phrasing.
When learning a string instrument, we add in Intonation, as the pitches are not fixed, as with a piano or other percussive instruments.
Through my years of studying violin from my youth through my adult years, I studied with many teachers and learned valuable skills, techniques, and other musical applications to empower and better my performance from each of them.
In teaching music to students of any age, there are many approaches with the needed communication skills to help each person/student as an individual to learn.
My musical experience while in Southern Calif. provided me with years of performing in symphonies, chamber ensembles, chorals, operas, ballets, live shows, Broadway shows, music tours, and recording scores for TV, movies, jingles, and many artists albums.
As soon as I graduated from the Eastman School of Music in Violin Performance and arrived in Calif. I started teaching violin lessons in my community and the Irvine Conservatory of Music. My music studio grew quite quickly as I started working with very young children teaching the Suzuki method, and adapted my other music materials to enhance note reading, rhythms, pitch, and of course starting them with proper posture and technique per their age and ability.
I also organize group classes for students to learn together with music theory and experience performing with each other and for each other. The group classes also provide a social environment where students can enjoy and develop friendships who can share their desires and passion to learn with one another.
I’m requested frequently to coach school and youth orchestras, and provide string sectionals to work on music, fingerings, bowings best suited for upcoming concerts, while helping them to look at their music as a story with dynamics, phrasing, tempos, structure, and learning to really listen to everyone in the ensemble as they perform, becoming aware of all the sounds coming together.
I embrace the opportunity with a passion to pass on my ability to help others enjoy music and be able to play from their soul with expression and joy while making the process, easy to understand.
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Frequently asked questions
What is your typical process for working with a new student?
Having a nice introduction conversation with them about their music experiences, the kinds of material they're working on currently, and personal music goals. It's nice to know ahead of time what each student is desiring from lessons, as this can vary quite a bit.
If it's new younger students, I like to visit with a parent, learn about the student's age, and if they'll need parental guidance through the week of practice. Enquire about music understanding in the family, or the history of lessons prior to my beginning of instruction.
Making each student comfortable and at ease when they are learning at their lessons, and be available throughout the week for any questions and concerns while practicing.
I want to ensure they understand why each exercise or piece is beneficial to them, and what they will learn as they progress along each week.
Show patience and communicate effectively during lessons, and find other ways of learning and mastering areas when challenges come forth in their music execution of technique, intonation, and bowings.
Make the learning process enjoyable and empowering with their progress
What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I started the piano 3-4 yrs of age with my mother. When I got into elem. school, I learned the recorder in class, then the following year, I started on the violin so I could play in the school beginning strings class.
I continued to study and went to Summer Music Camps to play with other students in orchestras, and taking violin lessons from other instructors at the music festivals. All through my school years, I performed in the Youth Symphonies through High School in my community and was accepted at the Eastman School of Music (Univ. Of Rochester) in NY. I earned a degree in Violin Performance, with years of chamber music, orchestra, and private lessons. The Suzuki Violin methods were also taught by the highly respected Anastasia Jemplis at Eastman, and chose to learn how to teach small children with this newer approach to learning the violin to gain more experience with teaching potentials. As well, I continued the piano lessons with graduate students to excel in my performace and techinique.
I continued with my Suzuki training of all materials with William Starr, John Kendall, Liz Arbus, and other respected teacher trainers in Calif.
After college, I moved to Southern Calif, where I immediately began performing in Orange County, and Los Angeles County with professional orchestras, choirs, ballets, operas, live music shows, Broadway Theatre, and recording work for movies, TV, jingles, and many artists albums, as well as tours in the US with a few bands and artists.
My teaching experience began almost immediately in Orange County when I arrived in Calif. and started working with the Irvine Conservatory of Music, teaching the beginning students with the Suzuki method. I developed soon after my own private studio of teaching where I incorporated many other elements of music study, note reading, and group classes, early on in their learning years to develop their desires, and joy with their instruction. I've even taught a group of Moms and toddlers teaching their babies rhythms, sound, movement, and creating flashcards for the language of music.
Many of my students went further into their music degrees of music, and all of them embraced the beauty of what they learned in the many levels of music appreciation and listening.