About
Thank you for visiting my page! I am a professional violinist in the Los Angeles area, and I also teach private lessons. I love teaching ages from 7-90, beginners or advanced.
Helping people create their hobby passion as a violinist is a passion of mine.
Because teaching is something I am totally into, I have had the life experience of having students who stay with me for decades. and, in return, I go the extra mile for students.
Here are examples of what I mean by "I go the extra mile for my students":
When you hire me as your violin teacher, you are getting a human being in your life when necessary. I don't treat you like "just a violin student". You are important in my life, and I would hope I always convey that so you feel it.
For instance, I do Sound Baths on the side. (Sound Relaxation Therapy). One of my former adult students had cancer and was in City of Hope for over a month. While she was in City of Hope, I brought my crystal singing bowls and a small gong I own, and gave her a Sound Bath.
If you don't know what a Sound Bath is, here is a link you can look at to see. (think of it like Sound Relaxation Therapy).
You will need to copy/paste this link in order to see it. https://youtu.be/Uzlfg5vk864?si=of1wbN0Yw62k2ugZ
I share this with you so you get a feel for the fact that I really mean it when I say I go the extra mile for my students:
Another adult student of mine also got cancer and then was also unable to continue violin lessons because of complications. However, fifteen years later and to this day, I have Christmas dinner at his families house almost every year.
When you hire me as a violin teacher, you are also hiring a new human being in your life. And if life circumstances mean you can no longer play the violin, unless it was a student who put me in an abusive situation, the door is never closed.
When students open up to me and tell me the ways I have impacted their lives, it makes me feel blessed to be a teacher. I share some of those stories in the section "What are memories you are fond of". I hope you enjoy that section.
If you are a concert goer and a student of mine, I get you complimentary tickets to Long Beach Symphony whenever I perform there.
WHO I TEACH,
&
HOW I TEACH:
ADULT STUDENTS WELCOMED!
It is never too late to start the violin:
My oldest violin student had to stop recently at age 90, after having been with me for 25 years. Age finally stopped his "old bones" as he said.
He began at the age of 65 when he retired. He wanted a hobby passion. Violin was IT for him.
He is such a testament to the fact that no one is too old to start a new violin hobby.
I don't get many openings to take on new students because my students stay with me for years. At the time you are reading this, maybe I have an opening, maybe I don't. I can't be sure. Please don't let that stop you from inquiring though!
Please look through everything and, if you want to at least inquire if I have an opening, request a FaceTime with me to interview me face to face.
FAQ:
- DO I TEACH BEGINNERS?
YES! I love to teach beginners because it is a blank canvase and I can start them off this way without having to undo any other habits they would have had otherwise.
- DO I TEACH ADULTS?
YES! Lately, it seems like there is an influx of young adults between the ages of 18-30 coming in. Plus, mothers are coming in who want to be a good example to their kids they are having take lessons. My oldest student is a retired man in Sante Fe who takes lessons twice a week to keep his mind active while he ages. Over the years, it has turned into geriatrcis violin, but it goes to show how no one is too old or too young to learn. And, it is never too late to start.
- DO I TEACH RETIRED PEOPLE?
YES!
- DO I TEACH MOMS WHO WANT LESSONS SIMPLY TO SET GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLES FOR THEIR KIDS?
YES!
- WHAT IS MY TEACHING METHOD and HISTORY AS A VIOLINIST?
My teaching style is unique and different from other teachers because I teach students how to play the violin pain free and in a manner that is organic and body balanced. Some adult students have compared it to Alexander Technique, but it isn't, because it is about body-balanced approach to violin playing.
When I was in my 20’s, after having played the violin for 18 years by then, I spent time living in England to learn this approach quite specifically. This approach is not taught in America.
Because my life has been so extensive in the area of performance and teaching, it is easy to write too much.
It is my hope that you truly get a feel for how my time in England fused my teaching style as well as my performance style together to make me who I am today.
I have played the violin since I was 2 years old. It's my life.
My first concert was at the age of 3.
I have been on stage ever since (except for the year of Covid when all the venues shut down). I began teaching violin while in high school and was traveling internationally as a concert violinist with an ensemble by the age of 14.
Additionally, my dad had all my sisters and I performing every weekend two or three concerts per weekend in Washington State. We were known as the Weber Family Ensemble.
Now, I am an international violin teacher as well as a local teacher and perform in the Los Angeles area.
Anyone can google my name to see just a fraction of what I have accomplished.
Keep in mind though, when you google my name and see some of my accomplishments: some of my greatest enjoyments have how I have been blessed with being able to enhance a students life with music.
True, being on stage with people like Lady Gaga and Tony Bennet is AMAZING.
But, what has filled my heart over the years is seeing the impact I have in peoples lives:
For some adults, I have seen them through their entire retirement years into geriatrics violin. My 86 year old student attends online twice a week because this is the hobby he chose to keep his mind active.
For many kids, I have been in their life from age 7 until they graduate and go off to college. I now have one former student who married, had a kid, and is learning the violin.
For adults, I have many moms who are taking lessons online and in person because they want to set a good example for their children who they just started on some instruments (violin and other instruments).
As a result of what I just described, what fills my heart over the years, there is a sense of life purpose in me on the topic of teaching.
Teaching violin in the organic method that I do, it is a completely different skill than getting on stage and performing for 3000+ people at a time. However, it is something I enjoy equally to being on stage because of the contribution to peoples personal lives as they develop skills I teach them that apply far beyond the violin.
So many students have walked into my home and said, "I applied that thought approach to a stressful situation and it works outside of violin, too!"
It was not until I got the feedback of excited students saying how it helped their studies, helped their jobs, helped their relationships etc that I realized I teach a life approach.
In other words, it turns out that I don't just teach the violin when a person is in that one hour session with me.
My approach can apply to so much in life outside violin.
When I realized that, when I realized the positive impact I was having on kids, adults and seniors, it brought more enjoyment to not just teaching - but to getting on stage as well.
In the end, my enjoyment of what I do as a concert violinist and teacher fuses with my stage experience, my life experience and my teaching experience so that my students get a well rounded and enhanced experience.
England:
As a concert violinist and by the age of 22 I had a lot of pain related to violin. This is common. I was told that "Pain is just how it is".
I was unwilling to accept that answer.
At this point, I was performing with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and my back between my shoulder blades was on FIRE by the end of each rehearsal or performance. By the end of each opera, I did have discomfort. 3 hours is a long time to hold the violin.
Realizing that I either find a solution or will have a shorter concert violinist life, I opted to find a solution to the discomfort.
I found a teacher in England who teaches about body balance in relation to the violin.
When I found her, I took time off of being a concert violinist to live in England for several months specifically to study this completely different approach to playing the violin.
It was not the traditional methods I grew up with with my traditional private teachers.
In ten weeks with this teacher in England, I was transformed both in my approach to my relationship with my violin AND my discomfort:
I arrived in England with all the standard pains concert violinists or any musicians typically experience...
In ten weeks of lessons, I was comfortable! I was approaching my violin from body up, from a total organic body-balance approach.
I remained in England to really make the internal transition so my new habits could really gel.
Then I came back to America and resumed being a professional violinists - this time, with a renewed holistic approach to the violin.
I have not had discomfort since my time in England.
Personally, since going to England to study was my own quest, I never expected to pass anything I was learning onto my students. I never planned on changing how I was teaching.
However, my time in England was so transformative and life changing for me as a person and as a concert violinists, it naturally changed my entire teaching approach.
Inside one year of living with a body balanced approach to violin, I could no longer in good conscience teach the traditional methods I had grown up on.
The teacher who taught me these techniques has since then passed away, and I do not know of any teacher in America who spent time in England studying this approach.
Further, since then, I added on techniques unique to me that enhanced the approach and made it even easier to have instant results of ease, success and enjoyment for any level of student - even a beginner.
My time spent living in England learning a specific technique to play the violin pain free has translated into teaching the violin with more awareness to body balance and students who stick with me for years to come as a result.
I love having the chance to meet and help people, plus I love performing locally and internationally.
GETTING STARTED AS MY VIOLIN STUDENT:
Contact me to set up a zoom or FaceTime interview to see if we are a good match. This is a good way for you to get a feel for me, my style, my personality and if you want to sign up for lessons. From there, you can tell if you want to hire me or not.
I sincerely hope this gives you a good amount to work from.
Have a great day!
Details
Do you own a violin?
Years experience
Able to read music
Lesson length
Student's age
Instrument interested in
Photos and videos
Reviews
Sound T.
Frequently asked questions
What is your typical process for working with a new student?
The first step is contacting me to set up an interview/consultation - this is free.
The interviewing process helps me get to know what the students needs are and what they are looking for. It also helps me get a feel for if we are even a match. The interview/consultation is a two way street.
My teaching days are: Wednesday - Saturdays.
My teaching locations are: in person out of my home in Glendale, California. I also teach online via Facetime or Zoom.
After the consultation, I schedule the first lesson. It's one more chance to see if we are a good fit. This in person lesson gives the student a chance to see if I am a good fit for them as well.
No Policy & Procedure is signed until after that first lesson and until a student decides they want to commit for a longer term like month-to-month.
If we are both in agreement that we think we are a good fit, then I book the monthly lesson schedule and we go from there.
What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I have played the violin for 55 years, starting at the age of 2. I have been performing since the age of 3. When I was 2 , I was proudly showing off my new violin tricks which my parents captured on video:
Copy paste this link to see me as a 2 1/2 year old showing off my new tricks I learned on the violin: https://youtu.be/R-KqR6fRfC0?si=3gu88d51GDrBYTH_During highschool, I studied with world class teachers such as Jascha Heifetz and had the chance to perform all over the world as both a soloist and a concert master for orchestras.
Countries I have performed in include Hungary, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, China, Japan and others...
After I finished my full scholarship education at University of Southern California in Music Performance, I spent time in England living there studying not just more on the violin, but how to teach it easier and pain free. It helped me both as a concert artist and as a teacher. I am the only teacher in California who has this approach. I give the history to that under a different a different question.
Do you have a standard pricing system for your lessons? If so, please share the details here.
How did you get started teaching?
I have been playing the violin since I was 2 years old. I was in Seattle's newspaper as "Seattle's youngest musician". I have been performing all my life.
Copy this link to a new URL to see me showing off my new skills after my first couple of violin lessons when I was 2: https://youtu.be/R-KqR6fRfC0?si=3gu88d51GDrBYTH_
I also began teaching in Highschool. I didn't expect I would like it, but it has enriched my life to enrich the lives of so many. I write in detail about how teaching has enriched and balanced out my life under the question of what I enjoy most about what I do.
What types of students have you worked with?
My current students range from ages 7 - 86. Several of them are adult students. Some years it is a wave of teenagers, other years it is a wave of adults... it depends on the year. For kids under 7, I recommend the Suzuki method, and then transfer to me at the age of 7 or 8.
That said, 80% of my students stay with me for years to come, even if they move out of state or out of the country and become FaceTime students. It is one of the reasons sometimes there is a waiting list to take from me.
Describe a recent event you are fond of.
As a teacher, I am always surprised in the ways I have impacted positively my students lives. It is my passion to be more than "just a violin teacher", but it still is not something I know how far reaching my impact is until a student (or their wife) opens up and lets me know.
I will share 5 of many stories that mean the world to me. You would be here all day if I wrote everything. It was hard to narrow it down to only 5 stories, lol
: (1) Students usually end up confiding in me when they are comfortable. One student opened up so much and made me realize that being a teacher can be not just life changing for my students, but life saving: One of my students told me that when he first began lessons with me, he had been suicidal. But by focusing on violin and making growth there, he found his reason to live. I never new for a minute that he was suicidal because he hid it so well. Three years later, he is doing an amazing job on the violin and his life is totally turned around. With the right teacher, anything is possible, even when we are completely unaware.
(2) A special event that took place professionally for me as a violinist is when I was invited to perform on one of the rare violins that survived the prison camps of WWII.
The Violins of Hope is a collection of the few that survived, even if they had to be fully restored.
Since I was able to take the violin home for one week, I made a video blog of that week.
Inside that video diary, I play on this violin.
If you want to hear me play so you can see that I really can play the violin, just copy past this link into a new URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suAyJsbFCrU&t=185s
It is a 58 minute Video Journal of the week, but if you scan forward a short bit, you will hear me play the violin.
This video journal will also give you a feel for who I am as a person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suAyJsbFCrU&t=185s
(3) Recently, at the same time that one of my students was being graduated out of her beginner books an going into intermediate violin, she also graduated from high school. Because she has family all over the country, she held her Zoom recital so even her grandparents could listen to her improvements. Watching her feel so proud and empowered as she was growing into the next steps was truly fulfilling for me.
(4) One of my students, George, began taking lessons from me when he was 65 years old. His wife bought him a violin for his Christmas present, and she sought me out as his violin teacher after reading about me.
About six months into his lessons, she came up to me and thanked me for saving her marriage.
I asked, "How is that? How did I save your marriage?"
She said that she and George would attend concerts all the time, and he would ruin her enjoyment because he was always critiquing the violinists on stage, as if he thought playing the violin was easy as pie.
So for Christmas, she gave him a violin and me, and told him it was time to learn it.
Six months later, he was no longer critiquing the violinists on stage, he was admiring them for these difficult feats they were doing that they were making easy, and Nancy got her husband back, and regained a pleasurable concert going lifestyle with him.
Who knew! LOL.
5) I had a teenager years ago who was really struggling. He kept getting high, was failing in school and was acting up. It was effecting his violin lessons, he was not practicing. But I kept trying because I felt like something else was wrong and eventually I would be able to be more than a violin teacher at that moment.
That moment came when he turned 16 and parked his brand new S-class Mercedes in my driveway and told me his dad gave it to him for his birthday.
When I saw that, I realized his dad just destroyed any chance I had to help my student be motivated to learn. And, his dad also just made every one of his teachers jobs a thousand times harder because where is the motivation if his parents say "yes" to everything asked for when all they are getting in return is bad grades and drugs from their son?.
We didn't even start our violin lesson. Instead, I immediately sent him home and told him to have both his parents call me that night for a parent-teacher conference.
In that phone call, I laid it out to the parents what it was like to teach students who have parents who are giving them things without helping them learn the value of "making an effort to earn it and appreciate it". Like, "You get that S-class Mercedes if you get straight A's.". Not "You get that S-class Mercedes even if you are failing school and getting high".
I then said, "Come back after you have had at least three months of family counseling. I will accept him back as a student only then."
Fast forward to three months later: Not only did he come back three months later as a student who was practicing, but his entire family found new skills while in family therapy, my student began making huge strides and became an A and B+ student, he went onto college and graduated with honors, and is now married and has a family of his own.
His parents have since then taken me out for lunch a several times over the years to thank me over and over for the influence I had on their son as a teacher when I grounded the parents for bad behavior and making his teachers jobs harder.
His parents said I turned their son's life around just because I was the type of teacher who cared enough to practice some Tough Love with the parents in order to help my student, even though that sort of tough love could have gotten me fired.
Teachers are never "just teachers".
Moral of these stories are: If you get a teacher who is only a violin teacher in your life, find a different one. :-)!!!
What advice would you give a student looking to hire a teacher in your area of expertise?
Interview a few teachers. Even me. Don't take the first one that responds, even if I am the first one.
Not everyone is a good match in the student/teacher relationship.
Not all teachers are really their for you or teach you according to how you need to be taught.
Talking with a few gives you a better idea what is out there and for personality compatibility. It's important to explore your options.
Look for the teacher who is unique in their approach and has a foundation of success both in their concert life as well as teaching life.
If you select a teacher and have pain, and their response is essentially that they can't fix that violin related pain, call me. I have a method that teaches pain free violin.
What questions should students think through before talking to teachers about their needs?
Ask yourself, "What is my reason for wanting to learn the violin?"
'Ask yourself, "Can I be consistent in coming to my lessons prepared so my teacher can keep layering on new things?"
When you know your purpose and know you can commit to being consistent, even if consistency is only ten minutes a day, then your next step is to interview teachers and ask the teachers what the approach is of a teacher. When you are interviewing teachers, ask youself "Is there something that makes the teacher unique?"
When you are at that step and actually in the consultation (which teachers usually do not charge for), pay attention to the personality. Pay attention to if you think the one you are having a consultation with someone you might find compatible and one that can cultivate a passion hobby for you? Not all student teachers are compatible. Sometimes a student can learn easier with a different teacher.