About
I am a working, professional musician with over five years experience. I enjoy making music simple and accessible for my students. I stand out in my ability to adapt to whatever my students needs and desires are for their own musical enrichment.
Want to learn jazz? Great. I can do that.
Want to continue studying serious classical repetoire? Let's do it.
Don't know what you want to learn, and just want a general primer on what the piano is and how it is played? Excellent.
My mission, plain and simple, is to give you the tools and guidance necessary to make you exactly the musician that YOU want to be.
ABOUT ME:
I have been a musician ever since I was four, when my dad (a Grammy-nominated composer and former keyboardist on "Conan") taught me to play the theme from "Star Wars."
I joined my school's choir in fourth grade, and eventually began substituting for the accompanist there. That is where I first started learning how to sight read, how to teach, and how to think about music efficiently and simply.
It was also then that I started that I started working with my teacher Timothy Brumfield, of the Grammy-winning Paul Winter Consort. In addition to standard classical training, he taught me the fundamentals of improvisation and composition. He showed me how to play the piano with my brain, not just my fingers--how music was a creative activity, not a an act of rote memorization.
In college (Brown) I studied music, and worked all through college as a piano teacher and paid accompanist/guest instructor for the Tony-Award Winning Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI. It was there that I learned how to teach, and how to adapt my teaching style to each individual student.
Ever since graduating, I have worked extensively in Los Angeles as an accompanist, band member, and piano teacher. As an accompanist, I have worked at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Rockwell Table and Stage, and other theatrial venues around town. I also work for two of the top wedding band agencies in LA, West Coast Music and Downbeat LA, and have played weddings in such amazing venues as the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Four Seasons on Doheny.
What I love most, however, is teaching music. I maintain a packed roster of students, and enjoy nurturing in them a love for music.
I enjoy talking about music, and giving people the tools to understand music better. It is a bit clichéed to say, but the moment when a student "gets" something, when their eyes pop, and they say "ooooh," is really gratifying. I love convincing people how simple and accessible music can be.
Highlights
Reviews
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Frequently asked questions
What is your typical process for working with a new student?
Music, for me, is a purely joyful thing. The backbone of my teaching "philosophy" is joy--relentlessly chasing what it is about music that we find inspiring at that moment. It changes. For example, I had a student who came to me for classical lessons, but is now studying hard-core New Orleans jazz, and happier than ever. As a teacher, my goal is to give my students the tools to play and explore whatever kind of music they want to play.
My mission is not to teach you the age-old curriculum to make you the traditional model of a "good" pianist (i.e. scales, exercises, Bach, then Mozart, etc). If you want that, of course, I can give that to you. But I make it a point to help my students become passionate about music, so they continue to play the piano.
What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I have a BA in Music from Brown University. I studied piano and organ with renowned musician Timothy Brumfield in NYC. I learned jazz from my father, GRAMMY-nominee Scott Healy.
What types of students have you worked with?
Students of ALL AGES and ALL LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE are welcome at my studio. Here a few of my most recent clients:
- 15 year-old girl frustrated with her old teacher
- 6 year-old starting off piano for the first time
- 32 year-old man wanting to learn jazz and improvisation
- His father, 60, wanting to learn New Orleans-style jazz and gospel
- A 64 year-old woman, classically trained pianist wanting to take lessons again after a 40 year hiatus
- 12 year-old boy, bored with classical lessons, but not wanting to quit piano for good
- A 26 year-old woman, wanting to learn basic piano skills to support her career as a singer
These are just a HANDFUL of my students. I meet you at WHATEVER point you are in your musical development, and help you from there.