Jubilee B. says, "I strongly encourage you to look into lessons with Lou. For the past 3 years he has been an incredible musical mentor for our son (12 yrs). He has been crucial in helping our kid hold onto his love for music even during periods of tween frustration/impatience. I wish I had had a music teacher like Lou as a kid — someone who empowers his students to explore and build competence in all aspects of working musicianship.
Lou provides standard classical-based technique, theory, and repertoire and ALSO custom-built instruction that is tailored to each student's interests and enthusiasms. This is his special power: motivating kids to practice, play, and grow because they are getting to play what matters to them. He has arranged any piece my son has asked for, and helped him build improvisations and new arrangements in a variety of styles. He can teach a kid to play improvised jazz, he can work with rock and pop, he can make folk and folkloric arrangements. Now my son is loving his classical sonatinas after periods of time with rock songs, ragtime, Czech folk songs, video game melodies and all kinds of other material that he *wanted* to play.
The online platform works great—Lou has a great ear and he’s a technical whiz with all kinds of musical programs. He has a great light touch with corrective feedback, one of the many ways he builds musical confidence. He is technically skilled, reliable, knowledgeable, curious, nonjudgmental, and kind. He teaches how to learn, not how to imitate. He keeps kids in music.
We are so fortunate he has been our son’s teacher.
My son’s perspective: Lou is a good teacher because he tries to keep his students’ best interests at heart and knows just how to help them get better at playing challenging pieces." Read more