Music Lessons in Castle Rock, MN

Instruments: Violin

My first priority is creating a safe and fun environment where students can ask questions, and set goals that are realistic to their needs. We work together to find imagery and methods of practice that work for each individual student, and make weekly notes in a "lesson plan" notebook. By helping students identify and set their own goals and helping them identify their own understanding of the practice methods, I am encouraging critical thinking and practice discipline, which I find more efficient long-term than enforcing my own home-practice techniques and goals. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice

Voice students can expect training rooted in the classical style, focusing on healthy and powerful voice production. For all genres of singing, the classical style forms a healthy and sustainable base to explore from. My pedagogy is focused on an open and sustained torso, a free jaw, tongue, and neck, and light and focused breath pressure. Additionally, students will be taught optimal position for vowel formation and resonance and proper alignment of the body. Read More

Instruments: Piano

It is often difficult to choose just the right method book for each student. I most often choose the Alfred series for both beginner's and adults, as I like how in that series the student not only develops the necessary skills but also learns about how music works. I also like very much the Piano Town series and have used it with success. For more intermediate and advanced students, I strive to get a sense of the type of music and pieces the student enjoys the most and try to assign their repertoire accordingly. Read More

Instruments: Piano Guitar Voice Drums

It is hard to explain about teaching method for voice lesson because the voice is not visible. When I was studying a doctoral program I studied hard about vocal pedagogy. Generally, voice teachers abstractly tend to teach their students. So, I have been emphasizing how to know their body mechanism first before letting them sing. Actually, when we sing many muscles work together but they do not know which muscle works. Read More

Instruments: Guitar Bass Guitar Electric Guitar Classical Guitar Acoustic Guitar

I am straight-forward with my students. I address the issues right away and reference the correct methods. I will explain the answer until the student understands. I will take my time to explain the issue and get creative until we both are on the same page. I value "having confidence in yourself" and use cheerleading statements to bring out their inner-confidence. Some books I currently use or reference with my students include: "Totally Interactive Band Bible", "Music Success in Nine Weeks", "Fast Track - Chords & Scales for Guitar", "The Bass- a comprehensive approach book 1", Total Guitar". Read More

Instruments: Guitar Voice

For "pop-style" singing I tend to borrow some useful vocal warm-ups from Roger Love's "Singing with the Stars",but most of them are modified or tailored versions of scale warm-ups. For structuring lessons I follow the structure of the book "Singing for Dummies" because I have found it to go through the modules of learning to sing in an order that makes a lot of sense and it is a good foundation to refer to. Read More

Instruments: Saxophone Clarinet

I began teaching in 2003 at my high school during an arts funding crisis that left band students to have sporadic lessons, since we had had an exceptional teacher previously we persevered and excelled in a student-led environment. Luckily by our senior year we had another extraordinary instructor who helped us win first in our district band final, no small feat considering our schools financial hardships and a concert band consisting of only ten students. Read More