Charles O  
Instruments: Piano, Voice, Organ
Styles: Classical

       As mentioned, I began teaching for pay as a thirteen year old:  a paper route customer in her fifties very much wanted to learn to play the piano, and somehow sensed that I was a natural teacher.  By the time I graduated from college I had taught a good half-dozen piano students, and was beginning to branch out into organ and voice, having learned so much about the latter through accompanying several years of my older brother’s voice lessons and being a fairly good singer myself.  This set the pattern for my twenties, during which my roster of students expanded exponentially when I began a choir school in Michigan that was a principal career thrust for the next twenty years. By the time I was forty, my private teaching had settled into a pattern of primarily piano and voice, with occasional organ students.  Students have ranged from novices and those with purely recreational aims to those of an advanced level with career potential.        Here’s a thumbnail sketch of “featured students”, using substitute names: Jennifer is currently preparing for college auditions, going after several top schools. Now in her third year studying piano and organ with me, she seems destined for a sizeable career, and even has her own church position in organ & choir  as she completes high school. …A few years ago David, then a high school senior, won a concerto competition with an important regional orchestra – even though piano was a purely recreational pursuit for him. ….11-year-old Danny, a chorister with whom I worked one-on-one, won his category in England’s prestigious Elgar Competition in the early 1990’s, subsequently appearing on the BBC before returning to Michigan to sing the soprano solo part in the Mahler Forth Symphony with his hometown orchestra….  And that was a couple years after 12-year old Steve did basically the same thing…. Gary, whose aptitude for the piano amazed me even at age 10, is, twenty years later, a jazz artist of some renown in Cleveland. …. Carol, in her forties, wishing to learn how to play the organ, is progressing well!...  Sue, of retirement age but with a voice as young as a teen’s, has realized her ambition to become a church soloist…. There’s Laurie, whose voice  I developed in her teen years, who has been singing professionally for some years now. And these are but a few whose love of music I have been privileged to help foster!

  “Tailor the method to the student” is my guiding principal, as is the belief that the student’s enthusiasm is indispensable to progress.  Toward the first of these, my point of departure is determining a student’s strengths, capitalizing upon these to help develop a grounding that will facilitate expressive aims.  It is important that the student be in agreement (the more enthusiastically, the better) as to what is on the current slate, which might also include selections originating with the student:  far better if actual pieces can further technical development, always viewing technique as a means to an artistic end rather than an end in itself.   That said, I firmly believe in planning ones approach to every piece as the surest and ultimately quickest way to achieve goals.  I strongly advocate study encompassing a variety of stylistic periods, believing that  generally, unless a specific performance goal is present, I more is to be gained by a student’s becoming acquainted with a larger number and variety of pieces, rather than devoting long periods to single works, honed to absolute perfection.