Monroe R
Instruments: Cello
Styles: Classical
Monroe R
Instruments: Cello
Styles:
Classical
Where I Teach:
Ages Taught: 7-80
I am a younger instructor who is very excited and passionate about the inter- and intra-personal aspects of music and teaching music. First discovering my love of performing and problem solving through chamber music, I have since received a dual degree from UMass Amherst in Music and Social Thought&Political Economy, and I am now pursuing my Masters of Music in Cello Performance at Boston University. One of my biggest challenges and fascinations with music has been how to balance efficiency and honesty with kindness and graciousness in working with others and myself, and it's something I love to explore with my students. As a performer and teacher, I emphasize how to develop self error-detection and unique solutions in the practice room.
I have varied experience relating teaching, whether it comes from teaching directly or other musical experiences. My earliest teaching experiences were mentorship programs in my local youth symphonies as a high schooler, and since then I've taught in afterschool programs, received my Suzuki Book 1 certification, and taught ear training in a classroom setting. Through my experience in teaching and chamber music, I really try to curtail expectations and goals to a student's individual wants from music making, so that students can feel proportionally challenged and confident to the amount of time they'd like to put in. Some of my core values are quality over quantity, consistency, breaking down obstacles into their smallest chunks, gamifying technical and musical challenges, and developing a young musician's ear for error detection. It's important to me that my approach is holistic and doesn't just improve students in their technique, but in their musicality and collaborative skills, so I aim to meet every student where they are at and talk through the "whys" of everything.
As I am certified in Suzuki Book 1, I start students with Suzuki books and methods, while also supplementing with other materials and incorporating any extra music/activities a student might be excited about! With students who have already started, I will often still refer to the Suzuki materials, but I will pull more from other books and repertoire. I am very flexible in strategy and method based on where the student is at and where they want to go, no matter their age. I try to balance preparing repertoire for performance, learning repertoire just for the sake of it, and learning etudes/technical studies and scales.
I center the way I teach technique around what "feels" good to a student, especially older students who have already started, to make sure that we are able to prevent and respond to injuries. So, I start with stretching and will frequently refer back to exercises that are meant to integrate physical ease into playing. Aside from that, I try to balance a consistent routine/expectation of things I want to cover (asking for things a week in advance, always playing a scale at the start of the lesson, etc), while also meeting a student where they are at on the day. Once we are working on material, I do my best to give students as many tools as possible that are easy to replicate in their own practice time.
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