Siobhan R  
Instruments: Piano, Voice
Styles: Classical, Jazz, Pop, Folk, Musical Theater, Opera, Showtunes

I begin teaching at a very young age of 13, when I taught my younger sister how to play the piano as well as sing. While I was in high school, I helped with vocal coaching for my choir and in the high school musical. During my time at university, I received training in Vocal Pedagogy and Teaching Methods. I began teaching voice and piano 1 year ago when I moved to Pennsylvania and I now teach around 12-15 students on a regular basis. Encouraging regular practice on a consistent schedule is a key point that I like to stress for my students because it helps them to gain more enjoyment out of playing as well as helps them to progress.

For beginner piano students who are children, I use some combination of either the Alfred, Faber or Bastien method books to get them started, but we also play lots of games to help us build on our rhythm and reading skills. I believe that music lessons should be fun and enjoyable for everyone, but that being said I do expect students to practice. It will be much more enjoyable to learn and less difficult for the student if they put the work into learning their music. For adult students of piano, I use the older beginner method books and I can make my own arrangements for them of popular music that is easy to play. For voice students, I am happy to teach all ages and styles of music from Pop to Classical. I focus on keeping the voice healthy and using diaphragmatic breathing technique. I believe that this classical technique of singing is applicable to all styles of music and will help anyone to become a better singer. For singers that want to learn the Classical style we will work on songs in other languages, starting with the Italian art songs of the 17th and 18th centuries. We will focus on legato and connected singing and pure open vowels. I have an extensive background in languages and diction and I am comfortable teaching songs in French, Italian and German.