My goal for your violin lessons or your viola lessons is to help you play real music as soon as possible
Violin and viola should be fun. I believe that every student is unique and deserves an individualized teaching approach. Along with instruction of proper technique, I strive to facilitate your joy in music-making in a gradual and playful way. Learning to play the violin or viola is a long journey. My teaching approach focuses on playing real music as soon as you can… My pedagogy experience allows me to help you quickly find solutions to overcome obstacles, thus fixing problems that hinder your progress. I’ll be guiding you each step of the way while you learn to play in a fun, low-pressure environment.
First Steps to Success
My approach to violin lessons and viola lessons allows you to learn the fundamentals of string playing one step at a time. Gradual development of bowing skill, left-hand technique, and ear training as revealed through the study of beautiful music encourages a love of music-making in a steady, relaxed, and natural way. We begin by bowing various rhythms on open strings to train your bow arm to make a good sound. I’ll play duets with you as you develop your bowing skill. After a few weeks of getting comfortable holding the bow and instrument, I’ll teach you to finger notes so you can play a simple version of a hoedown that will get toes tappin’ and feet dancin’.
Musicianship
Even from our earliest violin lessons or viola lessons, I teach you more than just string playing skills—I show you how to become a musician. I teach creativity from early on. I show you how to make creative musical choices, including improvisation, making your own music arrangements, and if you really want to, composing your own music. A lot of this training happens gradually while you learn to play beautiful music in various styles—without me making a big deal about it. Down the road you will look back and discover how much you’ve learned without even realizing it.
- Finding your expression in the music you play
- Rhythmic feel and groove
- Ear training
- Creativity
- Playing with other types of musicians (starting with duets during lessons)
- Sensitivity to music
- Musician etiquette
- Musical histories
- Technique, note-reading, and music theory that supports your musical goals
Repertoire
I teach my beginning violin and viola students a carefully planned sequence of tunes designed to layer new skills on top of established skills. I’ll teach you to play classical, folk, Celtic, Latin, blues, jazz, ragtime, and rock music. These musical styles represent every region of the United States, plus music from Mexico and Canada. This music is both instructive and artistically enriching and will help create the future classical musician, folk fiddler, jazz player—or all three! I teach this wonderful variety of music found in the O’Connor Method books—a new course of American Classical string playing created by Mark O’Connor. Mark O’Connor is an incredible violinist and fiddler, recording artist, and composer. The O’Connor Method takes into consideration that, even at the beginning levels, learning music possessing a timeless quality is a healthy vehicle for generating a lifelong love of music-making.
The Concert Jam—Be a Performer
Playing music and sharing it with others is amazing… Playing music for other people with other musicians is exhilarating! I host the Concert Jam twice a year in Spring and Fall. You’ll get to play your song for a supportive and appreciative audience. You will also have the opportunity to play with a full band. If you’d rather play as a duo, or even solo, you will have those options, too.
- Spring Concert Jam
- Fall Concert Jam
- Opportunity to play with a band, as a duo, or solo
We spend some of our regular lesson time preparing for the Concert Jam. In addition to teaching you how to play, I teach you how to take the stage and be entertaining. I help you prepare for the Concert Jam by building up your performing skills from the ground up.
- Musical Preparation
- Stage Presence
- Ensemble Skills (making music with others)
- Anxiety Reduction (aka Keeping Cool)
- Stagecraft (knowing the gear used to play on stage)
This isn’t a competition… These performance opportunities are all about you having fun on your journey of learning to play violin or viola and your joy of making music.
Recording yourself
Recording yourself is a low-pressure way of preparing to play in front of an audience. Therefore we record audio and video at your violin or viola lessons. By listening to yourself and watching yourself play, you will discover ways to improve that become self-evident. This increased awareness often leads to discovering the cure for things that you probably didn’t even realize were getting in the way of your playing.
Become a Recording Artist
A unique opportunity that I offer you, as my student, is to make your very own Christmas record. It all starts with you learning to play and sing your Christmas song. Once learned, I will record you singing and playing your song. Then I produce your song with a full band backing you up on the recording. Your Christmas record is a musical snapshot of your year as a music artist. It’s also a lasting memento that you can bring out year after year for the holiday season. And if you want to release your song, I can show you how to do that, too.
- Opportunity to record your Christmas song
- Learn how to record your music
Electric Violin
While at an American String Teacher’s Association National Conference I discovered that Yamaha was making electric violins that don’t sound too shabby. After the ASTA conference I kept thinking of playing electric violin… I decided to pick up a 5-string electric violin to hear how it sounded through my array of assorted guitar effects. It turned out to be brilliantly fun to play and sounds surprisingly good. While it sounds different from an acoustic violin and isn’t going to replace it, I now spend more time playing this electric violin than my acoustic fiddle. I can use my 5-string electric violin to play both violin and viola. Parents will be thrilled to learn that these electric violins are practically silent when plugging headphones into the instrument. And they still make an effective sound for practicing and performing.
Please contact me if you’re interested in lessons.