ARRIVING FOR YOUR LESSON
- Please park along the street (without blocking the mailbox please) or on the very left of the driveway, closest to the entrance.
FOOTWEAR
- Please remove your shoes as you enter the house.
FOOD AND DRINK
- No gum, candy, food, or drink other than bottled water please.
LESSON FORMAT
Starting lessons in this studio, most students will attend two lessons, usually 30 min each, every week. This more frequent student-teacher interaction reinforces the fundamental skills and practice techniques necessary for a successful and enjoyable piano experience. Twice weekly lessons also reduce the potential for incorrect practicing in between lessons, thus allowing us to focus more time on learning and less time on correcting mistakes or having to re-learn last week’s concept. I am always more than willing to re-teach something if the student doesn’t understand the concept, but it is a waste of time to have to re-teach simply because too much time has elapsed since the last time we explored the new concept.
The goal is not to progress faster – though it is a welcome side effect – but to provide more frequent feedback, the way it happens in school: no one would think of sending a child to school once a week for 30 minutes, cram a lot of new information in, and then leave the child alone for an entire week.
Students who are reliably independent in their practicing take 45-minute lessons or 60-min lessons, once or twice a week, depending on our goals.
Students who are getting ready for competitions or auditions attend extra lessons.
INDIVIDUAL COACHING SESSSIONS
Individual coaching sessions are available upon request and are billed differently from regular weekly lessons.
GROUP AND PERFORMANCE CLASSES
Time and scheduling permitting, in addition to private lessons there will be occasional group and performance classes. Group lessons count as “half lessons”. I try to schedule group events at everyone’s convenience.
STUDENTS OF ALL AGES AND LEVELS ARE WELCOME.
- I enjoy teaching all ages and levels, but for elementary school age children, I do require substantial parental involvement until students are approximately 10 years old. This means that a parent attends lessons along with the child, quietly observing, taking notes.
- Particular attention is given to a natural and injury-free technique and to thorough mastery of all studied materials. Parents and students are encouraged to take videos of my demonstrating certain techniques at the lesson. I maintain a YouTube channel with videos of technical aspects and of student literature. Videos of student performances are for the most part unlisted so only parents and students can access them.
THERE ARE LIMITED OPPORTUNITIES TO RESCHEDULE MISSED LESSONS.
- The sooner I know that you will have to miss a lesson, the better; it allows me to make use of the time, perhaps offering the time to a different student who has a scheduling conflict.
- When a student unexpectedly does not show up for a lesson it is lost time for me: I do not know whether you are just a couple minutes late or will not show up at all. By then it is too late to offer that time to another student. Therefore, no-shows will be neither rescheduled nor credited.
ANY OUTSIDE PERFORMANCE BY THE STUDENT, BE IT FOR SCHOOL, CHURCH OR ANY OTHER VENUE, MUST BE DISCUSSED WITH THE TEACHER.
- I take my work as your piano teacher seriously, and part of my job is to teach how to perform. Most students and parents underestimate what it takes to perform successfully in public. I have very high standards, for myself, and for my students, and dismissive comments about a proposed performance, such as, “oh, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s just for church …” are unacceptable.
MAKING PHOTOCOPIES IN ORDER TO AVOID PURCHASE IS ILLEGAL.
- Students are expected to purchase all needed music scores. Once a student owns the score, we may make photocopies in order to facilitate a page turn, or to be able to look at all pages of a longer piece at once (particularly useful for visual learners).
PRACTICING
- Practicing is a skill that needs to be taught and learned and practiced. Practicing is so much more than just playing through a piece numerous times, hoping it will somehow, magically, improve. One of my goals as a piano teacher is to teach my students how to practice, efficiently and effectively.
- Parental supervision is necessary and should happen in a supportive and loving manner. For younger students, this means that you need to be in the same room as your child, go over the assignment with your child every time they sit down to practice, and then be there and available to ask leading questions, answer their questions, comment in a supportive manner on progress made – or lack of progress.
- “The real key to vivid engagement with music isn’t slowness. It’s attention. But most of us are so used to speeding through all of our activities, including our practicing, that we need to slow down a lot at first in order to discover the power of attention. As we develop our listening capacity much more, it operates fully at faster and faster speeds.” (Madeline Bruser)
All students must have a good instrument at home for practice. A good quality studio upright (approximately 44 inches or taller) would make an excellent instrument. These instruments have strings long enough to produce a rich, full sound. Studio uprights many times have longer strings than “baby” grand pianos and consequently a better sound and playing experience.
I am happy to accompany any student to area piano stores to help with the selection of an instrument.
Years ago, when I was a traveling piano teacher, I discovered an unexpected advantage: I got to see the instrument on which my students practiced as well as the setup and environment in which they practiced. Occasionally, a parent would apologetically say, “I am sorry, we only have a – ” and then proceed to tell me what they “only” had: a digital keyboard, an old piano that needed tuning, etc. – followed by, “I don’t know if that is good enough for lessons.”
That’s a curious thought. It begs the question: how can something that’s “not good enough” for teaching possibly be good enough for practicing?
Think about it: if your piano at home is not good enough – how can you possibly expect to make progress?
WISE WORDS
“Children need to move so that they become well acquainted with their bodies in order to learn how to hold still! Children need quiet, focused listening – someone pointing out the sound of that bird, or the wind, just for a few seconds – to be able to tune in to individual sounds. Moving and listening are core ingredients in every Musikgarten class; we intentionally limit the visual stimuli so that later – at the appropriate time for a child – we will be able to sit down, look and listen.” ~ Dr. Lorna Heyge, Founder of Musikgarten
From the very beginning, I teach mastery, rather than perfection. Bruce Berr, in the Autumn 1999 issue of “Keyboard Companion” says, “Newer teachers sometimes assume that because students are at an elementary level, they cannot play their pieces with mastery and artistry – this is not true! This is a matter of confusing standard with level.”