Teaching Philosophy

My proudest moment came recently when I was discussing how much time a long-time student spent practicing each day. He replied with the number of minutes he worked on our lesson materials but then joyfully told me how he spent an additional couple of hours every day playing his favorite music. Success!!

My ultimate goal is to help each student to be able to play the piano well, beautifully, and for their own enjoyment. During my time teaching non-major piano students at the college level I had many students who had taken lessons for several years as children but were not able to read music or remember anything they had learned in previous lessons. This was so disheartening to me. I hope to help students develop a love for music and reach their own musical goals, whether that be auditioning to be a college music major, accompanying their church choir, or playing their favorite movie score or popular song. I strive to achieve this goal by focusing on correct technique, beautiful artistry, and fluent sight-reading. I am classically trained and have every student work on a combination of classical works as well as more modern pieces and anything that they really love. I ask students to work hard and I try to make lessons fun!

Lessons with me will include private instruction and group lessons. I offer both after school and during the day lesson times. Private lessons are weekly and focus on technique, sight-reading, theory and repertoire. Group classes are twice per semester and focus on performance skills and other musical topics such as music history, conducting, ear training and theory games, and collaboration with other musicians.