Requirements for students:
No audition or prior piano experience is required.
The ONLY requirements are:
A willingness to accept challenges
Self motivation
A drive to develop and maintain a hard work ethic.
All of my afternoon times are filled for the school year 2008-2009, but I do have openings between 9 and 3 p.m., Monday to Friday.
In the Berkeley/Albany/Kensington area for beginning and intermediate students, I recommend:
Susanne Stolcke 528-1224
Tomoko Matsuda 526-2660
If you are interested in participation in the Certificate of Merit program visit
www.mtac.org and click on the 'Find a Teacher' link at the top right of the home page. You will be given the names of numbers of MTAC members near your zip code.
I also offer:
Master classes or lectures
Solo or chamber music performances
Adjudication services for contests or auditions
Accompanying for singers and instrumentalists
My Philosophy:
Music reaches across time and place and speaks to us in the intimate language of emotion. I believe that music is a special part of our humanity, and that we all have the capacity to play, understand and enjoy music. While we are all different, our similarities are more important than our differences.
As a teacher I work to help each student discover and develop their own musical voice. I believe in challenging every learner to reach as much of their potential as possible through problem solving, goal setting and hard work, and a supportive studio environment. I consider motivating, inspiring, and teaching students how to practice effectively at home to be one of my most important responsibilities as a teacher. I encourage students to participate in performance and adjudication opportunities. I have performance classes for students on a regular basis and also encourage interested parties to participate in programs outside the studio such as the MTAC’s Certificate of Merit program.
My teaching priorities are excellent sight reading, musicianship, rhythmic vitality, beautiful sound, artistic pedaling, and technical ease and brilliance in performance. I also teach music history and style to all students.
I am happy to teach people of all levels and backgrounds. My practice includes complete beginners as well as professional classical and jazz pianists, and I have worked with students from 6 to 80. One of the things I love about my work is having contact with many different kinds of people and watching them unfold and change over time. I am also fascinated by the mystery of the different ways we all learn and process the same information. Variety is truly the spice of life, certainly in for me in my teaching.
I am also available for one time workshops or presentations. Sample topics include “Why Teach American Music? “ and “ Teaching Artistic Pedaling as early as possible”. I also love to do master classes and chamber music coaching.
I have studied the “Taubman Approach” to piano technique for a number of years. Briefly, this is a way to use the fingers, hands and arms in order to make piano playing easy and comfortable and to avoid or cure injury. See The Golandsky Institute website for more information – go to the ‘Links’ page for easy access.
Please feel free to call or email me if you are interested in lessons, a workshop or master class!
Happy music making!