Teaching

Any of you who are regular readers will know that I am a huge advocate of practicing music slowly. My students hate hearing me say “Let’s work on this passage slowly with a metronome.” Two of my favourite learning tools together! A couple of my students have been performing solos in the local music festival […]

I offer both group and private lessons through my teaching studio. Which is better? Well, as with so many questions, it all depends on what you want from your lessons. Group Lessons – Pros Social aspect – It can be nice to learn in an environment where you get to interact with other people instead […]

I recently heard a 5 year old student of mine talking to her mom as she walked away from lesson one day. Her lesson that day had not gone as well as usual, possibly because she was tired and possibly because she had not managed to practice as much as usual during the week. “I […]

You love practicing your scales, right? Ok, maybe not. Do you find that sometimes your brain turns off while you are working on them? After all, the pattern remains that same, and if is easy to get into the habit of playing the same scales in the same order. There is really no use in […]

Last week I held my end of year student recital. I always play at my recital as I feel it is important for my students and their parents to see me perform too. I actually find playing for my students to be one of the most nerve-wracking performances that I do all year. Since both […]

I recently had a pep talk with one of my students from Park St. Elementary School.  She was struggling with playing some of the music that we had been working on for while and was just about ready to quit.  As I was talking to her, I realized that there were three keys to her […]

Fun with scales? Did I say fun? Ok, so, perhaps my idea of fun is a little twisted, but I do actually enjoy playing scales, and have several different ways that I practice them to keep the exercise new and exciting. Today we are starting with my current favourite method of practicing scales. I see […]

Have you ever been to a lesson and thought, “I hope that my violin teacher does not ask me to play that piece!  I am having trouble with it!”  I know I have been there many a time.  It seems to me that this is human nature to want to hide the areas where you […]