Welcome!

 

My teaching philosophy is simple:  Keep what you have by giving it away.  All that I have learned about music and horn playing, I am happy to share with students and peers alike.  Musicians are a community of learners, all ages and levels.  I find it interesting how we seem to move between oppositional spaces of seclusion and inclusion - the very private practice room and the concert stage - ever seeking to express something beyond mere speech.  Our journeys are marked by those "aha" moments when we connect with others and share experiences, ideas, sounds.

 

Within every musician is a distinct voice, emerging and evolving.  My job as a teacher is to help you find, strengthen, and celebrate the sound that is uniquely yours, while also helping you  develop best practices in technique and interpretation that will enable you to collaborate with others in making music.  Technique - warmups, scales, arpeggios, etudes, etc - forms the foundation of a musical vocabulary.  Interpretation - phrasing, dynamics, expression, listening - builds the musician's craft toward artistry. 

 

Horn lessons support a range of musical purposes.  My high school students meet with me for lessons every other week or intermittently as needed, for example when they are preparing for college or high school All-State auditions.  Horn students at St. Thomas meet with me once a week.  Those majoring in fields other than music take lessons to improve their playing in one of the bands.  Horn students majoring in music are pursuing various career goals, for example a career as a performing artist or as a music educator.  Graduate students in Music Education often take horn lessons as their option to study a secondary instrument.  I also teach ad hoc lessons to older adults as well as students from other colleges who are home for summer or holiday break.

 

Each hornist seeks specific learning outcomes.  Toward meeting each individual's needs, I provide an appropriate set of warmups, exercises, and coaching to help students reach their goals.