About My Teaching
One of my favorite parts of teaching violin playing technique is observing how students learn. Over the years, through many pedagogy classes, workshops, observations, and more than two thousand hours spent actually teaching, I have been able to make quite a study of it, and have come to understand a few things of importance. First, not all students learn in the same ways. Second, not all students have the same goals or reasons for studying the violin.
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I am autistic and work best with students who's brains process information in a similar way to mine. I usually need to have as much information as possible so that I can truly understand what I am doing. For the student, there are times when being exposed to too much information is disabling, regardless of how their brain happens to work. Teaching is a constant balancing act of tailoring the lesson and long term plan to the student while also ensuring forward progress.
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I have come up with a pedagogical approach that centers around the various systems of the body, which I describe briefly in the paragraph below. For each student, however, the way we engage with this discussion differs. Some students are young and are at the very beginning of a long life pursuing a career in music. These students will have more focus placed on developing the most correct posture and on how to train the brain in their practice. Other students are adults who study the violin as a way to support healing from past trauma, and in these cases we will focus a lot on relating the impacts of that trauma to the way these systems of the body are used in violin playing. Still others are hobbyists, studying the violin as a way to surround themselves with the things that they love outside of their career and work life, in which case these discussions may be more general, or even connect to the other areas of their lives. Regardless of the reason for study, the foundation of my method remains the same.
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To pursue mastery of the violin is to develop supreme control over the many systems of the human body. In my teaching, we begin by addressing the musculoskeletal system, how to stand in the most correct way, how to hold the violin and the bow, how to move correctly in the most basic of forms. We then delve into a conscious conversation with the nervous system, learning about the various inputs of the visual, aural, tactile, proprioceptive, and chronoseptive senses, and how they lead to and correspond with the outgoing neurological transmissions that become commands executed by the muscles of the body. This naturally transitions to learning about the endocrine system, and how cortisol and adrenaline impact these transmissions to induce "stage-fright" and trauma responses, and what we can do to mitigate those effects. All of this learning allows us to identify issues in our playing and can inform us of the root causes of those issues, so long as we have sufficient knowledge of violin playing technique to rely upon, which then enables us to pursue the most highly efficacious solutions to those problems through our practice. As long as a student is diligent and applies themself, they will be able to continue developing their violin playing, and with continued improvement come ever more opportunities to perform.​
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I place high value on scales, etudes, solo Bach, and certain standard repertoire, while also keeping an ever expanding repertoire of music that I love to pass down to my students. Listening and watching are also equally important parts of the education, as are music history, historically informed performance practice, and music theory.
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I am currently accepting new students of all levels. For all students, including beginners, I do have fairly high expectations of the amount of time set aside on a daily basis for violin practice. I do not require that students quit sports or other activities, but I do maintain the same level of expectations for those students as I do with everyone else.​
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If you are interested in studying with me, please send me an email at: