Teaching Philosophy and Curriculum Overview
My primary goal as a clarinet teacher is to make complex concepts in clarinet playing as clear, accessible, and effective as possible. Teaching instrumental music is special in that a lot of the skills for playing are based in very fine physical motor control, most of which cannot be seen. It's essential that a teacher offers exemplary communication of playing concepts; even more so, they need to hear in the student what they cannot see, and diagnose exactly what the student needs to change to progress. I can do that for you!
I guide learning such that successful techniques relate with and build on successful techniques. Besides making learning faster, this also establishes a safety net so when something isn't working, we can check in and see what is changing in that particular challenge.
For beginners, I work from right arm support and basic embouchure formation to start the sound. I keep a few beginner mouthpieces on hand to make sure bad equipment will not get in the way. You or your children will not suffer for months or years trying to make the sound! And you will probably find that you can play "above the break" easily from the very first lesson.
Over time we will cover many topics. On the technical side, these include:
What is effective voicing and how to check for it
What is focus or center in the sound
Different types of staccato
How to learn to hear intonation
How to practice
Expressive principles, style, phrasing
Upper lip control
Understanding the difference between what one hears while playing versus what is reaching the audience
On the practical side, these include:
How to organize reeds and have utility from the entire box
Adjusting reeds
Setting up the instrument for pitch
How to have a healthy understanding of equipment
On that last point, I keep a suite of nearly 50 mouthpieces in the studio available to demo. These can help as younger students grow physically and in skill. The whole instrument+mouthpiece+reed combination is an optimization equation, and it is fun to adjust the parameters towards different things and experience the feedback. Sometimes this is useful to practice on a particular setup to focus on learning a given concept. However, the most important thing is that we approach equipment from the vantage of solid, consistent technical foundations - we are the constant! - so as not to be taken in circles or worse.
Practicing music is like swimming, in its combination of hours of repetition with drills, boards and buoys that refine the strokes; it is like shooting sports in its control of breathing, internal focus, and combination of tension and relaxation. It is mathematic in its prescriptive nature; literary in its topics. Yet, through all the work, there is a whole world history of thought, feeling, and experience that we get to bring back to life when we perform.
I would be privileged to help guide your journey!