LESSONS


I teach private fiddle lessons at ArtSpace Charter School, at Acoustic Corner in Black Mountain,
and at A Joyful Noise in Weaverville.
I am also a teacher for the Buncombe County Junior Appalachian Musican (JAM) program
at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts.
 
How I started teaching...
I began teaching intensively 6 years ago at the Musicorda
Children's String Workshop in Holyoke, MA.  This was a violin
summer camp for Holyoke Public School Children who studied
 violin during the school year.  After working as a teacher for a few
years I became the Assistant Director of the program.  The Holyoke
program was modeled after Roberta Guaspari's free violin program 
for public school children in East Harlem, NY, featured in the film,
Music of the Heart.  The organization that is currently supporting 
music programs in East Harlem is called Opus 118.

I had the honor of teaching with Roberta Guaspari
one summer in Holyoke and base many of my
teaching techniques on her philosophies. Another
unique aspect of the Holyoke and East Harlem violin programs is the emphasis on multicultural music, as the students were from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

For my honors thesis at the University of
Massachusetts I studied the effects of teaching Puerto Rican, Irish and African American music along with their respective cultural histories among children with those cultures in their heritage.
My current teaching philosophy involves a heavy
emphasis on student-driven curriculum. I offer my
students classical, bluegrass, blues, swing and
country style fiddling. I teach classical technique in
terms of posture and tone, but then expand into
improvisation and multiple genres. My students
begin learning music by ear. After a few months I
introduce note reading and then let the student
decide whether they'd like to continue by ear, or by reading music. Both skills are extremely valuable to a well-rounded musician. Most importantly, I emphasize playing music with others and fostering a love of music for my students.