Music is a vital part of life and any education. Making music provides an essential outlet for creative expression in real-time that cannot be found in any other art form, and therefore, every person should have the chance to learn and develop their innate music-making abilities. This opportunity is what I strive to provide for my students.
My purpose as a teacher is to help students tap into their creativity to convey their ideas and to give them all of the tools they need in order to achieve this goal. Because every person is unique and has an individual way of learning and expressing music, I always try to tailor my teaching to fit the needs and interests of each student. However, I believe that there are certain essential skills that every flutist should have, and I work to ensure their development. These skills are used for growth in three different areas: as a flutist, a musician, and a person.
In order to improve a student’s flute playing, I work on the fundamentals of technique, sound, and posture and apply these to real musical situations through repertoire.
Technique is advanced through finger and articulation exercises and knowledge of scales. For sound, I work with the student on all of its major aspects, including sound quality, dynamics, intonation, and vibrato. Also, I use modern, extended techniques which are very beneficial for sound quality as well as being vital for learning contemporary music. And for posture, I work on increasing a student’s body awareness and his or her ability to use the body with naturalness and ease, essential for injury prevention and helpful for improving breathing. With the development of these fundamentals, flutists are better able to play their performance repertoire and to create music with purposeful expression.
Because flute playing does not exist in a vacuum, I try to ensure that my students are well-rounded musicians as well.
I incorporate music theory and history and seek to develop a student’s listening skills and ability to compose and improvise. I will try to ensure that students have a thorough knowledge of all the main genres and eras of music and to expand their boundaries into areas with which they might not be familiar. One way I do this is by teaching students the way music was played several hundred years ago and even let them try the one-keyed, Baroque flute. I also introduce them to contemporary music and other instruments in the flute family, like the piccolo or alto flute.
Finally, I strive to give my students essential life skills in addition to musical ones.
I seek to create a supportive, safe, and enjoyable environment where students can learn, and I question students instead of only providing answers to develop their curiosity, creativity, and problem solving abilities which will one day enable them to learn how to teach themselves.