Courses

Individual and Group Violin Instruction for Beginners

This program for beginning and intermediate violinists includes individual lessons and group classes. Incorporating both traditional western methods and modified Suzuki principles, the teacher creates for each student an atmosphere of encouragement, stimulation, and love for music, which is then nurtured at home through parental involvement in practicing and music-making. This approach helps the child develop musicianship, learning skills, and the ability to concentrate, while promoting healthy self-esteem. The entire family is enriched by this shared musical experience.

A unique aspect of Suzuki instruction is the weekly group class held in addition to the weekly private lesson. Students perform a common repertory together, play memory and ear-training games, and work on performance skills. The group class is an excellent complement to private lessons: the student learns to react and respond to instruction, to lead and to follow, to concentrate while surrounded by others, and to view him- or herself as part of a supportive, dynamic performing community.

Sixteen 30-minute private lessons $416.00 + Ten 30-minute group lessons: $ 90.00 = $506.00
Minimum enrollment: 3

Chamber Music

For intermediate and advanced players. An interview with the Director or instructor is required. Repertory will be chosen after a group is formed and will be determined by instrumentation and participants' experience. Cost to be determined based on class duration and level.

Music Theory

The study of music theory is essential for a musician's development. Study of scales, key signatures, intervals, triads, rhythmic patterns (Theory 1), phrase structure, elementary harmony and analysis, and composition (Theory 2) provides skills and knowledge needed for informed musicianship. Cost to be determined based on class duration and level.

Guitar Ensembles

Beginning Ensemble: Participants will learn beginning techniques of guitar-playing, including tuning, strumming, playing open chord positions, and reading standard notation, tablature, and chord diagrams. Repertory will include popular, jazz, blues, and classical styles.

Sixteen 45-minute group sessions: $216.00

Intermediate Ensemble: Students will explore higher fingering positions, finger picking, scales, key signatures, barre chords, and elementary improvisation, all within the context of a variety of musical idioms.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.

Sixteen 45-minute group sessons: $216.00

Advanced Ensemble: Students will work to increase fretboard awareness and to achieve greater facility with barre chords, finger picking, and improvisation. They will begin to explore more sophisticated technical and harmonic issues, including arpeggios, suspensions, altered and extended harmonies, chord inversions, 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. These concepts will be encountered through ever more sophisticated and varied repertory. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.

Sixteen 60-minute group sessons: $288.00

Minimum enrollment for each ensemble: 4

Voice Class

Consider this class an invitation to anyone who ever wanted to learn how to sing! It is designed for beginning students who have sung very little-- or barely at all-- and for returning students who want to "get back into singing." Class members will participate in warm-up exercises, review readings on general vocal anatomy and physiology, sing for each other, and discuss their colleagues' in-class performances. This is not a chorus. Students will find a nurturing environment that will help them to explore and enjoy the inner and outer limits of their vocal capabilities.

Cost to be determined based on class duration and level.