FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
Becoming knowledgeable about teaching fees is important. Teachers have to adhere to budget issues that often have to be altered when last minute cancellations occur. I employ professional accompanists to play for my voice students so that I can assess my students growth and investigate ways to enhance my teaching skills. Depending on that expense, and the number of other students performing, I usually ask parents to contribute a portion of the accompanist's fee. If I am asked to provide piano or music theory books for them, I ask parents to pay the amount I'd be paying for those teaching materials. I ask parents to bring a composition book for their child, for notes and assignment comments so that pages don't get lost.
- What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
I enjoy initiating my voice lessons walking through vocal technique, demonstrating how to breathe properly, proper posture, and vocal exercises to practice on a daily basis. For piano students, I start to either teach or review time signature and musical note definitions, the C major scale; teaching the rudiments of piano playing.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I hold a Bachelor's Degree in Music from Adelphi University, and have 14 years of professional singing as an opera singer while living in Florida, and while I spent the summer of 1998 singing in Bregenz, Austria. I have taught both voice and piano at several music teaching establishments since 2002. Often I use dance movements, incorporated while studying theater arts/choreography at Cornell University as I teach music students. Dancing helps students to count as they learn rhythm.