It's a word that is often bandied about in reference to teaching and learning an instrument: excellence.
What defines "excellence?" What does it look like and what outlines the goals to achieve it?
Is "excellence" about you and/or your approach or is it tied to student outcome?
"Excellence" is de...
It happened again.
I lost a student without warning.
I learned of it when they didn't pay for the fall.
No communication. No warning.
I think it's safe to say, most of us have had this experience at least once. It's unnerving. First, the questions start: Did I do something wrong? Was it someth...
I’m not a complainer. In fact, I’ve always been able to see through challenges to a find the positive. To see possibilities over limitations. The ability to do that comes from a lot of practice; it’s not innate. To see possibility, one must also understand the truth of one’s reality.
I have been ei...
I just returned from presenting at the wonderful ESTA conference in the Netherlands, and as often happens to me, I have been mulling over the lectures and workshops I attended over the last week. One of these was a presentation given by my dear friend and colleague Eloise Hellyer on the importance o...
My story
As a girl growing up in the Suzuki Talent Education Association in Knoxville, Tennessee, I thrived in my music training. Performances, recitals, lessons, master classes—all of it was absolute joy. I excelled swiftly and by my teen years, it was clear my future was somewhere in the arts (...
Years ago, I wondered. What if musicians, artists and creatives of all kinds were valued above all else? What if our educational system, the culture we inhabit and the society in which we raise our children focused on the compassionate connection borne from creative expression? How would our world l...
Ease. It is the buzz word for flow, creativity, freedom, and musical artistry. With ease, the holy grail of musicianship is ours and accessible to our students. Yet, how do we have it, and what does it make possible in our functioning that isn’t already there?
”Ease” is a state of being (and not j...
It wasn’t always the case I felt this way. Coming out of music school with a performance degree, I was entirely ill-equipped to teach young beginners to play the violin, and I knew it. My irrational fear of teaching little ones (What if I can’t get them to settle down? What if they are not potty tra...
We musicians have long known the relationship between mental-emotional well-being and our music-making. If we want to improve our playing, we must address the body, the mind and the balance between them. It is true of our students, as well. Their progress in music directly reflects their relationshi...
Receiving and setting expectation. We are groomed for it. As children, we learn to please our parents by meeting with their approval. As students we strive to be equal to the goals our professors set before us through the work that we do and the attitudes we carry. As professional teachers and perfo...
Specializing. Identifying. Isolating. Correcting. It’s how we’ve learned to grow, to heal, and to improve. Find what’s wrong, and fix it. Solve what’s broken, and you’re good to go.
But what if we approached issues not as problems but with curiosity? Such imbalances simply would require a realignme...
