These are the ques­tions I’ve been asked most by prospec­tive and new stu­dents over my decades as a music teacher.  If you like what you read below, I hope you’ll sched­ule a FREE ini­tial con­sul­ta­tion so we can talk about how you and I can work togeth­er to help you grow toward your musi­cal goals!

What’s your philosophy of teaching?

In the sim­plest of sens­es, any­one who can push a but­ton can play the piano—but mak­ing music at the piano is much more than know­ing which of the 88 “but­tons” on the instru­ment to push in which order. Sim­i­lar­ly, any­one who can speak aloud and rec­og­nize pitch can learn to sing—but true vocal music is much more than words and notes.

The good news is that after more than four decades as a pianist and singer, I can offer my stu­dents sound prac­ti­cal wis­dom they can use to make music more effi­cient­ly and safe­ly. But behind every tech­ni­cal exer­cise is my sin­gu­lar goal as an artist: to iden­ti­fy human truths (from the most per­son­al to the most uni­ver­sal), and to com­ment on them well and pow­er­ful­ly through music.

What lesson schedule do you recommend?

I rec­om­mend half-hour week­ly ses­sions for near­ly all new stu­dents. A half-hour ses­sion includes approx­i­mate­ly 25 min­utes of teach­ing time, which gen­er­al­ly allows us to review the work you’ve done since I saw you last, address spe­cif­ic chal­lenges, and set goals for the com­ing week. More advanced stu­dents with increased sta­mi­na, focus, and work habits (espe­cial­ly those who begin to cov­er longer reper­to­ry, pre­pare for col­lege audi­tions, etc.) may find full-hour week­ly lessons (~50 min­utes of teach­ing time) prefer­able.

Do you offer non-weekly lessons?

I’m often asked about biweek­ly (“every-oth­er-week”) lessons. As a way to save mon­ey, biweek­ly lessons can seem like a smart choice. But real­i­ty being what it is, stu­dents who see me only a cou­ple of times a month don’t progress near­ly as fast (much less than half as fast, I find) as those who have that week­ly “nudge” to keep them mov­ing for­ward. And that’s even assum­ing we nev­er have to miss a les­son due to ill­ness, weath­er, or trav­el. There­fore, my stu­dio cal­en­dar is built on the assump­tion that stu­dents com­mit to reg­u­lar, week­ly lessons, and the Sub­scrip­tion Plan dis­count is avail­able only for week­ly lessons.

How do you bill for lessons?

The eas­i­est, best way to pay for music lessons is a flat month­ly pay­ment, auto­mat­i­cal­ly billed to your cred­it card.  That’s why I rec­om­mend that all of my stu­dents enroll in my Sub­scrip­tion plan.  Under this plan, stu­dents agree to set up auto­mat­ic pay­ments for each month­ly invoice, and in return receive a spe­cial dis­count­ed rate.  Plus, Sub­scrip­tion tuition also includes free access to my month­ly Vocal Per­for­mance Mas­ter­class.

For stu­dents who would rather have the flex­i­bil­i­ty to pay week­ly by app, card, check, or cash, or for whom week­ly lessons are incon­ve­nient, I offer a Pay-Per-Les­son plan.  Stu­dents who choose Pay-Per-Les­son are billed week­ly, with pay­ment due before the start of each les­son.  Tuition for Vocal Per­for­mance Mas­ter­class­es is not includ­ed in the PPL plan—VPMC tuition for PPL stu­dents is billed sep­a­rate­ly, and also due before class begins.

Cur­rent tuition rates, includ­ing rates for full-hour lessons, are pro­vid­ed on my Tuition Plans page.

How much should I practice?

Many stu­dents find the time we spend togeth­er dur­ing our week­ly lessons to be a refresh­ing respite from the rest of their week. If that’s the case, I cel­e­brate that oppor­tu­ni­ty with you, and am hap­py to be able to facil­i­tate the expe­ri­ence. Your musi­cal life is yours, after all!

If you have spe­cif­ic career, edu­ca­tion­al, per­for­mance, or oth­er goals, though, you will almost cer­tain­ly find that a short week­ly les­son doesn’t pro­vide the nec­es­sary for­ward momen­tum to get you there all on its own. Flu­en­cy in music, as in any oth­er lan­guage, is impos­si­ble to achieve with­out fre­quent immer­sion; and the mus­cles we use to make music “learn” through qual­i­ty rep­e­ti­tion, just like the mus­cles ath­letes use to swing rack­ets and jump hur­dles. To max­i­mize your musi­cal growth, it’s wise to plan for some ded­i­cat­ed prac­tice time at least five days out of each week. (I strong­ly rec­om­mend you add these prac­tice times to your per­son­al cal­en­dar, rather than trust­ing your­self to “fit it in some­time.”)

Even 10 or 15 min­utes of prac­tice, five times in a week, is prefer­able to a sin­gle longer ses­sion. Just make sure it’s qual­i­ty time: stud­ies have shown that it’s bet­ter to put in a few min­utes of care­ful, ded­i­cat­ed work on a sin­gle trou­ble spot or tech­nique than it is to hasti­ly play through a piece and “chalk up” the time as prac­tice.

A few words about gender and identity

While tech­nique and the­o­ry are obvi­ous­ly essen­tial parts of the craft, mak­ing music hap­pens only when the artist makes vul­ner­a­ble, authen­tic con­nec­tions to the mate­r­i­al and to the audi­ence. To that end, I some­times rec­om­mend (and am hap­py for stu­dents to request) reper­to­ry that cross­es gen­der lines (e.g., a male-pre­sent­ing stu­dent singing music writ­ten for a female char­ac­ter), where tex­tu­al, the­mat­ic, and/or musi­cal con­sid­er­a­tions sug­gest a stu­dent would make impor­tant con­nec­tions with that reper­to­ry.

I also encour­age stu­dents to share with me the name and gen­der pro­nouns they would like me to use to refer to them, regard­less of what any­one else is accus­tomed to call­ing them. The name and pro­nouns I use with stu­dents dur­ing pri­vate ses­sions may be dif­fer­ent, if desired, from those used in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with par­ents and oth­ers. My offi­cial records (for sched­ul­ing, billing, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions) can be updat­ed at any time.

In short, your music should be yours, and it is my job to help you make your music.

What else should I know about you?

What an excel­lent ques­tion!  With so many voice teach­ers in Cen­tral Penn­syl­va­nia (and avail­able online), what makes me worth con­sid­er­ing for your musi­cal edu­ca­tion?  I’ve actually—my ther­a­pist will be thrilled to hear—created an entire page all about how proud I am of the work I do.  I encour­age you to take a look!

How do we get started?

If my ped­a­gogy appeals to you, please sub­mit a Prospec­tive Stu­dent Appli­ca­tion; I’ll be back in touch with you (usu­al­ly with­in 24 hours) to dis­cuss how we might work togeth­er.