Lessons

Teaching students is a privilege, as well as a challenge.

Every mind works differently, everyone's musical and life experiences are different. I enjoy figuring out how the student's mind works, and what individual learning experiences they bring. Then I tailor my way of teaching them most effectively to their specific learning system.

My own musical journey has started with learning melodies by heart before learning them from written music – an approach that always requires sound outside of us. This teaches us to listen first. Even with classical music I like to start to internalize the music as I learn it.

I believe that by listening well to one another, by digging deeply into a musical vocabulary that is different from that of our upbringings, is extremely enriching, and builds bridges. We learn by imitation, and yet we are creators ourselves who best discover our own voices, and develop our own musical expression by having absorbed and carefully listened to those who have come before us, and those with whom we coexist. Transcribing, and learning from transcriptions helps to learn to truly listen, to tune into all the subtleties of music, of sound, of phrasing. I often hear astounding improvisors who yet have to learn that music is always a shared experience, even if we are the soloist, there is always a musical fabric we are part of. Transcribing, and imitating are important tools for the students to create their own unique voice that is malleable given the specific context.

To become free as an improviser requires having a vocabulary in the particular language that you want to communicate with, and also the confidence to do so. So much of improvisation is negotiation with your fellow musicians. I love to help students to be active and responsive in the musical conversations with others by improvisation games, call and responses, leading vs. accompanying, and more.

Apart from building up the students' confidence, and their individual musical voices, their vocabulary, and technical skills, it is my highest goal to equip students to bring joy, beauty, and depth to any musical performance. The road to it is to raise their awareness of a bigger context. No matter if we play a concerto, a clarinet duet, or are part of a jazz ensemble, we are always part of a bigger picture. In providing another voice for the students – by playing counter point for example – and helping them over time to do the same, supporting me in any kind of music, is a great tool to feel the mutual pulse, to develop a strong sense of time and rhythm even if there is no rhythm section around. There is a pulse in any kind of music that we want to be able to feel, hear, and fall into.

I would love to help you to truly “tune in!”

I offer several lesson packages.

The lessons will be either on skype or zoom, or at my home studio in New Orleans.