Singing with Rae W.

How I judge my success is by how well my students assimilate my pedagogy. I take complicated concepts and do my best to make them understandable. If you have performance fear, I want to en-courage you. If your technique will harm your product, I want to help you change your approach. If you get tangled up in the language of music, I smooth the confusion through a variety of different media. If you hunger for self-expression, I can put you in an environment which is limited only by the amount and the way that you practice. I think really good teaching is a constant learning process. The best thing about my having taught for 15 years as a choir director and group/private piano teacher in the Texas public school system is this: if you, as my student, have a problem understanding something, odds are that I have found a way to explain it or a similar issue with one of the thousands of students I've taught over the years. I have a Bachelor's in Music, Masters classes in Voice and am a Certified All -Level Music Teacher by the state. My hobby,though is how people think as they express music, how they feel, what the whole musical process is. - that's me. I truly love the teaching/learning experience. *** Lesson Details *** My teaching is entirely tailored to you, the student. If you drive yourself, I help you understand how tension affects you, even dancing the music sometimes, to relax into the beauty of the rhythms. If you need me to be a task master, I am a demanding one. If you have performance anxiety, I arrange opportunities for you to develop confidence. I have a computer available for students to use to do research in music history or world music. I use whichever curriculum will aide your understanding, be it Bastien, Faber, Vandall, Alfred or a combination of those and more. After a few months in my studio, you will have a more confident approach to music, you will show more comfort with basic scales, strengthening either your voice or your fingers, you will have developed your inner ear through interval training, and you will have mastered some songs which can allow you to play or sing your heart. You will have written some melodies and perhaps put harmonies with them. When you put it all together, you will have begun to learn a language for which, in your life, there is no substitution. *** Studio Equipment *** First, my studio is located in a safe, serene part of Arlington with easy access to freeways. The front of my home is ideally suited for studio excellence. You will await your lessons in my front waiting area, where, if you are a school-age child, you can get some homework done. Your lessons themselves are across the foyer in my studio which has windowed doors allowing me to see the waiting room, but which are closed during the lesson giving a wonderful sense of privacy and confidence to the student. There is a full bathroom right next to the studio room. My piano is a Kawai upright; I bring in a grand piano for concerts. *** Travel Equipment *** The student is expected to provide a full keyboard or piano. *** Specialties *** While I was in college, I gave private lessons on piano - I used the Alfred series, as I recall, and Farber. For voice, I teach Vaccai and then, depending on the student, either the UIL voice songs or Broadway belt. For guitar, I really just teach chords and the fretboard.