Trumpet Lessons in Toano. Amazing Teachers.

"Ms. Laverty has been my son’s private trumpet teacher since the summer of 2012. She is patient, kind and very supportive of his efforts in playing the trumpet. In large part, she is the reason that my son enjoys playing trumpet and continues to thrive as a musician.

From the beginning she tailored her lessons to include the music that my son was interested in and also added increasingly more complex music to work on and master.

Sandra has taped him playing during lessons to show him how and where he can improve in body position, quality of sound and other nuances. She regularly uses her laptop computer to show videos of performances that support the lesson and also assigns various Internet sites to view for exposure to other musicians and styles.

Sandra regularly provides opportunities for my son to perform in public. He has performed at the annual CMEA event at San Jose State University, and other smaller events where he played solo on stage. They have both joined in at a local café for practice in improvisation, as my son loves to play jazz. This has really helped in his jazz solo opportunities at school. She has also organized a quartet of student trumpet players to work together on various music pieces and then they all performed together for family and friends. This was a unique experience for the children to practice and play together and perform as a group.

My son is also interested in basketball and baseball, and Sandra has been very flexible in scheduling lessons to accommodate my son’s athletic and school schedules. After about 6 months of lessons, she offered twice a week lessons to capitalize on my son’s enthusiasm and increase the speed of musical advancement so his confidence soared and he wanted to play more because he liked doing something he felt he was good at. He kept this schedule for about a year and then back to once a week to allow for more time for other interests.

During middle school, my son played trumpet in both the Advanced Band and also Jazz Band classes. This past summer, Sandra again offered twice weekly lessons to get ready for his high school debut. As a result, he was chosen to play first chair in the high school jazz band. He was also one of only two freshmen that were accepted into the most advanced band class (also known at Wind Ensemble) at Lincoln High School.

I recommend Sandra Laverty, without reservation, for any trumpet teaching opportunity."

"Very friendly and very knowledgeable. Very fun lessons! Highly recommended."

"Andrew is a great trumpet teacher for my son during pandemic and he had learned many good techniques from him and he is forming a habit of practice breathing before classes start. We would be learning from Andrew long term if it is not because our school band teacher opened up one slot in for him and recommend him to take it which could be convenient when classes turn offline later."

"My son enjoyed lessons with Jonathan. He is very knowledgable and friendly. I recommend him for lessons."