FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
My pricing system for private lessons is a rate of $35.00 per hour of lesson time. Half-hour and 45-minute lessons are fractions of this rate, i.e. $17.50 for a half hour lesson and $26.25 for a 45-minute lesson. * Most of my private studio violinists and violists take weekly lessons with lesson lengths and times of their choice. I ask for payment at the end of each month for the number of weeks of lessons in the upcoming month. Depending on which day of the week a student's lesson is on, a couple months during the year there will be a month which has five lessons during that month. For the majority of the year, a student will have four lessons a month. **Students may choose to have lessons every other week, if they desire.
- What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
When I am accepting a new student for violin or viola lessons, I initially talk with the parent(s) and/or the student to find out how they became interested in playing the instrument they have chosen, what styles of music they would like to study and what their short and long-term goals are relating to performing and their musical instrument. * in addition, if the student wishes, I ask that all of my students learn basic improvisational skills on their instrument, usually beginning with improvising over easy songs that they know well, then playing over easy chord progressions and blue progressions. Improvisation is not really mystical: there are techniques, ways to think about and approach improvisation and things that a musician must do to be able to improvise proficiently, and also become a more versatile musician.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I have a Bachelors Degree in Music Education from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and have taken post-graduate level classes to confirm my teaching certification in Oregon. I have been a substitute teacher in the 4-J public schools and have had a successful private teaching studio since 1985. I received a Performance Scholarship to the Berklee College of Music and was a teacher with the summer Suzuki Strings Camp held in Eugene, Oregon. I have also taken Suzuki master classes. I am also a maker of custom electric violins, and do the stringed instrument repair work for four Springfield schools. I play many styles of music well, and have a rich, varied and long history of studio recording.