FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
Free 30-minute trial lesson $40/hour $25/half hour
- What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
I offer a free 30-minute lesson where we'll discuss your aspirations and jump right into your musical medium. It may include warming up your voice, finding your range, visualizing the keyboard or fretboard in a new way, or improvising and creating. From there, we'll try to design lessons that help you grow in your ideal direction.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I am a classically-trained musician, active songwriter, and teacher in the Portland area. Most recently, I was living in Tokyo, teaching lessons, playing solo jazz concerts, and songwriting/performing/recording with my band, The Dorian Sea. With 20 years of musical experience, I have formally studied voice, piano, guitar, music theory, and composition in private lessons and at the renowned St. Olaf College. In my formative years, I studied voice under John Merwin, a successful opera singer who passed down the 300 year-old Bel Canto method via Igor Gorin. My piano training started at six years old in private lessons and has guided me musically since. At St. Olaf College, I majored in vocal performance and music education, studying under Anton Armstrong, Christopher Aspaas, and Robert Smith, and participated in the esteemed St. Olaf Choir. At the University of Colorado at Boulder, I studied guitar and composition under Eric Wiggs. As a music theory teacher's assistant, I learned that being able to truly hear music and understand what is happening at a deeper level is what takes you from amateur to musician.