I believe the role of a teacher is to shape open-minded, continual learners who will approach their world and its inhabitants with curiosity, respect, and an open ear. To do this, a music lesson must engage the entirety of the student as a person. While the short-term goal is to allow students to become fluent players of music, the path that leads to this offers so many other areas in which to grow that are critical to becoming a well-rounded musician and individual. In individual lessons these areas include thinking analytically, developing a strong work ethic, and managing one’s time. In group music-making, students learn how to work as a team as well as how to craft a collaborative vision.

 I believe that the student and teacher need a rapport based on honesty as well as mutual understanding to work together to help the student achieve their goals. Different students will have different goals on their instruments, especially given that many students have multiple focuses. Instead of demanding that students practice an arbitrary amount of time, I ask them to plan their practice schedules with me so that we can decide together both what they should aim to accomplish by the next lesson as well as which problem-solving tools are the most appropriate for the tasks at hand. While I challenge the student to realize their potential, I meet the student where they are.

When a student has ingrained a certain foundation of techniques and understanding of styles, I guide them to develop their own interpretive choices. Rather than dividing technique and musicality, I believe that both must be unified to make music every time we play. By modeling interpretive practices, I give students the tools to employ the ‘language’ of Western music so that they may in turn use it on their own. I demonstrate how to employ music theory in conjunction with historical styles to make choices, such as when I have helped students navigate the intersection of harmonic tension with a gesture’s metric placement, or in chamber coachings in which I have guided students to recognize the humor of denied expectations in a Haydn quartet. This type of problem solving allows them to interact with past and current cultures while giving them a foundation to perform all styles of music.

 With online access to resources for exploring a vast array of styles and genres, students benefit from a balance of the Western classical canon and other living musical traditions in our communities. I see it as my responsibility as an educator to model the navigation of that balance between skills of diverse repertoires and styles. I am dedicated to creating opportunities for students to experience diverse performance practices, simultaneously providing students with the classical canon’s historical skills as well as the dynamic contemporary musicianship of the multistyle performer/improviser. To accomplish the latter, I champion works by underrepresented composers both within and without the classical tradition, magnifying the voices of women, queer, and people-of-color musicians who already serve as a critical pillar of our music making and teaching community. I believe that in addition to diverse skills of music making, students need opportunities to practice arranging, concert organizing, and talking with audience members. Because the necessary balance of these skills is slightly different for each student, this is something that the student and I will craft together. 

I believe that knowledge is cumulative, that nothing is wasted, and that we cannot prejudge the benefits of gaining new skills. For this reason, I recommend that violinists spend some time playing viola, and vice-versa. Just like learning a new language—which I also highly recommend—problem solving for a time on a different instrument provides insights into different qualities of sound and ultimately expands the student’s toolkit. I believe that the study of viola for violinists, especially if done through etudes and repertoire specifically written for the instrument, exponentially expands the student’s understanding of tone and expression. Inversely, I believe that violin for violists provides opportunities to explore an enriched scope of left-hand techniques and bow-wrist subtleties that are otherwise impractical or inadvisable. 

 A point of central importance to my approach to teaching is the integrity of the studio culture. I model how students will treat each other with genuine respect, and I am committed to imparting the following lesson: that because our only competition is ourselves from the day before and not each other, we must be open to building each other up. When students help and support one another to be the best versions of themselves, they create a community that promotes musical and personal growth, and they too, by helping others, go further musically than ever before. I believe that such a community starts with the teacher, and I know that learning in this context lets students thrive.