Jonathon S.

A sharp focus on the proper techniques of each instruments and why it is important to the instrument's role in the orchestra. Students can also expect playing with recordings, score study not just the percussion parts, aural skills, percussion history, and practice reading different conducting styles. Students may also explore the same instruments in various settings outside of orchestra if interested.

A fun, relaxed environment where the focus is introducing the student to the instrument, letting them become familiar with the fundamentals, and then using the student's interests to decide the approach from there. A student may learn songs of their choosing or have songs suggested if they fit the lesson plan or have a teachable concept.

Learning fundamentals and technique, but demonstrating early on the congruence of concepts on this instrument so that scales, intervals, etc. are immediately applied and understood in the context of the learned music. Advanced students would expand on these patterns through improvisation and develop an ability to listen and make decisions based on musical context/other performers.

Open-ended lessons that involves learning to read rhythms, but focused mainly on developing style, independence, comfortability, and a vocabulary of grooves/techniques. Another major part of drumming is a student's ability to accompany either the teacher playing another instrument or a recording of a song. Advanced students would continue learning how to expand their vocabulary further and how the student's original ideas can be appropriate in a musical context.

A very personalized way of teaching in which the student will write for each lesson. When the student brings a piece, the teacher observes the piece and narrows the student's ideas into exactly what is trying to be expressed in the piece by the student while still learning conventions about written music and the genre they are writing in. The student is strongly encouraged to experiment and try various ways of writing a piece, learning from past works and other songwriters' examples, to find their compositional "voice." Students would apply their "voice" while learning to refine their creative decisions into work that is appropriate to the genre and structurally coherent within itself.