As a teacher, my highest goal is to help my students grow as people through their flute lessons, while creating a comfortable and safe environment to be creative and learn to play the flute. I truly believe that by creating a comfortable environment and learning the flute, students can grow both as musicians and as people.
Through flute lessons, students will learn important skills that will apply to the “real world”. Guiding students to create healthy practice sessions will cultivate a good work ethic, the ability to learn on their own, and curiosity. Learning to have healthy practice sessions helps with students’ motivation to continue with their work, and more importantly keep them from getting unnecessarily stressed. I will work with students on creating healthy practice habits that fit with their schedules, which will also help them learn how to manage their time wisely. This can look like setting aside an amount of time to practice, what they should do during that time, and how they can practice away from the flute to become a stronger musician. These discussions, as well as collaborating with other musicians, within the safety of the studio, will help strengthen students’ communication skills. Learning these skills will help students with their future, whether they decide to make a career of flute playing, or if they choose a different career path.
Creating a space that allows my students to be comfortable enough to experiment is very important to me and will allow students to discover what it is they want to do, whether that be playing professionally or as a hobby. Through the space that is created in the studio, students will feel more comfortable to discuss and explore their own musical ideas with me. Students should feel that it is okay to experiment, have fun and make mistakes in lessons and practice. I want them to learn that mistakes and failure should be seen as something to learn from, not something to drag them down or make them give up. I invite all my students to ask questions about their mistakes and be curious about flute playing, as they can lead to exploring creativity.
Creativity is a huge part of being a musician. I believe that everyone has some amount of creativity in them, and it’s my goal to help my students find their creativity and allow it to grow. They will do this by experimenting with different sounds to make their own music and making a story, or assigning different feelings or colors to the music they work on. It is necessary for students to have an open mind when they are learning so they can explore this creativity. Having a comfortable and safe environment will help students with this and also to be more confident in their playing.
In order to help a student’s confidence in their playing, the concepts that are taught in lessons are very important. As a teacher, I lead through example. In lessons we will play back and forth so that the student can hear what they should begin to sound like. We will also play duets to help them learn the skills they need to play in ensembles. We will work on tuning, rhythm, keeping steady time, and articulations through duets. We will work on developing the students’ sound, creating a good foundation for flute playing, as well as musicality. I hope to guide them towards tools that will help them with their goals and help them figure out steps to accomplish those goals.