Music learning ranges from a highly professional, to a significant but auxiliary education. A good teacher must know how to prepare all ambitions. From successful solo, chamber music, and orchestra musicians, to educators for all levels. From university students to beginners, from aspiring soloists to amateurs. Finally, to leaders of artistic knowledge, leadership, and innovation.

 

Music universities must enable students to perform, collaborate, teach, present, and lead in a competent way. I believe that every student must learn it all. Solo and ensemble skills. How to lead and how to adjust. How to teach, and conceptualize nurturing ideas to the society.

 

My learning strategy focuses on sharpening their discipline, preparation, multidisciplinary, and multicultural thinking. I plan to create a safe space of open-minded communication, promoting individuality and collaboration skills. 

 

My approach is both traditional and innovative. I like to combine tried and true methods with new ideas by educators, students, and artists, including non-classical. I recommend students to practice Sevcik, Yost, Galamian, as well as audio/video record their sessions, play along with excellent recordings, and explore self-improvement books, yoga, and meditation.

 

I prefer a simple, direct, but also imaginative teaching style. After all, the artistic process is about mixing concrete and abstract elements. My ultimate pedagogical goal is to build a system of efficient practicing routines coordinating body and mind, traditional and modern, direct and imaginative strategies. And to pass this passion to my students.

 

Discipline and Preparation:

 

How the body works in relationship with the instrument, imagination, and learning time. I suggest a systematic and progressive process  of problem-solving, resilience, creativity, and control.

First, we design together short-scale and long-term routines, according to ability and learning style. Short-scale regimens focus on one aspect: a basic technique (shifting, a phrase, a ricochet, etc), or a difficult passage. We dissect the technique into separate elements (role of fingers, or elbow), practice them incrementally, and put it slowly back together. We divide phrases into smaller components. Study their motivic significance, anticipate, vary, and find a new interpretation. This approach promotes a controlled and concrete development of creativity.

Long-term routines incorporate larger time and content planning. A one-month gradual layout of 30 min/day of Paganini includes rest days. Practicing certain passages from different repertoire 7 min/daily into a total of 100 minutes, stretched out for weeks. Etc.

 

Once I was teaching a student that needed a strong bust in confidence, and concrete knowledge of violin technique. I designed a plan combining Sassmannshaus/Delay basics, Flesch scales, Yost shifting, Sevcik etudes, and my own exercises. We worked on basics, violin positions, bow distribution, etc. I introduced him to the Graded Repertoire page on violinmasterclass.com, so he could visually study the violin technique/music progression from elementary to professional level. We even played scales together, so he could stop obsessing over his every note. 

One month later, he began working on Lalo's 1st movement, and he was able to perform it confidently within two weeks. 

The student will always be encouraged to come up with his/her own exercises. 

 

Mindset

 

I see it as a discipline to be practiced regularly. Long-term strategies include good preparation, positive thinking, time management, and creating ”success” situations. A strategy I learned from Ms. Delay: ask students to repeat a passage as I speed up the tempo without their knowledge. Their maximum tempo is often faster than they anticipated. This concrete and immediate success reassure them that succes is limited only by their mind. A healthy Mindset is about reaching for the infinite.

Short-term strategies handle both normal and abnormal situations. From how to execute a well-prepared piece in a large hall compellingly and movingly, to how to handle pressure in a last-minute performance, lead unexpectedly, or play an audition after limited warm-up time. Here is a modest list of short-term strategies: set your body and mind in a powerful mode. Implement a calming or uplifting routine before performing-possibly previously set in your daily practice. Count and subdivide with a strong voice in your head. Start the music in your mind 2-3 measures before playing. Play with your fingers in space, pausing between phrases and sequences. 

 

Creating a safe and rich learning space focused on communication

 

I plan to organize open lessons, masterclasses, and student-to-student feedback. To teach constructive criticism, and how to cope with unfair treatment. How to transform petty, ego-based collaboration into a professional one. While coaching Franck Sonata to two advanced students with a budding career, I noticed that they were centered on their solo personalities. The violinist demanded the pianist to follow-confusing a sonata with a virtuoso piece. I carefully shifted their attention to the dialogue between violin and piano. I encouraged them to emphasize each other's musical gestures, coloring details together. I pointed at where the violin needs to follow the piano, and this calmed their power struggle. Together we dissected harmonic language, timing, pulse, and meaning. Finally, they enjoyed the working process and ensemble playing.

 

Individuality, and Critical thinking

 

Individuality is about reaching, sorting out, developing, testing, showcasing, and refining one’s Potential. Critical thinking involves questions and multiple solutions. I think this is a number one pedagogical duty: to build student´s musical and rational thinking through posing questions, rather than offering arbitrary solutions. Most world-class teaching is organized in questions: why do you play soft? What do you think is the meaning of the phrase? Why would you rather use that fingering? 

Sometimes I suggest trying different fingerings for the same passage and observing the hand position, agility, or shifting facility. I challenge students to provide several interpretations of the same phrase by 1) playing it in the “wrong” styles, 2) exploring different meanings, 3) misplacing the meter, 4) experimenting with the tempo and articulation, etc. My pedagogical goal is to co-create (with the student) many facets and approaches to music-making. To build an inner “library” of information from where the student can draw as many materials as they fit his/her creativity. 

I also encourage students to teach each other. Teaching is the highest form of learning, as we experience it daily in our profession. In our pedagogy classes at CCM, the professor would guide us to pose questions, offer teaching advice, and suggest helpful terms and positive keywords.

 

Multi-cultural

 

Encourage and recruit students from all nationalities and backgrounds. 

Study and analyze different schools of violin technique. During Scale classes at the Conservatory of Cincinnati, I guided students from multiple nationalities to perform and discuss Flesch versus Galamian scales. Sevcik versus Yost. Vibrato´s expressive versus stylistic function. 

Study and perform a wide range of repertoire. Encourage students to join ensembles from Early Music, Baroque to contemporary, and new composers.

Encourage students to find and present unknown works. 

 

Interdisciplinary

 

I encourage musicians to perform in many genres: symphonies, operas, ballet. This promotes flexibility of working skills, artistic growth, and creativity. Ensemble playing skills, in combination with lighting, space, instrumental writing, and other specifics, vary significantly from one genre to the next. 

 

A special passion for me is to co-create with students concerts in the format of the 19th century Salon. Students would learn to conceptualize, lead, and perform in events where themes of Art and Humanity are interlaced with Music. These involve performing, analyzing, discussing, and coordinating intellectual ideas and management skills. The audience connects with music through several disciplines and viewpoints, as the students pick themes and repertoire according to the venue and participant's availability. I was a co-creator and co-leader of this format for several years. We invited linguists, artists, humorists, coffee-bean connoisseurs. We discussed the connection between words and music, illustrating them with live music. We discussed the layers, style, and counterpoint of humor while performing Scherzo-s from Haydn to Brahms to Prokofiev. We paired black and white photography with Bach's solo violin partitas. 

My dream is for students to learn these principles and recreate such events in their community.

 

Collaboration, leadership in chamber music, section leading, and sectionals:

 

I will always teach excerpts for orchestra auditions. Also, I would highly advise joint student-faculty recitals. During our Mendelssohn octet rehearsals, students learned to dissect, analyze, and interpret a passage by coordinating everybody´s vision-from the highest of professionals to that of aspiring young artists. They also learned the principles of communication, respect, and efficiency by being inside the process. 

 

In conclusion, I would like to share with students my passion for music-making in many formats, under any circumstances, and for all audiences. I will nurture all its facets: performing, educating, mind-opening, individuality building, and experiencing beauty in a sound language. And I would always strive for clear, efficient, and rewarding strategies.