Lesson times are available Monday through Saturday. Lessons are scheduled on a half-hour or one-hour basis, weekly or biweekly.
Voice Lessons include:
- Classical Technique (i.e., Open Throat, Support, Proper Breathing and Voice Placement, Bel Canto)
- Broadway (Belting – chest voice)
- Opera (Foreign Language Diction – French, Italian, German)
- Standard Repertoire
- Pop technique "Speech Level Singing"
I like to combine the techniques that I have developed through the years. It seems to be the best way to help singers develop their chest voice (belt) and even out the registers (passing the bridge smoothly).
Voice lessons are very abstract but also very physical. There’s a lot of disparities in voice teachers. Learning classical technique is the healthy way to go at first. Pop singing is more difficult to produce correctly, and until a singer can do so they risk hurting the vocal cords and developing nodes.
Piano Lessons include:
Basic training for beginners with easy and pleasant repertoire, reading development through a gradual process. I like to teach beginners by positions instead of teaching all the notes at once. This makes it smooth to develop muscle memory and it is much easier to absorb. I have a series of books of very pleasant music that are built by positions and have a duet part for the teacher. It sounds really good!
I also teach the chords as soon as possible and make the students recognize them in their songs. It really helps the kids that have a hard time reading and also help memorize the music.
As soon as the students are comfortable reading the first & second positions, I like to introduce fingers technique with simple exercises. Fingers have to remain curved when playing the keys and independent from each other. The wrist has to remain flexible. More advanced students will learn scales, arpeggio, and theory. Beginner and advanced students are welcome.
I am very careful of not letting the students read finger numbers instead of the notes and I don’t write the name/letter of the note instead of developing the real reading of space/line on the staff. This might seem like a good solution to help the process but students don’t really read the music. They might be able to play the song but they won’t be able to read the next one!
Piano lessons are taught on a grand piano.
Group Classes:
New this year! Group classes will be offered through the Dundee Township Park District but still held in the Music Room of Snuffy’s Villa. This might be less intimidating for beginners and also more affordable! To register, visit the park district website (register.dtpd.org) and enter the relevant Activity Number in the search box. There are two sessions offered this fall for each class.
CLASS: Music Initiation through games (Activity Number 44236)
- Age range 5 – 9 years old
- Lessons length 50 min./week
- Monday at 5:00 pm
- Location: Music Room of Snuffy’s Villa, 17N405 Oak Ave., W. Dundee, IL
- Minimum 5 – Maximum 15
- 1st Session: 6 weeks 9/9 – 10/21
- 2nd Session: 6 weeks 10/28 – 12/9
- Cost: $94 Resident/$114 Non-Resident
Kids will learn the notes by jumping on a big treble clef staff on the floor and competing in teams to name the notes using flash cards. They will learn the basic rhythms by playing on percussion instruments provided by the studio. The step forward game uses the counts of the rhythms to move forward to the wining line. Notes will be found on the grand piano and some beginner songs will be taught. Kids will be asked to draw the various music notations.
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CLASS: Introductions to Vocal Techniques (Activity Number 44237)
- Age range 8 – 16 years old
- Lessons length 1 hour/week
- Monday at 6:00 pm
- Location: Music Room of Snuffy’s Villa, 17N405 Oak Ave., W. Dundee
- Minimum 5 – Maximum 20
- 1st Session: 6 weeks 9/9 – 10/21
- 2nd Session: 6 weeks 10/28 – 12/9
- Cost: $117 Resident/ $137 Non-Resident
Students will be introduced to a variety of vocal techniques through vocal exercises and will practice to apply these techniques in some songs. The techniques offered will include: Classical Technique or Bel Canto (open throat, support, proper breathing, head voice & voice placement); Technique for Broadway Musicals (Belting/Chest voice); and Pop Technique or Speech Level Singing (focus, passing the bridges, balancing the vocal registers, mix voice)