The Perfect Teacher.

It’s me! No, not really. Good gravy. But I frequently am the recipient of students who bring with them some seriously low expectations and occasionally, horror stories. Yesterday, I offered […]

The Perfect Student

Ah, yes: the perfect student. Doesn’t exist. Can’t, in fact, exist. Humanity gets the better of all of us, at some point. Malleable students lose themselves. Bright students preempt new […]

The real me.

Ask anyone who has ventured into the deep end of music teaching about how they balance performance and pedagogy, and you are bound to get all kinds of answers. In […]

2010: A Lousy Blog Post Retrospective, part 1

Inspired by Travis‘ idea, I now present you 2010: A Lousy Blog Post Retrospective. He noted that some of his favorite posts were the ones with either zero reaction or active […]

Talent on the horizon

They say that the North American natives were taken by surprise, even though the towering masts of the Spaniards were on the horizon for nearly two days before they landed. […]

Just a thought

I’ve noticed that many of my students who are ready to start teaching hesitate, citing lack of experience. Part of the issue is that they associate teaching with taking payment […]

Identity Crisis

This is partly my fault. But still! Over the past few weeks, I have had numerous students insinuate that I am not a cellist, but only a cello teacher. This […]

A question of priority

I’ve devoted numerous posts to jackassery. Students, musicians, massage threrapists, clamshell packaging, my own personal flailings. (flailing does not necessarily equal failing, but it sure looks dorky) I’ve even laid […]

So as to be actually useful

I am compiling a list of effective cello teachers, to be kept on my website. Note the word effective. There are plenty of bitter, ineffective, gnarly string teachers out there. […]