1st lesson free
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Cherwyn
- Rate £42
- Response 1h
-
Students27
Number of students Cherwyn has accompanied since arriving at Superprof
Number of students Cherwyn has accompanied since arriving at Superprof
£42/hr
Contact
1st lesson free
- Piano
Experienced tutor in Piano in Vernon Township, Cherwyn offers private lessons tailored to your needs.
- Piano
Lesson location
About Cherwyn
I've worked with so many different kinds of people from ages 4 through 76 years of age, and love my wonderful sudents who inspire me so deeplyt! Our students work on so many various projects - ragtime music, classical, learning to play by ear, to improvise, to arrange & compose, they prepare for special solo performances in school music events, play in recitals and MEA auditions...We also take field trips to see fantastic professional piano concerts for ongoing inspiration and motivation! We offer free piano parties for additional music enrichment and bonding between the students, we play in nursing homes, and have visiting clinicians offer studio master classes. Our students learn to use their music in so many varied ways including to help others! Ours is a piano studio with love, affection, and gentle support but also gentle accountability. With the little ones, lots of patience is there for them and we find really active, fun things to do such as dance, sing, play Orff instruments, draw rhythm notes on the windows with window crayons, bounce the rhythms out on the mini-trampoline...This is truly individually-tailored instruction to really meet the needs of the student!
I teach piano lessons in Sussex County, NJ; Vernon, NJ; and in Warwick, NY.
I love being a piano teacher! I love sharing the joy and beauty of music with people and helping them throughout their journey of exploration with this deeply compelling and transporting instrument. Playing the piano is like having an entire orchestra at one's disposal...So many varied sounds, tones, and colors, moods, and musical experiences can be elicited from the piano. I love to teach the students how to produce colors, effects, to shape an exquisitely beautiful melody to grip the heart. This is a very special instrument with so much to share with each one of us for a lifetime.
Taught within a public school building which had small piano rooms and offered to have me teach there. It was an amazing moment for me to have my very first piano students, eager to learn and eyes shining with the expectancy of a wonderful adventure!
B.A. in Music, Tufts University
M.M. in Piano Performance with a concentration in Choral Conducting, Univ. of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
NJ Teacher Certification in Music (to teach K-12 in the public schools)
First prize winner of two piano competitions: Elizabeth V. Tischler Piano Competition and Tufts University Concerto Competition.
Experience teaching choral/general in both the public and private schools (West Milford and Sussex Christian), grade levels K-8. Numerous trainings and conferences relating to the teaching of music and teaching this age group, in general, through my classroom positions.
Musical direction of the Jefferson Twp. Community Choir, church choirs, and Zephyr Vocal Ensemble.
Ongoing professional development with the MEA-NJ and PVMTA (music teacher associations).
Active participant and daily learner through active membership and participation in piano pedagogy forums.
Vast performing experience as an accompanist, solo performer, and chamber musician, including on harpsichord and organ as well as piano.
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About the lesson
- All Levels
- English
All languages in which the lesson is available :
English
We begin with an initial "sample lesson" to gain an understanding of the student's age, personality, as much of their learning style as possible, find out their goals for piano lessons, what genres of music they love the most, and if they are a young child, talk with their parents about whatever they can share with me to gain a sense of how their child learns and what animates them! This information helps me to plan a program for them, individually tailoring the methods and materials to what would be most effective with that one student. If the student can already play a piece (whether by ear or by reading), I enjoy hearing and watching them play so I can see where their strengths and weakness are.
We might love the idea of playing the piano...But getting there takes daily time with the piano and this time with the piano is what makes us fall in love with it and with the whole joyous process of musical discovery! So I recommend to the student/parent to set a daily appointment with the piano that is relatively unbreakable so it can become a true habit. We often begin with learning some rote pieces in order to focus upon the development of a good hand shape, of learning to drop the weight into the key instead of "pushing" with the finger, of creating wrist flexibility, good playing posture, learn the topography of the keyboard, etc. After enough time with rote playing (which still involves learning notation symbols such as "repeat", "da capo", tempo terms, directionality of the melodic line, rhythmic durations of the notes), we begin to learn to decode the notes in terms of knowing their letter names and where to find that note that is on the staff on the actual keyboard. If the student is a teen, adult, or exceptionally mature or academically gifted child, we might go directly to decoding and learning to read notation but still with some rote pieces thrown in to still work on technical aspects without the added distraction of decoding. As the student progresses and a wider variety of musical genres become available to the student's ability level, the student begins to lead in terms of musical interest as their tastes develop and I assign pieces but the student also often will request a piece and of course I will find it for them!
My students currently range from ages 4-75! This is the widest age-span I have ever taught at one time! It is amazing, fun, and challenging to reach all of these age levels with their varying life experience, musical experience, and pace of learning...As well as the various coordination differences between them. For example, my 4yo. little student has good large motor skills, but not as developed fine motor skills. We practice drawing our notes with window crayons on the sliding glass doors, rather than have him draw his rhythm notes on music staff paper! This is much better and also is more fun for him! He then "jumps" the notes on our mini-trampoline and has so much fun!
OTOH, my 75yo. student came to me 1.5 years ago with hands whose fingers were permanently curled in and were not able to unfurl; the extensor muscles had atrophied and needed stretching out. He is rejoicing to see, over time, his fingers once again loosening up and being able to make any hand shape he "asks" them to! He is reading music, as well as playing by ear (a request of his!) and arranging his own versions of popular tunes.
I have worked with middle-aged adults, 20-somethings, teens, tweens, and children. By the time you're 28 years into teaching, you have worked with a broad spectrum of people and it's always an amazing journey of exploration to encounter a new student and begin to enter their own world. I believe that every student is a complex world unto themselves, and should be taught in conjunction with an understanding of THAT PERSON.
I've worked with kids who were self-abusing perfectionists (I had to help them learn to be more gentle with themselves), with adults who came to me with lots of arm tension, with very active children (and we use certain toys and props to calm them during the lesson), and I have worked with a very talented young man on the autism spectrum while directing my church choir. i have also worked with my son who is special needs, and my daughter who is now a professional pedal harpist and who attended the Juilliard Pre-College, U-Michigan Ann Arbor, and U-Illinois. So it's been a pretty wide range of personalities, giftings, ages, and interests!
Definitely take a sample lesson to see if you feel a great "chemistry" with the prospective teacher. You want to "click" with this person who will be your mentor for possibly many years!
Find out what their studio policies are for things such as minimum number of lessons required per year; summer lessons; tuition basis or weekly; cancellation policy; makeup lessons, etc.
See if they offer recitals and other performing opportunities. See if they have other avenues to learn about music, as well, including master classes, piano parties featuring movies about pianists, music games, etc. See if they teach music history and how they do it.
I absolutely loved when we presented our studio piano recital this past July in Schervier Pavilion skilled nursing facility. The residents were so enthusiastic about the students' music that they even began to sing along, filling the entire room with joy and great energy! The children presented solos and duets and then I played a solo, which I always do at the end of our recitals so that the students can have a sample of concert-level piano music. It was so good for the students to have the experience of interacting with the facility's residents and seeing that they are very human and that they love music, just like they do!!
A few things worth thinking about before reaching out
What are my personal goals for piano lessons?
What musical genres would I like to learn to play?
What are my expectations for how long it might take me to get there?
How much time every day do I have available to me to actually sit down at the piano and practice, and also, to play just for fun? If the student is my child, does my child have the self-displine to go to the piano daily or near-daily and play/practice? Or else, do I have a relationship with them wherein they will heed me without too much fuss if I remind them to go and practice?
How reliably can I pay for piano lessons? (Could I approach the teacher about being a scholarship student through The Music Link Foundation if I can't afford the full price of lessons?)
What inspires me to take piano lessons, or to obtain them for my child? Is this something my child wants to do, themselves, or is it something I am pushing them into almost without their having any desire to do it?
What do I want in a teacher? What type of personality do I respect and enjoy the most? Do I (or my child) need a strict disciplinarian, or a relatable person who is less formal, or something in-between?
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Rates
Rate
- £42
Pack prices
- 5h: £210
- 10h: £420
free lessons
The first free lesson with Cherwyn will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.
- 1hr
online
- £42/h
Details
$28 per 30 minutes
$42 per 45 minutes
$56 per 60 minutes
Generally speaking, a young student will begin with 30-minute lessons, and by the time they're in their 3rd year, they will be needing 45-minute lessons. An older teen or adult should begin directly with 60-minute lessons, ideally.
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