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I am currently accepting students for 30 and 60 minute lessons!
Email kathryne.k.salo@gmail.com for further information. I am now teaching at Ada Conservatory of Music: See http://www.adaconservatory.com/ for more information. |
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As an educator, I strive to teach the whole student according to individual abilities, needs, and learning styles. This approach is based on both tradition as well as innovation, and it requires a high level of flexibility in teaching style and lesson content. I am a lifelong learner and encourage my students in a similar practice; a path of motivated progress is more important than perfection at the outset. New ideas and new iterations of essential truths are at the core of my teaching.
Above all, I value sensitive musicality. As the flutist Marcel Moyse explained, "Domination instinct, inherent in each individual, urges him to use force, and force without flexibility can only be detrimental...The search for timbre, colour, life…all of these means indicate an intelligent empiricism rather than precise rules." While particular methodologies and exacting standards do achieve results, as I have experienced with the traditions of the French Flute School and the ABRSM system in the United Kingdom among others, music is also a discipline of curiosity, spontaneity, and expressivity. I encourage my students to develop their skills through both regimented structures and a larger spirit of inquiry, intention, and intuition. I value new approaches and ideas, whether in the realm of musical technique or broader issues such as physical health, mental health, and music technology. Despite the repetition required for acquisition of musical skills, experimentation and variety are also crucial to keep a student motivated, involved, and progressing at an optimum speed and level. I advocate an "open door" policy, both for lessons and studio classes: a community of cooperation and accountability. I aim to engage self-teaching skills in my students, and likewise they may develop this skill toward helping others, beginning in the flute studio class. In observing and participating in flute pedagogy along with their peers, flute students gain new insight regarding their own musical technique and style. Additionally, an open, interactive environment results in greater clarity of standards and assessment for the student as well as the teacher, as there is more time and availability for feedback in both directions. In myself and in my students, I seek to cultivate a genuine, generous musical fellowship. |