Teaching and Instruction

I teach saxophones (tenor, alto, soprano), flute, clarinet

I love teaching and in my 30-years-teaching experience I have had many students of various cultural backgrounds, European, Jewish, American. I am primarily an active performing musician and composer, bandleader and arranger, therefore I can help students of all levels, from very beginner to very advanced. My goal is to give a student enough foundation to have fun playing music and enjoy the sounds. I also teach reading music and music theory. I am a member of Chamber Music America, New Music USA, International Association of Jazz Educators. My teaching materials have been published in Down Beat and my albums are being released on Fresh Sound Records (Spain). Reviews of my albums and interviews with me were published in Down Beat, Jazz Journal (UK), Morning Star (UK), France Musique (France), Jazz Podium (Germany), Canadian Audiophile, All About Jazz, New York City Jazz Record.
In my lessons I use my own materials that I have composed and compiled in the course of 32 years, as well as books that I found in Europe and later in the United States. There are some American educational series that I also like to use. Sometimes my students as me to work on their school band music, in this case we are using the band method books. I am always happy to work with very beginners to very advanced and professional. As a teacher, I am learning from my students as well – each person is a unique journey in the world of music and each person teaches me something about communication, understanding, motivation, time-managing during lessons and in individual practice. My main objective is to make the lessons a joy, a positive, motivating experience, to boost self-confidence and provide enjoyment, fun. I teach different people differently, using my background in psychology of learning, understanding individual needs. Every person learns differently, and I try to establish good communication first, so the student has a general feeling of comfort, positive mood, an uplifting lesson experience.
I am a positive, friendly, smiling person and I want my students to first of all feel good about coming to lessons and being with me. I am always flexible about the necessity of practicing and preparing homework, because many students do not have enough time to dedicate to practicing and I totally understand that. There is a balance to be achieved between a student’s feeling of having progress and his/her lack of time to work on playing the instrument of his/her choice. Together with the student, we have to create a non-pressure, stress-free, enjoyable atmosphere that motivates the student to view music and instrument-playing as a means to happiness and relaxation. That is why I like to play together with my students during the lessons, even if we play the same thing together, like tunes or exercises. Playing together is a great teaching tool and it brings the students an invaluable experience of playing with others, which many people today don’t have otherwise. It also relieves people from the pressure of “being on top” with their performance. I teach that “mistakes” are OK – and I also teach them how to relax themselves to become stress-free when playing.