Irene loves to teach and to watch students grow and develop. She believes in making a unique teaching plan for each student.
She is happy to provide tuition towards graded exams, and is also available for teaching in schools.
If you are interested in lessons, please contact Irene via the contact tab.
Irene describes a "typical" lesson:
Every student comes to me with a different background, different interests and different goals. I work with each of them to create a teaching plan that is best suited to their personal needs. Different motivations - such as exam progression, auditioning for a school group, or purely playing for enjoyment - require slightly different approaches, with emphasis on different elements of playing. I can introduce students to a variety of method books and repertoire to suit their needs.
Regardless of a student's level or goals, there are certain areas that I work on with all students.
Technique:
Whether you are a beginner or an advanced student, practicing and maintaining sound technical fundamentals will be key to your progression and your musical enjoyment. I will assign weekly technical exercises to help you improve all elements of technique, from scales, to range to figure flexibility.
Repertoire:
Students will be working on several pieces at a time. Some will be assigned only for one week to practice quick learning. Others will be longer-term projects where the student will push their technical skills and work towards a "performance ready" level of mastery.
Duets:
I find that when you play music with other people, all the hard work in the practice room really pays off. Not only is making music with other people great fun, it also reveals many of the strengths and weaknesses of your own playing. That is why I like my students to play duets in every lesson.
Technology:
There are many great new tools to make learning easier, and I try to incorporate them into my lessons. Rather than having a lesson notebook that inevitably gets lost, every students has his/her own Evernote account, where lesson notes are digitally stored. I also upload audio recordings of relevant repertoire to serve as a musical reference to assist students with their practice.