Greetings Parents and Students! Thank you for stopping by to check out the notes on notes - I'll pause for the collective groan at my terrible joke!

Music has thus far defined my life - the last 40 years of it anyway. No matter what track I embarked upon I always carried music with me. Music permeates every fiber of my being and I wish to continue to share that gift, love, passion, wonderment and zeal with any student so inclined.

Success in music begins with understanding the following:

Practice does not make perfect. Rather, Perfect Practice produces consistent competence.

Perfect Practice? - Simply, practice time is a daily appointment with oneself. In the beginning, several short practices of 10 minutes (minimum 3 per day, 5 out of 7 days per week, no more than 2 days in between) are all that is required. As the student grows more confident a new task is assigned. On average, one new task is introduced each week for beginners for the first 6-8 weeks; for advanced students 3-4 new concepts. Each concept constitutes an item for the Practice File. Variety - as is often stated - is the spice of life. This is no less true in the learning process for a musical instrument. Your children will receive ongoing training in the concept of Perfect Practice. The ideal - for starters - is make that appointment for the same time each day. The practice space should be free from all distractions (computer, television, ipod, etc.), quiet except for the sounds made by the student, and moderately private (I still chuckle at the memories of only being able to practice behind a closed door).

This site will serve as my primary means of communicating with all Band and Choir students and upcoming song selections for the Children's Choir - including links to audio files and/or lyric sheets. I screen all links before posting to the page.

The current resource for choir music is www.spiritandsong.com.

Occasionally, a song will not have an audio file at the above site. In this case, I plan to either find a link elsewhere or will rely on past methods of teaching new material.