Music Lessons

Susie's balanced approach to music education emphasizes practical skills for people interested in singing, writing, and recording their own songs, playing from chord charts, playing by ear, improvising, working in bands, performing live, and just having fun with music.

---

Piano Lessons - Beginners receive instruction in basic skills such as note reading, theory, and technique while also exploring playing by ear, improvisation and composition. As technical development allows, students move to a chord-based method while continuing with music fundamentals. Learning chords allows a student to play easy popular songs, and accompany themselves while singing, providing a fun way to develop the musical brain.

Voice Lessons - With a 32-year career as a professional singer, Susie knows how good vocal techniques can help eliminate strain, balance the voice throughout the range, and produce the richest, fullest, and most natural sound possible. Lessons cover the basics of proper vocal technique; breathing and support, warm-ups, expanding range, tone-placement, articulation, and strengthening pitch accuracy.

Guitar Lessons - Susie teaches beginning guitar, where she emphasizes technique development, learning simple chords, strumming, finger picking, basic notation reading, tablature reading, rhythmic training, ear training, and basic music theory.

Songwriting - Susie has guided many students into the creative world of songwriting. Students of all ages love to create their own music and songs. New songwriters often have melodic and lyrical ideas but no harmony (chords) to go with them. Susie helps aspiring writers find the right chords, offers arrangement suggestions, and can produce a song demo, helping clients manifest a quality finished product.