Cam Taylor Piano Lessons Glenfield

Auckland

Piano Lessons | Keyboard Lessons, Singing Lessons | Aural Lessons, Theory Lessons, Composition Lessons, Jazz Improvisation Lessons, Music And Movement For Under Fives, NCEA Music Tutoring, Online Lessons

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• Qualifications: BMus(Composition)/BA(Maths, Japanese) at the University of Auckland, ABRSM Grade 8 Piano Performance
• Pricing: $41 for 30 mins, $61.50 for 45 mins, $82 for an hour. $20.50 travel charge to teach you in your home.
• Styles: Jazz, pop, blues, early music, classical, contemporary, improvisation, and anything you can jam to, in traditional and non-traditional tunings
• Suitability: Any age, any level

Bio

I graduated from the University of Auckland in 2013 with a conjoint Bachelor of Music majoring in Composition and Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Japanese. I live and breathe music, playing and improvising solo and in groups in pop, jazz and folk styles, teaching what I know to anyone who wants to learn, and always striving to learn more myself. I have taught music to hundreds of students from age 4 to 70+ around Auckland since 2010, and am based in Glenfield, but am still travelling to students in cityside suburbs.

I’ve studied classical, jazz and popular styles, improvisation, early music, some middle eastern maqam, and little bits and pieces of other world musics, and I have a passion for expanding on the connection between the ear and the musical voice. I believe whatever you can hear and sing you can embody and know musically regardless of barriers of style, instrumentation or technique. I believe learning music primarily through the ear and audiation is fundamental to really being free as a musician.

I believe being a musician is more important than being a technically proficient concert instrumentalist, and feel that everyone should be given the chance to listen, sing and play, to see and hear the world in new ways, and explore vast possibilities.

Teaching Info

I tend to teach students what they want to learn, and try to make a point of finding out what they like in music and expanding on that. I believe growing the musical mind is important, so I tend to focus more on my students getting to know music through their own ears, voices and bodies first.

My teaching is informed by the Music Learning Theory (MLT) of Edwin Gordon, who compiled many of the positive aspects of the teaching philosophies of Laban, Kodaly, Suzuki, and Orff, and I take some inspiration from some other MLT exponents like Andy Mullen, Marilyn Lowe, Krista Jadro, Eric Rasmussen and Beau Taillefer. I like to draw an analogy between language learning and music learning, and think most modern “traditional” Western music learning is done backwards, with theory and explanations used to read, reading used to create sound at the instrument, and instrumental sound eventually used to learn how to listen.

MLT instruction follows a more natural progression, from acculturating and immersion in the musical language, to conversations (imitation, call/response, improvisation), vocally and then instrumentally, to learning fundamentally important sound concepts (macrobeat/microbeat/division, duple/triple/unequal metres, rhythm patterns, resting tone, major/minor/other modal tonalities, tonic and dominant, tonal patterns), and then finally using that understanding to improvise, learn songs by ear, arrange, compose, read and write music notation, and learn about theory if needed.

I have experience playing and teaching in pop, jazz, blues, classical, gospel, free improv and other styles, and am always keen to broaden my students’ musical horizons as well as my own.

I also have a passion for musical tuning and alternative tuning systems, and think exploration and discussion of historical, modern and novel tunings are very fruitful in opening up new musical avenues.

For more information check out my website below.

https://cametaylor.wixsite.com/home