Clarinet Lessons

“Can’t I just watch YouTube videos to learn how to play?”

Online videos may show you how to finger the notes, but they can’t help you when you make a mistake, coach you to get a good tone, teach you to play musically, or help you fix your reed. They can’t check your posture and hand position, or tell if you play out of tune. Videos may help you with some basics, but a private teacher acts as a personal trainer who can collaborate with you to solve your problems and work with your own learning style. A video never tells you to go home and practice more, helps you with performance anxiety, or holds a recital. Learning to play with a living, breathing teacher can be the difference between giving up in frustration and developing a lifelong passion.

Private Clarinet Lessons are for:

• Beginning students who want a strong technical foundation

• Intermediate and advanced students preparing for auditions, solo/ensemble work, and youth orchestra opportunities

• College-bound students seeking stronger artistry, technique, and audition preparation

• Adults and returning players looking for structured, encouraging instruction

I have maintained a private clarinet studio for over 20 years, helping students build strong fundamentals, grow as musicians, and work toward meaningful goals. Over the years, my students have successfully competed in music competitions and won auditions for youth symphonies, honor bands, scholarships, and college or university music programs.

I believe people have a need for music. My role as a teacher is to assist students in realizing their potential, and to guide them on their musical path. I present curricula that incorporate four critical concepts of clarinet playing, and scaffold my students’ learning through active approaches. To this end, I believe there are four critical concepts to teaching and playing the clarinet;

• Tone production as a product of proper air support, embouchure formation, voicing, posture and tonal concept.

• Hand/finger technique as a product of appropriate movement from/to the position of function, and posture.

• All articulation types stemming as a product of proper tone plus technique as a foundation to air and tongue use in stylistically appropriate articulation(s).

• Application of the other three critical concepts, coupled with the foundational elements of music literacy, ensemble skills, phrasing, and musical citizenship to form a concept of musicianship.

• I structure lessons the way I’d like you to structure your daily practice; slow warm up, scales/arpeggios, technical exercises, and finally the music you’re currently working on for auditions, recitals, contests, performances, etc. When time allows, we finish with sight-reading or duets. I strongly believe in working and learning with my students, and so tend to play my clarinet along with students a great deal during lessons.

Contests, auditions and performances are an important part of a growing musician’s development. Tangible goals, venues to share music with others, and opportunities to learn are just a few of the benefits. Performing in front of an audience can bring feelings of nervousness, but learning who you are under pressure and how these feelings manifest themselves can bring a lifetime of benefits. I am not interested in making fearless musicians who never make mistakes. Rather, I am interested in building courageous musicians who know how to learn from their mistakes. Here are a few of the opportunities my students regularly participate in:

-All-State Bands

-WIBC Honor Bands

-Regional and State Solo & Ensemble Competitions

-Youth Symphonies

-Studio Recitals

-Young Artist Competitions

A lot! Living as we do in a culture that demands instant delivery, “hacks” for anything difficult, and shortcuts to the things we want, learning a musical instrument can appear arcane. It takes time, perseverance, and hard work. Progress is slow and incremental. It requires us to devote our time, slow down and think about what we’re doing. The benefits of regularly employing such a process, though, reach well beyond music. Just as a gym membership won’t get you in shape without your consistent exercise, so lessons and an expensive instrument won’t get you to mastery without your consistent practice. The key is you. In the beginning, a good general guideline is to practice daily an amount of time equivalent to the length of your lesson, and increase that practice time as your embouchure strengthens.

I teach in-person lessons at my home studio in North Seattle. There are two full studios here, as my wife is also a music teacher, and both of our children are avid music students. We’re a pretty noisy household, with four musicians!

On-line lessons are only reserved for occasional interruptions to in-person lessons, such as snow days and minor sickness. I can’t adjust your reed, check your bridge-key alignment, or play with you online.

Ready to schedule a lesson? Use the contact form below, or just email me at D.Neustel@gmail.com. I make every effort to respond to all communication as soon as possible, usually within a day.