Alessia finds teaching as much exciting as performing even though those are two very different experiences.
She enjoys the presence of her students every week.
Teaching them new skills constantly gives her motivation to find new ways to approach the difficulties students usually have to face.
MY CONCEPT
Music is a beautiful way to express ourselves in order to communicate with others. It takes years of deliberate consistent practice and it is not always easy to stick with that. My approach of teaching the violin is simple and very personalized. When explaining something I do not expect any of my students to understand it right away. I try to present this new skill or new piece from every possible point of view until I get the student understanding it in the best way he or she could. Some like numbers, others like images, colors, stories, sensations, feelings: it is like with languages.
In order to achieve a good conversation you have to speak the same language, to use the same code. I really enjoy this process of continuously adjusting myself and my way of playing the violin in order to make it simple for each one of my students. I also really like the very first moment of children starting to learn how to play the violin because I see this sparkle in their eyes every time with the help of my suggestions they get to make a good sound. Joy and Clarity are my keywords when it comes to teaching as well as when I have to perform and I am really convinced that these two ingredients can help the students from all ages and levels to get through the incredible journey of learning to play this very easily squeaky instrument.
I would love to join you or your child on this journey.
On-line lessons are FUN!
Because of COVID Pandemic, I discovered that on-line teaching is more viable than we actually thought. Students who embrace this new way of learning get the chance to cultivate their independence making a good use of technology.
This also allows the parents to have a closer look on how a violin lessons is actually structured and can have the chance to help their children to improve their way of practice.
GROUP LESSONS AND PEDAGOGICAL IDEAS
I currently lead some beginners ensembles here in Berlin and I find that particularly at the beginning it can be so helpful to see that you are not the only one who struggles while trying to hold the bow or hold a good posture or get a good sound when playing the violin.
When I still lived and worked in Italy, I got the chance to join the “Musica in gioco” project under the lead of Andrea Gargiulo. He shares and promotes all over Italy the principles of “El Sistema”, a music educational program developed by Josè Antonio Abreu, Minister of Culture in Venezuela in 1975. We got the chance to create children orchestras in different schools, especially in the most peripheral schools, to give to everyone, even to disabled children, the marvelous opportunity to learn how to play a musical instrument. Without telling the children if what they were learning was very difficult or very easy, we got them reading their own orchestral part in a quick time. Our role as teachers was just to give them the tools to get to play what was written in the musical notes. No judging, no prior deciding what they were capable or not to do and this was so much freeing for the children but also for us as teachers. It was a beautiful and very important experience for me and of course I carry everything I learned with me to every classroom I enter, that’s why I usually don’t tell the children which violin books they should buy. They should choose the one they most like and my role as a teacher is just to guide them through the book content and give them the tools to understand it. Of course, if some parents seriously wish their child should become a violinist, then I would suggest certain books, certain exercises, and a certain amount of practice time they weekly need to achieve. In fact, I always ask from the very beginning, which purpose you are coming to my class with, in order to understand which strategy, should I better use when teaching. And if the answer is uncertain or still not sure it’s fine anyway and I’ll show you through the time the different paths we could go together.