Amanda Dove Waller

The price for private lessons varies depending on whether you come to me or I come to you. All lessons are once a week, at the same time every week, and if you come to my studio in Lakewood or Castle Rock, lessons are $100/month for 30 minutes and $150/month for 45 minutes. Some of my students take both piano and voice lessons back to back, so they have a full hour, which is $200/month. I travel for lessons in the Cherry Creek area of Denver on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and go to other parts of Denver on Saturdays. Lessons in the student's home are $110/month for 30 minutes, $165/month for 45 minutes, or $220/month for a full hour of piano and voice.

Currently, I'm teaching in Lakewood on Mondays and Wednesdays after school, Castle Rock all day on Fridays and until 3:00 on Wednesdays, and in students' homes in the Cherry Creek area of Denver on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school.  On Saturday mornings/early afternoons, I go to other parts of Denver. 

For home-schooled kids and adults with flexible work hours, I prefer to plan a lesson in the morning or early afternoon, before school is out, and those times are usually much more flexible and easier to schedule!

I can't be more specific than that, because things are always changing!  I can't update my website on a daily basis, and when I do have an opening at a good time, it is often filled very quickly.  Also, even if the openings I have don't work for a potential student, I'm sometimes able to change my schedule to accomodate their needs.  Anything I put on the website would quickly become outdated, so please call or email for more specific information!

I'm happy to start piano lessons for students as young as five!  Young children present special challenges:  their fine motor skills are less developed, and their attention span is shorter.  They also need more help and support from a parent; they typically don't do very well when told to "go practice" for a half hour!  So, it's important for me as a teacher, and you as a parent to adapt our methods and expectations to meet a child where he or she is.  

That said, if you are able to start music lessons young, and especially if your child is showing interest, you should absolutely do it!  There is some fascinating, really compelling, research on the effects of music lessons in young children.  Because of where they are with brain development, children younger than seven are uniquely able to learn to perceive pitch, in both music and speech.  This means that early training makes for a better musical ear and an easier time pursuing later interests in composing, improvising, singing, etc., but, even more interestingly, makes a person more perceptive of emotions in speech:  Music lessons make it easier to understand how another person is feeling, and that increased empathy means more succesful relationships, and more successful relationships make a happier person.  That is powerful stuff! 

For more information, I love the book "Brain Rules for Baby" by Jon Medina, and here are some links:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/03/science/perfect-pitch-is-linked-to-training-before-age-6.html
http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/brainvolts/documents/Strait_EJN.pdf

(Of course starting at seven, ten, or sixty years old isn't the end of the world.  I started lessons when I was ten myself.  But students who start early and stick with it through their teens are the ones who really get the most out of lessons.)

With the five and six year olds, I use My First Piano Adventure, which works remarkably well compared to Little Mozarts or methods designed for seven and eight year old beginners. The emphasis is not on teaching them to read music right away like it would be with an older student, but rather on encouraging them to develop strong technique from the beginning and gradually introducing musical concepts in a way that they will really grasp and remember them. By the time they finish the first book (six months to a year, depending on aptitude and practice habits) they are ready to start reading music and they should have a good understanding of rhythm and other musical ideas. It really is paced appropriately for young children, and the songs are SO kid-friendly and fun! They also practice with a CD, which is so helpful, because little ones have a hard time remembering exactly how to play a song without any
guidance, so being able to play along helps keep them on track while they practice.

With the little ones, most parents want to start with a half hour lesson, just because of the short attention span, and that usually works fine, although some actually do better with 45 minutes since we're not pressed for time and can spend more time going back and reviewing favorite songs or generally pursuing the student's interest of the moment.

I also ask that a parent sit in on lessons with this age group so you know what we're working on and how to help her practice. You don't have to be on the bench with her during every minute of practice, but you shouldn't expect her to do it all on her own either; she'll need some guidance when I'm not there!
 

I'm willing to start voice lessons with students as young as seven; I would recommend that your little songbird take piano (or violin, or a music and movement class, but I don't teach those) to start out.

Vocal technique can be difficult to teach, even to adults, because you can't even see what you're doing inside your throat.  It makes for some abstract discussions, and can take a lot of patience and focused attention!  Also, in order to learn songs on their own, children need to be fairly proficient readers. 

If children love to sing, they will love My First Piano Adventure, because the songs are very singable, and they can sing them along with the CD, and while they play.  I'm also a singer myself and I sing a lot in lessons, so if they are comfortable singing, my students often do too!  Learning an instrument from an early age will improve a child's ear for music and teach him or her musical terms and concepts that will apply to singing, and give them an excellent foundation for success as musicians! 

Yes!  And don't tell the kids, but adults are secretly my favorite students.

Adult students are intellectually curious--if they weren't they wouldn't be learning music, and that makes them a good fit with my teaching style.  I'm a nerd for music history and theory and really enjoy teaching about different styles of music and how music works, not just how to play or sing.  Adult beginners are usually able to grasp musical concepts that are more advanced than what is in their beginner songs, and more advanced students often need a refresher course in theory or are complete beginners when it comes to some fundamentals such as harmonizing a melody by ear or playing in multiple keys, and I really enjoy working with my adult students on those goals that go beyond the basics of reading music and developing good technique. 

For adult beginners, I use the Adult Piano Adventures books, which I've had a lot of success with.  Unlike some other books designed for adults, they start at the very beginning, playing melodies only with both hands, instead of expecting a student to be able to play chords right away, so the pace is realistic for a student with no musical experience, and it allows for the development of technique without creating tension in the hands.  (If a student is experienced, he or she might move very quickly through the beginning chapters, but they are there for a refresher course.)  It also offers appealing music with pianistic arrangements in different styles.