Teaching

“In over 60 years of playing the clarinet, Emmalie has been my best teacher. While always keeping focus on where the musical line wants to travel, Emmalie at the same time keeps track of the fundamentals: breathing, embouchure, finger placement, tongue location, etc. Emmalie is wonderfully communicative and always cheerful and energetic.”

- Jeffrey Stark, student since 2019

Every piece of music tells a story.

Emmalie believes that music is a valuable tool for self expression and personal development. It empowers students to think creatively and optimistically, and it also provides a platform to learn widely-applicable skills. She aims to help her students feel understood, heard, and confident through the power of their craft.

When teaching, Emmalie emphasizes the following concepts:

  • Creative Problem Solving: How do we practice efficiently? Explore a number of ways to approach difficult passages and discover what works best for the individual. These tools can be kept “in your back pocket,” and this way of thinking can be applied to many other kinds of problem solving.

  • Storytelling Through Music: Emmalie believes that every piece of music can create imagery and narratives. Tapping into imagination not only enhances performance for the listener, but it also makes the experience more fun for the student!

  • Craft Development: By covering all the technical components of learning the clarinet, including tone, rhythm, articulation, intonation, and scales/fundamental practice, students will discover new ways to understand the clarinet from the inside-out. Students can also expect to discuss how to read music, understand music notation, and sight-read.

Emmalie is available to teach both in-person and online lessons, and she offers a few ways to do so. She has experience teaching beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. She will work with students to achieve their personal goals - so dream big and let’s reach for the sky!

Emmalie’s 8+ years previous teaching experience spans work with students at Hunter College, Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Mannes Prep Division, Manhattan School of Music community outreach programs, Music for Extraordinary Students (MUSES), and the New York Public Library, among others. She is the co-founder of the educational organization, Art Beyond the Ink, and is co-author of the children’s musical storytelling workbook, Seeing and Hearing Musical Stories: The Story-Filled Tool For Understanding What You Hear.

For more information including availability and rates, click here.

Check out Emmalie’s music worksheet shop on Teachers Pay Teachers!
Purchase her original musical storytelling workbook from Art Beyond the Ink.

Photo by Karjaka Studios

Testimonials

“I really loved working with Emmalie! She always gives great feedback and constructive criticism. One thing she does which I LOVE is using metaphors and analogies in her teaching. For example one thing I had trouble with was remembering the different values of flats, sharps, and naturals. However, one comparison which helped me a lot to come over this was a pencil analogy. It was this: ‘Think of them as a pencil: A sharp is like a sharp pencil. A natural is a normal pencil. A flat is like a flat pencil.’ This helped a lot and I find now when reading music I always think of this along with other analogies. This is just one of the many techniques which Emmalie uses when she teaches! I really loved being her student and I shall definitely remember her teaching highly.”

- Adriana Gambol, age 10