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Short courses are included as part of the hybrid studio package for all Schoen Duo Studio students.

In-person

These often take the form of a series of weekly classes based on a specific theme or topic, with a performance at the end of the session:

• Canadian Music – in October and November, ending with performance at Contemporary Showcase
• Baroque Music – in February and March, ending with a performance as part of Bach in the Subways

Hybrid

Hybrid courses incorporate a combination of in-person and on-line offerings

The summer course is one week of daily lessons and classes, including Suzuki teacher training courses, at the Borealis Suzuki Institute.

On-line

We are also developing an on-line “how to play by ear” course designed for adult learners. But even the on-line courses receive access to our Open Studios for real-time face to face assistance .

In our hybrid studio, we offer a “menu” of individual and group formats for learning flute, violin, recorder, or viola. There is also an early childhood education class for very young beginners who have yet to choose their instrument.

Students progress at their own pace.

Opportunities are presented at every level. Everyone, even the beginners, can participate in concerts, group lessons and ensembles in a way that is appropriate, engaging, and empowering. We nurture our student community and have our in-studio and on-line students engage with each other.

We play by ear, read music, and improvise, both individually and in groups.

Our on-line resources allow students to practice their group playing skills on their own in between group sessions.

Our lessons are whole-body experiences:

• You use your body: listen, feel and move
• You use your mind: think, analyze, and anticipate
• You use your emotions: self-expression is our goal at all levels

If you want to prepare for festivals and examinations, we will help you. We will let you know when you are at a stage where these experiences can enrich your learning. Our students who do participate do very well at these events, but they are entirely optional. Working for grades or placing yourself in competitive situations is not for everyone, and we offer many other ways to mark your progress.

Asynchronous means “not at the same time”.

We can have a lesson even if we are not together at the same moment.

Students can submit recordings, and teachers respond with comments, further recordings of more examples, links to online resources, or whatever else will be most helpful based on the student submission.

What began as a coping strategy for bad internet and poor audio connections during the COVID pandemic, has now proven to be extremely helpful when travel or other life events interfere with scheduled lessons.

Making recordings is a doubly enriching experience for students. Listening to a recording of their playing promotes the development of objective listening and performance confidence. The most common remark I hear when students listen to their own recordings is “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it was!” Small errors tend to be very big in the memory – hearing a playback puts them back into proportion.

If you choose to have an asynchronous lesson, please do not put off making the recording until the day before your next in person lesson! You will get the most value from this experience if you submit the recording in time for your teacher to offer some useful feedback that you can use before the next lesson. An asynchronous lesson recording is not homework to be submitted the next time you see the teacher! It is part of the ongoing give & take of information between you and your teacher in between lessons.

We have always offered the Every Child Can!  (ECC!) class as part of the new parent orientation for beginners.

This is included in Schoen Duo Studio lessons at no extra cost.

This course is an excellent orientation to the Suzuki philosophy of learning, and very useful for families entering the program with a beginner student. 

Classes are online via Zoom. 

Register here to reserve your place in the class:

https://fluteplayer.ca/teacher-trainer/every-child-can/

NO payment is required, but you still need to register as there are a limited number of places.

If you want to receive a registerable credit for the course from the Suzuki Association of the Americas (the course is a required pre-requisite to all other teacher training courses) 100% attendance is required.

If you have no intention of doing any further training, but are taking the class to support your own role as a parent of a young student, the classes will be recorded and replays will be available to those who register for the class. So even if you took the class before, it it possible to do it again or review the replays as a refresher if you cannot attend all the sessions. 

The class is a prerequisite to another different course: “Introduction to Suzuki Instrument”.

This is where we apply the philosophy, which is presented in the ECC! Class in a general way, to the specific instrument: flute, recorder, violin, and viola. This is the background to the STEP class for the parents – why we do what we do, what it feels like from the student point of view, and when do we wait or when do we move forward?

The “Introduction to Recorder” portion can be taken by teachers for SAA credit. Contact Kathleen Schoen at [email protected] for details.