Welcome to the web home of Kristen Caldwell Courter's North/NorthEast Portland piano/voice studio! I hope this site answers your questions about me, the way my studio works, and starting your child off in private music lessons.
BIO: I was born in Dallas, Texas, daughter of a piano teacher so there really was no hope for me to avoid piano lessons as a child. It was a good thing I loved them (usually)! As a teen, I got involved with choir and vocal jazz, and ended up majoring in music at the University of Oklahoma, where I sang in the Opera Theater and continued piano and voice studies. I continued at OU, earning a Master of Music Education, and taught general music at a local high school until my husband was transferred to beautiful Portland, Oregon. Here in the northwest, I have sung with Trinity Episcopal Cathedral choir as an alto section leader, taught private voice and piano lessons, preschool music, and recently performed in Gallery Theater's production of The Sound of Music as the Mother Abbess. Last year I was the choir director at Roosevelt High School, and hope to work in public school again as soon as possible.
PHILOSOPHY: I think private lessons should be fun and challenging; a teacher's responsibility is to try to keep each student in "the flow" where music studies are engaging as well as entertaining. I teach theory mainly through the music literature, and all students will learn to read music.
ABOUT YOUR CHILD: Every child is different, but generally a child is ready to start piano lessons if he/she is interested and is at least beginning to show simple literacy. Most young boys are developmentally ready (attention span and small motor skills) to begin piano around age 6-7. Girls who are starting to read can often be successful starting a little earlier than that. For voice lessons, I generally tell students to wait until their voices have settled towards the end of puberty, meaning around 8th grade for young ladies and 9th/10th grade for young men.
STUDIO INFO: Tuition rates are as follows: $33/half hour and $42 for 45 minutes if I come to your home (you must have a piano or 88-key keyboard!). $28 per half hour lesson taught at my home (in University Park neighborhood).
Right now I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays in NE Portland, and at my home studio on Tuesdays. Most of the teaching slots are between 3:30 and 6p.m. I host a studio recital at the end of each semester in a lovely room at Westminster Presbyterian Church in inner NE.
CONTACT ME: kristenjcourter@gmail.com or 503 737 7799
