My daughter Yazmeen loves her lessons.
Donna’s teaching is the perfect mix of technical and tone development, rhythmic practice, melodic exploration, music theory, improvisation, and jazz history. After only six months of playing the saxophone, Yazmeen knows 15 songs, can transpose them into several keys, transcribes melodies from hearing, is learning to play a Dexter Gordon solo by ear, and has started to improvise over jazz changes.
Thanks to Donna’s insight into all things saxophone, my daughter’s tone is fantastic and getting better every day, and she’s beginning to understand music on that deep level you need to have in order to play jazz.
I love that Donna’s “Hear It, Sing It, Play It” framework allows Yazmeen to learn music in a way that will benefit her as a future jazz musician. Yazmeen is now applying all of this knowledge to her note-reading, making the note-reading process much more enjoyable and meaningful.
Two thumbs up from a twelve-year old who is now a saxophone fanatic!
Fred Bautista
