Carol teaches piano at both Newmarket & Aurora locations. Get to know more about Carol by reading her answers to our questions!
- When did you first start playing your instrument?
Well, I can recall “playing on” the piano with a music book in front of me, making up my own rules as to what all the notation meant at the age of four, but started formal lessons at six.
- Who was your favorite piano teacher, and why?
I’d have to say I had two. I studied with soprano, Arlene Barnum, for eight years. She was like a musical “fairy godmother” to me. At 15, I heard organist/harpsichordist Mark McDowell perform on the pipe organ and he agreed to take me on as a student. He took me through to my ARCT.
- What made you decide to pursue teaching as a job?
I think it’s in my DNA! (I come from a long line of teachers in the family tree.) I can remember teaching while in high school, then swapping swimming lessons for piano lessons in university, and upon graduation deciding to teach school music starting in 1980. I began my own studio out of my home in 1989.
- What is your favorite piece to play?
This is really a toughie!! I guess I’d have to say Felix Mendelssohn’s “Andante and Rondo Cappricioso”. Learning it for my ARCT was daunting, but I was motivated as the Andante is gorgeous and the Rondo is full of pyrotechnics! Getting to the final set of chords is very satisfying!
- Do you play in a band/orchestra?
Not anymore. I played oboe in my high school concert band, sang and toured as a mezzo-soprano in the Guelph Chamber Choir, and, for comic relief, founded and sang in an all-female teachers’ A Capella ensemble called “The Wrong Numbers” singing anything from “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy” to “Mr. Sandman”.
- What is one of your favorite songs/artists/styles of music, and why?
My car radio has been pre-set to every genre there is! So, picking just one style, I’ll pick the Blues. Artists like the late & great B.B. King just amaze me. He could make his guitar wail so expressively, it sounded almost human. There’s just something about the simplicity of the 12-bar blues structure yet it allows for such rhapsodic improvisation.
- What other interests do you have, unrelated to music?
Well, if you ever see me glancing skyward as an airplane flies overhead, it’s because I’m an aviation nut! My father flew in WWII and he carried on his passion for flying while I was growing up. I would often fly with him in his little Cessna and he would let me take the controls for short stints. I loved it enough to start my ground school lessons at age 16. But, music took most of my attention then and so I never did get my pilot’s licence.
- Did you ever think about wanting to stop music? If so, what made you continue?
I did actually stop for a year, at age 15, to explore a life in a less intense way than an advanced practicing and academic schedule demanded. But once I heard Mark McDowell perform so brilliantly on the pipe organ, I knew I could turn my back on a life of playing no longer. I was lucky he chose to take me on.
- What is your advice to parents whose children are having difficulty finding or making the time to practice at home?
I find it’s best to schedule a specific practice time daily; one that is free from any interruptions or distractions. Other members of the family need to know that this time is special as well. Sticking with piano will reap rewards down the line.
- If you could learn to play another instrument, what would it be?
I’m self-taught on the acoustic guitar and I know I could do so much more with proper training, especially in fingerstyle and the blues.
