About Howard Mcphail

Education: Bachelor of Music - University of Georgia, Masters of Music - Pennsylvania State University

Performance Experience: Multiple years performing in various parts of the country

Teaching Experience: I've taught age levels from kindergarten to college students, professionals, and older adults. Although it takes practice to play a beautiful tone, being expressive with sound can happen from the first lesson. It takes a lot of effort to communicate with sound. When that intentional musical message gets communicated to an audience, that wonderful feeling is something that performers work to have again and again. My goal is to help students discover their message in all the music they encounter.

Teaching Philosophy: Great music happens sometimes by teaching, accident, experimentation, and always through creativity. If animals in nature make beautiful music, then we can too. Becoming a better musician however, means learning to trust that the audience will listen – including yourself. Then you can be taught to change ideas, words, actions, and feelings into beautiful and powerful melodies and harmonies. Music is all around us, and when we perform music while others listen, we are connected.