Autumn Voakes – Violin/Viola
After graduating high school, Ms. Voakes attended Columbia College Chicago and received a Bachelor in Music Business. Throughout her years in college, Autumn performed in a variety of orchestras, country, Irish and rock bands. Throughout and after college, Autumn worked as a restaurant manager for Quality Dining overseeing a restaurant staff of 80 employees. As the youngest manager within all of the corporation’s restaurants, Autumn gained an invaluable work experience that would later help create her vision of starting and running American Music Institute.
In 2002, Autumn relocated to Copenhagen, Denmark where she spent her time studying the viola at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and performing with a variety of Scottish and Irish music bands and ensembles. While in Denmark, she studied with celebrated European violist Inge Anderson and continued her career as a music teacher at the International Primary School in Copenhagen.
In 2004, Ms. Voakes returned to the United States and continued teaching violin, viola and guitar in Chicago. Autumn continued her education by attending Northeastern Illinois University part-time where she studied both History and Political Science. In addition to receiving a double-major second Bachelor degree in History and Political Science, she elected to become certified as a secondary education teacher and took a minor in education. Ms. Voakes is set to graduate from Northeastern Illinois University in 2010 with high honors and plans to begin her studies in non-profit administration at a Chicago-area MBA program in the near future.
Autumn Voakes is the co-founder of American Music Institute, and contributes her success in founding and directing a non-profit organization to her eclectic background with her education, music, and work experience. In addition to being the CFO of American Music Institute and a violin/viola teacher at AMI, Autumn spends her time performing as the violist in the AMI String Quartet and a variety of local orchestras. Additionally, Ms. Voakes is an active poet, writer, songwriter and artist. She is currently completing her first novel “Sometime in September”, set to be published in early 2011. Her first violin pedagogy book, “Teaching the Violin: A Practical Resource for the Pre-Collegiate Violin Teacher” is set to be published by AMI in late 2010.
Personal Statement
As both a violin/viola teacher – and a lifelong pupil – I have developed a comprehensive philosophy regarding my approach to teaching the violin/viola and music in general. I believe that the most important aspect of teaching music remains to be receiving constant immersion in music and being taught with a strong fundamental technique on the given instrument.
As a music teacher, I place emphasis on my ability to communicate effectively with students of all ages and levels. I think it is incredibly important for a teacher to be able to adjust their communication style and approach to the individual student. It is my belief that in order for a student to be open enough to learn freely, the student must first be comfortable and confident in the environment with the teacher. If a teacher uses a communication style or approach that is inconsistent with the students learning style or personality, most students will not be able to reach their fullest potential within the learning process.
Technique is an essential component within all of my lessons, classes and curriculum. I believe that without a strong technical foundation, a violin or viola student will not be capable of applying their studies in a way that will allow them to teach themselves throughout their future playing. With all students – including beginners – I place a strong emphasis in learning fundamental technique throughout the first two through four years. My fundamental technique training includes emphasis on building strong intonation, solid rhythmic comprehension, left hand techniques including articulation, bow techniques including bow speed, pressure and sounding point, and the ability to read music and decipher musical notation fluently.
Instead of using traditional approaches of learning technique and music through constant repetition of pieces of music and scales, my teaching style places a strong emphasis on teaching students specific exercises of precise techniques. By learning to master each specific technique as a separate unified skill set, students are able to later apply the ability to perform such techniques to any song or piece of music they need to perform – and not just the one piece of music they play over and over! Although I still include learning specific pieces or repertoire within my lessons and classes, I believe that teaching technique allows students to eventually perform any piece of music they wish instead of only having one specific piece of music.
I believe that students should start learning music as young as one or two years of age. Piano is a great ‘starter’ instrument, where all skills learned as a young student can later be applied to any other instrument they choose to learn when they are older. Throughout my time as a music teacher and music school administrator, I have seen music play an important role in cognitive development, reading and math skills, motor skill improvement, and overall academic progress. I feel that students should have music as a core area of study until the end of high school – at which point a student can decide whether or not to continue playing music. Even if a student does not become a musician as a career choice, playing and learning music throughout the elementary, middle and high school years help students gain excellent cognitive skills, positive social and teambuilding ability, and the means necessary to be successful as an academic student. Overall, I encourage all parents to make music a standard part of their child’s curriculum to help ensure a solid and comprehensive academic education.