Hello! My name is Julie Schmidt and I have 16 years of experience teaching individual and group piano lessons. Also, I have been playing and studying the piano for 35 years while earning a MS in Education. Music is definitely my passion. My favorite part of teaching the piano is finding out what kind of music motivates my students. Some of my students like reading the notes on the staff, playing classical music, and not straying far from the printed notes. Other students play more by ear and love to improvise! I always have a few students who want to be able to play songs quickly - I teach them chords and leadsheets so they can progress faster. I like to tailor my lessons to get a student excited about playing the piano. I use a variety of books, digital music, and resources to keep my lessons new and motivate my students to practice.

I have a laid-back teaching style and love to have fun during lessons. We will play games, improvise, compose, learn chords, and study different musical periods and composers. I really enjoy it when students bring their own music to lessons because I know that they are motivated to learn it! 

Along with piano I have also earned a degree in Dietetics, owned a baking business, homeschooled my 3 children for a few years, taught in the public school, and taught Sunday School to middle schoolers. Luckily I did not do all of these things at the same time! I love reading, baking, line dancing, and attending concerts.