I studied music at the Junior School of the Royal Northern College of Music, Wells Cathedral School, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Utrecht School of the Arts, with several teachers including Yfrah Neaman and Keiko Wataya, and after leaving music college I also had lessons with Simon Fischer. After taking a break to study Chinese at Oxford University, I now teach violin, viola and piano privately, run Bromsgrove Amateur Strings, and perform regularly with various string quartets.
Hey Presto! for Violin: A few years ago, when I began teaching again I couldn’t find any violin tutor books that worked for me, so I started to create my own books the way I would have liked them as a child – with an appealing presentation and basic explanations, but also pieces of music that I would have enjoyed playing. Immediately, my pupils loved the colour and illustrations and were engaged by the characters and little details like the bow bugs. The short explanations and note charts gave them the confidence to work things out for themselves – and best of all they began to be emotionally engaged by the music.
A few years later, after making the difficult decision to self-publish these books, I was approached by Paul Douglas, a fellow musician and parent of one of my pupils, Jess Douglas, who asked if there was anything he could help me with. Since Paul has his own record label, DH Records, I asked him if he would consider producing the CDs for me – and he agreed! I am so grateful to Paul – he not only created CDs with excellent sound quality, but added some wonderful sound effects and backing tracks to enhance the music!
Hey Presto! Music Theory for Violinists: When I started to use my own theory books I found my pupils also began to enjoy music theory. Once they realised that every subject would be broken down into basic steps, and returned to over and over again, they gained confidence with it, and would speed through as fast as I would allow to get to the fun pages nearer the back!
Hey Presto! Music for String Groups: At the same time, I started my own string group, Chaddesley Junior Strings, and again struggled to find suitable music – I had players of very different standards within the same group (from Prep Test level up to Grade 4 at the start!) and didn’t want the more advanced ones to be bored, nor the less advanced to feel overwhelmed. So, again I wrote my own pieces, taking care to give every part something of interest and also making the pieces long enough and attractive enough to be used effectively in performances.
And so Hey Presto Strings was born! A couple of months after the main launch in September 2010, Music Teacher magazine wrote a feature about its creation – read the article here.
Top Ten: Some years later I was chatting to a friend about teaching technique. We were both saying how useful it would be to have technical exercises that didn’t require a lot of note-reading, so you could simply focus on the technique itself. Her idea of the name, “Top Ten” was one I adopted straight away! Then began the business of writing the books themselves.
In 2016 I signed a contract with Spartan Press to have the violin series published, then subsequently the viola series. Fast forward to today – and just as with the Hey Presto! books, I now publish Top Ten myself and – most excitingly – am collaborating with Rachael Perry, my good friend and fabulous teacher, on a cello version of Top Ten!
The Top Ten series has received wonderful reviews from ARCO magazine, AUSTA magazine and The Strad!
My own pupils and string group members have loved using the books and music – I hope you will too.