About Gail Schwarz

  • Gail Schwarz Teacher

    I am a professional musician and teacher offering music lessons, Feldenkrais lessons and musicians’ health and wellness coaching.  In addition to this I am a skilled chamber musician specialising in the recorder, play in two ensembles, and am happy to join new ones looking for a recorder or saxophone player.  I love working with people of all ages and run a studio with learners from age 5 to adult.

GAIL’S TEACHING METHOD

PERSONAL

PERSONAL

We can schedule appointment times that suit your timetable and mine. Learning tempo is up to you. I am willing to accommodate specific Repertoire requests. This applies to my Feldenkrais lessons as well: you bring me a question or and idea and we will work through it together. Feldenkrais said: “I’m more interested in movable minds than movable bodies.” It is easier to learn when you are open to ideas and inputs than if one fixates on a single (unachievable) goal. I always find the way more interesting than the destination. It is exciting to be able to go with one idea, achieve something new and still be able to revert to the previous way of doing something, if you want to. "If you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want.” Feldenkrais

TRAINED

TRAINED

I hold music performance degrees from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, a post-graduate instrumental teaching diploma (main subject: Recorder) from the Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland, as well as a Master's degree in Music Physiology from the same institution. I completed my Feldenkrais Practitioner training at the Feldenkrais Institut here in Vienna, Austria and am also a Sounder Sleep System teacher, a trainee counsellor under supervision (WIFI, Vienna) as well as a BSc(Hons) psychology student (The Open University). Life-long learning is part of my ethos.

PROFESSIONAL

PROFESSIONAL

Working in the teaching industry for over twenty years, in four different countries, I have seen a lot in terms of what students require of me. That isn’t to say that I don’t get surprised regularly, but I do feel comfortable as a teacher and performer and know how to do my job. If I ever feel out of my depth with a student, I know how to deal with this and have built a network of colleagues to whom I can refer my students, as necessary. Teaching has been my life since the beginning of this century!

HOLISTIC

HOLISTIC

Learning a subject is never just about the content. It is about what aspects one can draw from this content, integrate it and apply this learning to one’s present and future. I like to know what my student’s dreams are, what they want to do, what they do outside of the music or Feldenkrais classes, so that I can have a picture of the whole person and understand what they need from my class. My counselling integrates a holistic balance of the person-centred approach complimented by the tools I have picked up along my educational journey.