We offer lessons on both an individually scheduled basis and by a Semester Plan.

 

Trial lesson/Consultation:  $85 for one hour.  If a student opts to enroll in our Semester Plan for the remainder of the semester within two weeks of the trial lesson, the trial fee will be credited toward the remainder due for the complete semester.

 

Individual lessons:  $75 for one hour.  Individual lessons will be available when the teacher has an open time slot, and may be booked up to but no more than two weeks in advance of the lesson date.  Your payment is due at the time of the lesson.  We do ask that cancellations be made at least 24 hours in advance; otherwise the full fee will be due. 

 

Semester plan:  Our Semester plan offers a discount from the individual lesson rate.  Under our semester plan, you are able to reserve a specific time slot for an entire semester.  Our Spring and Fall Semesters are 15 weeks long; Summer Semester is 7 weeks long.  We will announce the exact dates before the beginning of each semester.  Approximate dates are as follows:

                                           

                    Spring: around the third week of January to mid-May

Summer:  post Memorial Day to late July

 

Fall:  one week before Labor Day to mid-December

 

Our semester plan also includes Studio Class per semester in the Fall and Spring semesters at no extra charge. 

 

Spring/Fall Fees:   15 x 60 minute lessons:  $975

                                 15 x 45 minute lessons:  $810

                                 15 x 30 minute lessons:  $645

 

Summer Fees:         7 x 60 minute lessons:   $455

                                   7 x 45 minute lessons:   $378

                                   7 x 30 minute lessons:   $301

 

Payment is due at the beginning of each semester,

unless other arrangements have been made. 

Please make checks payable to Gori Voice Studios, LLC.

  

 

                                   

Student Cancellations and make-ups:   

Our Semester plan offers consistency and flexibility at the same time.  As a Semester plan student, you may make up one private lesson per semester, provided that you notify us at least 24 hours before the scheduled lesson that you wish to reschedule that lesson. Our schedule for each semester includes a number of days set aside for make-up lessons, in order to make sure each student has ample opportunity to complete his/her lessons. 

 

We also  furnish our students with a complete studio schedule table for each semester, including contact information for all current students.  If a student knows that s/he will have to miss a scheduled lesson time, s/he may contact another student on the schedule and trade lesson times for that week.  In addition, we maintain a list of students who wish to be on stand-by for individual lessons. A semester student may also contact anyone from this list to find a substitute for his/her lesson time. 

 

Teacher Absence:

Our teachers are also professional perfomers, so on occasion, unavoidable conflicts arise.  If we must cancel a lesson due to professional obligations, teacher illness or emergencies on our part, we will arrange to make up that lesson with you at a mutually agreeable time.

 

If we are aware at the start of a semester that we will have schedule conflicts due to professional obligations, we will prorate your semester fee to reflect the number of available lessons.   

 

Student Prerequisites and Requirements.  Because of the unique nature of the vocal instrument, we do believe that students should meet the following requirements in order to be ready for dedicated vocal study.

 

Ability to read music:  Because the voice produces notes on a sliding scale rather than by striking or holding a combination of keys or strings, in our experience it is difficult to learn to read music well through the study of singing alone.  Therefore, we ask that students already have some ability to read music prior to beginning vocal study.  The study of melodic instruments and especially the piano is an excellent way to develop music reading skills.  In certain cases, we will provisionally begin vocal studies with students who are concurrently studying another instrument in order to acquire their reading skills. 

 

Reasonable physical health: In singing, your body is the instrument.  As such, during singing lessons, we will be asking you to move around and stretch as we develop your breath capacity and coordination.  You must be capable of light aerobic activities per your personal physician.

 

Age 13 or up:  The teen years are a time of great physical and psychological development.  These changes include not only changes in the vocal folds themselves, but also the development of greater body awareness and concentration skills.  In our experience, it is best to wait to begin individual vocal study until these changes begin to take place.  In certain circumstances, we may accept slightly younger students with advanced musical skills who are highly motivated; in most cases though, we believe younger singers are best served by developing their musical skills through the study of piano or other instruments and singing in youth choirs.

 

Materials: We ask that our students provide their own music books and scores; we will work with you to find appropriate materials at reasonable cost.   We provide each student of a CD-R recording of his/her lesson, but if a student wishes to record their lesson on another medium, we ask that you provide alternate recording materials yourself.  

 

Practice:  Because in singing your body is the instrument, the only way to improve is through the consistent development of the physical skills necessary to singing.  Therefore, your rate of improvement depends greatly upon regular practice outside of your lesson time of the skills we work on during your lessons.  We will work with you to develop practice strategies to fit in with the demands of your life.   We also strongly suggest that you have access to a piano, electronic keyboard, or some other pitch-producing instrument in order to obtain starting pitches and work on learning music.

Accompanists:  Our teachers are accomplished vocal musicians, but not concert pianists!  If a student is working on repertoire with a challenging piano accompaniment, we ask that s/he provide his or her own accompanist or accompaniment recordings.  This allows us to focus our full attention on the student's singing, rather than the piano accompaniment.

  

Benefits/Perqs:

One of the prime advantages we offer is that all of our students have the opportunity to be heard by both teachers during studio classes and recitals and by arrangement, during regular lessons.  Thus, our students gain the benefit of the knowledge and experience of two highly skilled teachers.  Our students are also free to trade lessons with other students or arrange extra lessons in order to work with the teacher who is not their regular teacher.

 

Since both of our teachers are members of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, students may participate in the annual Maryland-DC NATS Adjudication Auditions. 

 

As professional performers in the Washington DC metro area, our teachers on occasion have access to free or discount tickets to professional musical performances.  We make these tickets available to our students, because we believe that seeing such performances is important to our students' development as musicians.