Karen Ashton

I am a highly experienced, award nominated musician with a long international career, both live and recorded and hold a first class degree in Audio Post Production. I still perform live with a number of bands across various genres and was part of the Ealing Blues Festival team for a number of years.
I have a relaxed style of teaching, but modify lessons based on my individual students with excellent results.
My students range in age from 3 to 73 at present, and I also teach in schools as a peripatetic teacher.
I can offer exam focussed lessons or music for fun depending on the wishes of the student.

I offer piano lessons from beginner to Grade 5, either Trinity or ABRSM, for all ages, Saxophone from beginner to degree level, for students from 10 upward due to the weight of the sax and tooth development. For sax I deal with Trinity, ABRSM or LCM. I teach vocals via Rock School grades.
I teach ABRSM Theory to grade 8 and can tutor degree level students in Audio Post Production/Music Technology, including Pro Tools and Davinci Fairlight and other DAWs on request.

Please note that I only teach preschool children who have an affinity and a natural love for music as forcing children of that age is counterproductive. My youngest students have been 3 years old, and are now teens and at Grade 6 level.
Teaching very young children needs to be face to face, as engaging children of that age requires patience and building a rapport. I will need to assess on a case by case basis, as not all preschool children are quite ready.

I have a number of adult students that I teach online and also taught my high school age students successfully online during lockdown but for most beginners face to face is necessary at the outset, particularly on the saxophone.
I do teach a variety of genres in piano and sax but I don't teach opera or musical theatre vocally.
I do like to give my students a rounded ability across genres but am happy to specialise where required and encourage improvisation and ensemble playing at the appropriate level.