Jennifer Christie

Music has always played an important role in my life. I grew up listening to contemporary Christian music and was inspired by artists like Sandy Patty, Amy Grant, and Larnelle Harris. I performed solos by many of these artists at an early age. I began taking voice lessons when I was thirteen and performed in musicals and solo and ensemble contests. In addition to my high school choirs, I sang in the Cincinnati Children’s Choir, Ohio All State Choir, and Clermont Honors Choir. After high school, I attended Millikin University where I completed a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance. In December 2007, I completed a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Georgia State University.

As a voice teacher, I would say that I am more of a technician than a vocal coach. Rather than working on stylistic nuances, I focus on building a strong technical foundation. I help students to develop a strong, effortless, pleasing tone while communicating a meaningful thought or emotion. To achieve this means, I use a number of vocal exercises designed to widen the vocal range, engage the breath, relax the articulator muscles, and improve resonance and agility. While I build upon the same general principals with each student, I treat each person as an individual. Every person enters the voice studio with a unique skill set and personality. Therefore, I take a slightly different approach with each person. Because I was once a shy person, I particularly relate to the shy student and enjoy watching singers develop confidence and freedom of expression. Most importantly, I believe the process of learning to sing should be fun. While I teach voice using songs from the classical and musical theatre repertoire, I also encourage students to bring in their own favorites. That means if you walk by my studio, you’ll often hear this classical guru attempting to sing a rock song – or even the occasional Hannah Montana or High School Musical song.

In addition to my vocal training, I’ve had over ten years of piano lessons and eight years of private flute study. While in high school, I performed in the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra and was first chair flute in my high school concert band. I continued my training on flute and piano while I was a student at Millikin University.

I’ve been teaching beginning piano students for four years and use both the Alfred and Faber and Faber piano methods. While I work with students to develop a technical mastery, I also try to keep the learning process fun and rewarding. As with my voice students, I continually use new approaches depending on the unique interests and inherent gifts of the students. I supplement the books with both rote songs and repertoire that most appeals to the individual student. I am a stickler about counting and learning the notes, and I encourage all of my piano students to sing. Just as playing an instrument makes us better singers, so does singing make us better instrumentalists.

Katie Baughman

Hi! I teach voice and violin at Eclectic Music. Although I teach all styles of voice, my passion is for opera and folk music. With violin, I teach Suzuki and Irish fiddle music. Both of my degrees (a Bachelor and Master of Music from Georgia State University) are in vocal performance, but my life has always been divided among my three great loves: singing, playing violin and Irish dancing. I am an Atlanta native, and was always playing music as a child. My mom was a fantastic violin teacher, and my dad is a great singer: no wonder that my sister and I both decided to make music our careers as well! Growing up my strengths as a musician were definitely that I loved to play and I could play things by ear very easily. My weakness was definitely that I didn't love the structure of practice until I got into more advanced technique. My nerdy favorite thing about teaching are those students who love rhythm as much as I do! Who knew subdividing could be so fun? When I teach, I try to tailor my approach to the students, but I am a die hard Suzuki teacher. I was a Suzuki kid myself, and I happen to think I turned out ok, so I stick with what I know! My hobbies outside of music are not many, because I spend so much time doing so many different kinds of music, but I love taking new dance classes and traveling. You can check out my website at www.katiembaughman.com.

Laura Benjamin

I teach voice and piano; my specialty would probably be musical theatre and contemporary music. I have a BA in History from Yale University, where I was also heavily involved in the performing arts via my a cappella singing group, Out of the Blue, and periodic musical theatre. I grew up in Westchester County, NY (the distant suburbs of NYC, basically). I had a great piano teacher, who I am still friends with, despite the fact that I constantly noodled on the piano while she would instruct me during lessons, a habit which the sweeping arm of karma seems to have infiltrated into all my own students now. A just dessert, I suppose. :-)
I am a singer/songwriter/pianist/
guitarist and that would essentially be the order of proficiency as well. My musical strengths would probably be my ear and sense of harmony/blend; weaknesses include classical sightreading (when there is no "chord chart" to read) and some of the finer points of high-level theory (certain Italian terminology, etc.).
I really enjoy when I get the opportunity to work with a small group of singers and experiment with harmonies, getting the chance to share the joy I find singing with other people. I enjoy wacky vocal warm-up exercises and will insist that my voice students at least attempt to lose their inhibitions about singing when working with me.
I have an original music project called LB Collective, which I would describe as a pop-americana band. I love to read, play volleyball, exercise, and have a fantastic pooch named Sammy.

Wesley Morgan