Teaching

Testimonials

“Spencer has been for me an extraordinary help in my musical education. As a returning adult bass student, he took me through some major corrections to my left hand fingerboard technique, and introduced me to proper French bowing through elementary sight reading. We worked on simple traditional country melodies for fun and pointed out key relevance to fundamentals of tone and pitch. He endured my persistent questions on theory and scales, all with the patience of an educator that enjoys seeing the lights come on in their students."

-John S, Rochester NY

"We started lessons with Dr. Jensen during covid. I wasn't sure how online lessons would work, but it has been absolutely amazing. Our son Collin has autism and sometimes needs to have things repeated, or taught in a different way, Dr. Jensen has gone above and beyond to do this for us. He sends us a very detailed practice plan after each lesson. They often include specific exercises he has written for Collin, and videos that correspond so Collin can practice with, or reference if he's confused. While working with Dr. Jensen, Collin prepared and auditioned for our local prestigious youth symphony and was awarded second chair! We are so grateful for Dr. Jensen and would highly recommend him as a teacher."

-Seleta Talbot

Curriculum

    I teach all levels of double bass students who wish to study classical, jazz, or folk double bass, or who wish to study effective bass technique to regardless of genre. I am able to work with students of all ages. For students under age 5, lessons may mainly consist of musical games skill development with some introduction to the instrument before a more intense study of bass technique. 

    Lessons will almost always include some level of technical instruction depending on the student's playing level. I teach foundational double bass technique through the use of bowing and left hand exercises, scales, arpeggios, and other technical exercises drawn from other double bass pedagogues or developed myself for individual students. While accounting for individual student goals, I generally aim to help students develop a comprehensive set of fingering, bowing, and pizzicato skills. As they develop these skills, I can guide students in recognizing musical situations where certain skills would be useful. In this way, I teach students principles that guide decisions regarding bowing and fingering for the music they encounter. Ultimately, this understanding comes from exposure to technical and musical problems in repertoire students learn. I also assign repertoire that helps the student learn technical and musical concepts and skills for their level of musical development.

    Students are always welcome to bring in music from ensembles they are playing in, wether they be school orchestras, community groups, youth orchestras, etc.  

Method and Technique Books

      In addition to teaching technique through exercises and repertoire, I draw upon various double bass method books and etude books depending on a student’s level of technical development and what I feel will most help them in their progression. Additionally, I carefully consider repertoire that provides an opportunity for a student to develop particular musical skills or concepts. Often, appropriate repertoire can be found or adapted to suit a student’s musical interests. However, certain landmark pieces of repertoire may also be part of a student’s instruction depending on the genre of specialization (such as classical, jazz, or folk traditions). While I give much thought to repertoire that will help students progress technically and musically, I also seek to accommodate individual interests in repertoire. This is because I believe people learn best and make the most progress when they are interested in what they are working towards and intrinsically motivated to put in effort. 

    The Method books that I primarily use are the George Vance Progressive Repertoire volumes which can be purchased at lemurmusic.com, sharmusic.com or various retailers. I may also draw from the Suzuki and Simandl methods. I am open to any technique or method books students may bring in and will vary my use of the books depending on the needs of the students. Students will need to purchase their own materials.

​Tuition

    Contact me regarding current tuition. Additional charge for fuel expenses may apply when I travel to student's homes. Students can pay either weekly or monthly.

Online Lesson Options

    If you would like to study with me remotely/virtually, let me know and we can set that up. Alternatively, you can book lessons through my Lessonface profile: https://www.lessonface.com/SpencerJensen

Philosophy

    My teaching philosophy is guided by 6 general principles: the student and teacher working toward common objectives, creating an optimal learning environment, establishing effective double bass technique and other musical skills, utilizing aural learning strategies, organized learning approaches, and encouraging creative development. 

Working Toward a Common Objective

    One of my primary goals is to help students become well-rounded musicians. I aim to recognize what musical passions drive my students and help them deepen that passion. To accomplish this, I encourage students to write down their musical goals and objectives. I also encourage them to think about what they enjoy about music and what they want to accomplish through making music. I use these goals to direct the focus of the lessons and take them into consideration as I also seek to help students become well-rounded musicians. I feel that in order for students to learn best, there must be mutual understanding between the student and teacher. I seek to understand my students’ musical goals, inhibitions, concerns, learning styles, and backgrounds. I also seek to clearly express my expectations to students regarding the function of the teaching/learning space and what I purpose to help them accomplish that I believe will allow them to reach their goals. In doing this, my students and I are better able to work towards a common objective together. 

Establishing the Lesson Environment as an Optimal Space for Growth

    I believe that people learn most effectively when they feel emotionally safe and are enjoying what they are doing. I aim to help students feel emotionally comfortable in lessons while encouraging growth by inviting them to step out of their musical and creative comfort zones. The way I interact with my students greatly influences their comfort in being vulnerable with their artistic ideas and musical skills in a lesson setting. One way I work toward creating a safe learning environment is by intentionally using language that I feel is not shame inducing and instead encourages a student’s self confidence in their capabilities. I aim to avoid qualifying a student’s performance or technique as simply good or bad, or correct or incorrect. Rather, I describe my observations of a student’s performance in relation to how well it is helping them reach their goals. I also invite students to assess how effective a particular approach is to realizing a goal. This way of thinking about musical progress is more specific (and therefore useful to the student) than subjective terms that can sometimes lead to feelings of discouragement or inadequacy. Additionally, seeking to help students see their progress in objective terms allows them to clearly identify what is helping them accomplish their goals and what is not, what needs a different approach and what they should keep doing and intentionally engrain as a habit. I consider the establishment of mutual understanding and making lessons an emotionally safe space prerequisite to the kind of experimentation and stretching that prompts learning and musical growth. 

My Approach to Teaching Technique and Musical Proficiency

    There are a number of muscular and mental skills that are necessary for proficiently playing the double bass. Muscular skills include being able to balance the instrument against the body, navigate the fingerboard with the left hand, control sound production and tone with the right hand and the left hand, and do so with as much stamina and the least amount of potential injury possible. Mental skills include developing a functional understanding of theoretical music concepts such as knowing scales, arpeggios and how rhythm works, schematic understanding of musical the practices being inherited (how music should sound in a given tradition), being able to execute high demand mental and physical processes in a performance situation, and how to blend ones playing in an ensemble. 

    I believe that we are first musicians and then instrumentalists. As such, students not only learn technical approaches to playing the bass but also musical and mental skills that are used by all musicians. With the bass as their musical voice, students need to develop effective technique to navigate the challenges of the instrument in order to present the music and their artistic expressions convincingly. Regardless of the genre or stylistic focus of my students, I have found that the technical approaches taught in the classical tradition of double bass playing enable bassists to navigate the instrument proficiently so that they are positioned to fully utilize the capabilities of the bass in the musical styles they engage with. This technique includes enabling the bassist to have a foundation of left hand efficiency of movement, intonation, and agility, as well as bow technique that enables a reliable control of tone, rhythm, articulation, and timbre. A foundational instrumental technique that maximizes the body's ability to control movement while minimizing potential fatigue or injury allows for the musician's artistic ideas to be more fully realized. 

Utilizing Aural Learning 

    I find that learning principles utilized in aural traditions, such as jazz and folk styles, are very effective for learning any style of music, particularly at the beginning level. Considering this, I often teach beginning and intermediate students repertoire by ear in conjunction with using notation. In doing this, I demonstrate music and techniques for them and have them mimic my demonstrations. Rather than inhibiting students in learning to read music notation, I find that helping them gain a mental concept of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic conventions through aural learning further enables students to understand how those concepts are represented in notation. 

    To further help students develop a concept of the musical style and tradition they are learning, I encourage them to listen to notable musicians and ensembles relevant to the music they are working on or a technique they are learning. This listening includes inviting students to watch video performances of bassists who exhibit a particular technical approach I would like them to emulate. The lesson space can then be used as a lab where we experiment with technical solutions to conveying musical ideas and applying concepts or principles students observe from their listening experiences.

Organization as a Learning Strategy

    Much of my work with bass students revolves around my desire to help them become proactive learners and problem solvers as musicians and bassists. Considering this, I believe effective learning occurs through organized strategies and opportunities for unstructured musical exploration. Regarding structure in the learning environment, I seek to help students develop organized methods for problem solving and skill development. This includes using mindful questions to help students think through their own questions or assess what is or is not helping them reach a learning goal. 

    Because performing music on the bass is a combination of several highly developed mental and motor skills, acquiring these skills can feel daunting for many students. I find that there is a limit to how many skills a person can develop simultaneously. This is why I value organization and prioritization of skill development. In this way, small learning goals and lesson assignments can be seen as stepping stones toward a broader performance goal. I see my role as a teacher as one who guides a student in determining which skills or goals need to be acquired before tackling other goals. 

    Different types of structure and organization depend on a student's level of development and learning needs. Having taught students between the ages of 8 and 80, and having taught students with different strengths and challenges, I have learned that there is not one way to structure learning that meets each student’s needs. There are however principles I tend to follow when creating lesson plans for individual students. Some students are very capable of self-organizing their learning and understand what works well for them while others may need specific steps assigned to help them understand how they can approach learning. I find that a beginning level bassist benefits from a very structured lesson and practice routine that has specific learning goals. As bassists advance in knowledge and ability, they often become more able to self-organize their learning with guidance from me as their teacher. 

    Another way I encourage students to organize their learning lies in the practice methods I teach. While some practice strategies work well for all my students, other strategies are specific to different learning styles and the student’s developmental level in their musical journey. As I work with students I teach them tried and true practice strategies while seeking to better understand individual learning styles which will inform my teaching. 

Encouraging Creative Development

    Having described my values of organization in learning and practicing and helping students develop confidence in their capabilities and potential, I also seek to balance the structure of lessons by encouraging less structured musical creativity. This largely depends on the student and their interests and goals. Some students enjoy learning, arranging, or composing music outside of their lesson instruction. For other students, I may build in ways to help them explore their creative inclinations. This could include having students learn music that is conducive for improvisation, thus allowing them to stretch out of their musical comfort zone in order to develop their individual creativity. I find that when students have music making experiences that are more focused on creative exploration, they can more effectively incorporate their own musicality and expressive ideas into the music they perform.