Sharilyn Ame
About
From the time she was four years old Shari Ame knew that she was going to play the fiddle. After years of school orchestra she found her way to Lark in the Morning, a world-class folk music and dance camp in the California redwoods, and there she fell in love with traditional Irish fiddling, Contra dancing, and traditional Scottish and English popular ballads.
Shari has been teaching private and group fiddle lessons in Corvallis for nineteen years, and she plays for contra dances up and down Oregon's Willamette Valley. She plays in many styles, including Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, Old-Timey, cross-tuned Appalachian, Klezmir, and Swedish.
As a teacher, Shari delights in teaching people young and old to hear and speak the language of music (sheet music is rare in her studio). Using many activities, games, and instructional recordings, she aims to connect to the hearts and minds of her students, exploring the great dance between mental and physical knowledge and the magical synthesis between sound and emotion. Her aim as a teacher is to teach students to find the balance point between effort and ease. And to get folks playing with a kicking backbeat!
I know that each of my students is a unique individual, and a big part of my job is to learn how a student thinks, how they learn best, and what excites them about music. As a private fiddle teacher, I am part history professor, part yoga instructor, part life coach. I teach music as a language, and we all learn to hear and speak our native language a long time before we get into the secondary skill set of reading and writing it. I am a stickler for good form, and early lessons focus heavily on how to hold the violin and bow in that particular way that facilitates ease. Clear tone is always the goal, no matter if we are starting with Twinkle Twinkle, trancing out in a double-stopped cross-tuned crooked tune from North Carolina, or cutting and rolling out way through a set of Irish reels. I meet people where they are, put in the work to figure out where they are coming from, and we work together to get them where they want to go.
Nineteen years teaching private fiddle lessons in Corvallis, Oregon.
I teach at both the Troubadour Music Center and the Fingerboard Extension, two folk-music based stores that have been staples of this town for over 40 years. I also teach from home via Zoom.
Taught courses in Celtic Fiddle at Linn-Benton Community College for three years.
Two years on staff at the West Cascades Fiddle Camp, hosted by the Oregon Old Time Fiddler's Association.
Beginning kid fiddle; Intermediate Fiddle; workshops in Irish Fiddle and "Learning to Listen: An introduction to learning by ear."
Book 1 Suzuki teacher training, with Edmund Sprunger. Santa Fe, NM. 2007
I teach by ear and do not prefer to hand out sheet music. I make instructional recordings and videos for students to work with and often recommend albums of other fiddlers for students to listen to.
I have Book 1 Suzuki teacher training in my background and use some of the very early Suzuki repertoire to get folks started.