Hi... I'm Rosanna and I run Songbird Music Space.
I love to climb mountains, swim in the sea and climb trees. And I LOVE music!
I was very lucky to have lots of music lessons when I was young and then studied music at King's College London and recorders at the Royal College of Music. I then worked at the Sage Gateshead (The Glasshouse) for a while and then slowly started to build my music sharing career.
We moved into our beautiful home at Ushaw Historic House and Gardens in County Durham in April 2022 and are flourishing here in our beautiful nest!
The focus of what I do is on helping people to explore and express their emotions through music.
What that looks like in reality differs from person to person and session to session. Think of out how we now see the autism spectrum… not so much high functioning/low functioning but more like a range cooker with lots of dials… each dial represents an element which can be turned all the way up, somewhere in the middle or all the way down. For us those dials include drawing music, playing piano and percussion (with a focus on creating our own music but also including playing other peoples’ compositions, dancing, creating musical stories, recording found sounds, outdoor music sessions, playing with colour and music and singing.
If you’re here looking for help for your child as they struggle to express themselves verbally… music is an amazing way to do that and we’ll tailor sessions that are right for them.
Is your child sensory seeking and desperate to use their bodies? We’ll move and dance and explore our feelings more physically. My approach is child-led (I do work with adults too, so I guess person-led!) and I’ll spend time getting to know them and we’ll make a plan together of how to best help them feel safe and able to create in a meaningful way.
Looking for a piano teacher?
If you’re here looking for a piano teacher… our sessions can have a piano focus but will also include some other elements to explore our creativity and self-expression.
My approach has developed after 20 years as a more traditional music teacher. I had an 'aha!' moment back in 2022 when a child came to me saying 'I haven't practised at all but I played all week'. This is what we're looking for! Playing for the joy of it. Because it feels good, rather than because it's being enforced. At this point I realised my teaching needed to change and I wanted it to be much more exploratory and improvisation based. I was lucky enough to come across the work of Edwin Gordon and Music Learning Theory and it changed everything! (About Music Learning Theory – GIML – The Gordon Institute for Music Learning). Gordon's focus was on sharing that we learn music best in much the same way that babies learn language... first through lots of listening and absorbing, then through mimicking sounds, then putting words and sentences together and then eventually maybe learning to read and write. But language exists without the written word, and music exists without sheets of paper! We don't need to read music to create it (I'm not anti-reading full stop... it can totally be an amazing tool at some point down the line once there is a firm understanding of how music works).
The point of all of this though is not purely for the sake of being able to play an instrument, although that is a joy in itself, but what it enables. I see our space as a safe nest where we are nurtured, and can taste, feel, play, explore and grow. And over time maybe we'll gain some confidence and tools to be the bird of our logo... creative and free and wild. Music is amazing! It's so powerful and gives us so much and I am so lucky to have this in my heart to share. We're getting right to the heart of music!
If you're here looking for a piano teacher and not sure whether I'm the right fit, this 3 minute video is for you...