Welcome to the website of Jonathan Weiss, an emerging professional composer based in New Haven, CT.
Privileged to have studied with luminaries like Howard Frazin, Jeanine Tesori, Marc Ryser, and Rodney Lister, Jonathan believes that the most important part of teaching is to create a safe, creative, and fun environment for taking risks and solving problems. While at Yale, Jonathan tutored, served as a First-Year Counselor, and taught elementary schoolers creative writing and grammar. Jonathan has also applied his empathetic approach as a volunteer in special education settings such as the Boston College Campus School. An inaugural Chauncey Fellow with the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, he is thrilled to connect with the community through music.
Lessons
Jonathan offers in-person private lessons in the following areas:
- Composition
- Music Theory (e.g., Ear Training, AP Music Theory)
- Piano (Beginning and Intermediate)
Jonathan teaches in-person lessons at Bethesda Lutheran Church. He also offers virtual lessons for Composition and Music Theory.
Lessons are $70/hr and can be 30-60 minutes in length depending on your needs. Try a 30-minute trial lesson for $30!
Testimonials
- Jonathan’s deep generosity of nature… turns the classroom into an astonishingly generative space not just for himself, but for everyone.” – Ardis Butterfield, Professor of English, French and Music at Yale
- Music is not just his field of study, but also how he has selflessly served others.” – Tina Lu, Professor of East Asian Languages & Literatures at Yale
Piano Lessons
Have you ever looked at a piece of sheet music and felt like your eyes were swimming in a sea of indecipherable runes? Or have you ever gotten so frustrated practicing a single measure that you were ready to quit piano? Jonathan has been there, and he is especially eager to help students who feel discouraged or stuck. Pianists aren’t robots. We are expressive artists and human beings, and our internal reserves of creativity, curiosity, and intuition are ready to help us achieve our goals. Jonathan is thrilled to provide tailored, person-centered piano teaching that involves not only repertoire and scales (although those are great), but also ear training, improvisation exercises, and skills for managing emotions during practice.
Composition Lessons
Composing is fun, meticulous, and vulnerable all at once, and it is a practice that often requires intense emotional and mental concentration. Jonathan is eager to mentor composers at any level. Jonathan will engage with your work or provide creative exercises and challenges if you don’t know where to start.
Jonathan’s process-oriented, Socratic, and kind approach to teaching composition largely emulates that of his long-time teacher and mentor, Howard Frazin. Frazin focuses on growing a self-awareness of the inner dialogue between the subconscious and the conscious. The better a sense we gain of our inner emotional world, the better we can represent it on the page in a way that will resonate effectively with our audiences. It may sound daunting to probe into our emotions like this, but the fact is, the very act of creating new music is itself an act of transferring a part of ourselves into an abstracted musical form.
Music Theory & Ear Training Lessons
With three years of experience as a Music Theory Peer Tutor for Yale’s Department of Music, Jonathan is ready to nerd out with you about music theory (or, at the very least, help you enjoy this useful tool a bit more). He will meet you at your experience level and set goals with you for hearing melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, or structure based on classical, jazz, or pop principles. He also offers targeted tutoring and support for students of AP Music Theory, leaning on the textbook Tonal Harmony, by Kostka, Payne and Almén.
The man who has many answers
Mary Oliver
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.
While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.
