Eliza Jane

Eliza Jane
El-eye-zuh Jay-N
She/Her

What is your teaching philosophy?
The correct posture, kinesthetics, musculature, and positioning, both for vocals and violin, create the foundation upon which a kid can soar into ANY style of singing or playing.  Ear training is key, and I love the Suzuki Method for this reason.  Breathing, posture, relaxation, and ear training come first, reading notes and charts comes second. But I also like to begin with the proclivities/ideal learning style of each individual student.  I determine if they are primarily a visual, kinesthetic, or auditory learner and go from there!

How long have you been teaching music? At YMP?
I’ve been teaching vocals, voice, dialects, character acting, and violin since 1992.  I started with YMP in 2022. 

What is your favorite thing about teaching music?
Giving a young person the gift of mastery, and showing them the myriad benefits of a lifelong relationship to the art of discipline, resilience, and tenacity required to master an instrument, find their voice, and/or accomplish the most worthwhile pursuits in life!

What do you expect of your students in classes/lessons?
Respect, attentiveness, punctuality, and the discipline to practice for at least 10 minutes a day, at least 5 times a week.  I hope they will feel comfortable communicating their dreams and preferences, as well as their challenges.  I expect them to fail exuberantly and often and to get back up on the proverbial horse over and over again.

About Eliza Jane

Eliza Jane Schneider started playing violin at age 7 in the preparatory department of Rochester New York’s Eastman School of Music, where she studied under Anastasia Jempelis, a direct student of Dr. Suzuki himself.  She performed onstage in dozens of plays and musicals, including “Rizzo” in GREASE! And “Maria” in West Side Story. She studied voice at the Eastman with Seth McCoy, and went on to study with dozens of other violinists and teachers, including El Shenkar (Peter Gabriel’s band) and Richard Greene (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), and opera singer Gloria Lane and “Rock Voice” expert Elizabeth Sabine (Axel Rose) in Los Angeles, where she received her BA in World Arts and Cultures from UCLA.  Founder of Competitive Edge Voice Training and The Character Acting Academy online. She has toured the world with the bands It’s My Party, Honey Pig, Killing Cassanova, The Porch Girls, Old Bull, The Sun Mountain Band and Uncle Becky (for whom she also played bass), and fronted Eliza Jane and the Barnyard Gypsies. She is also a renown voice and tv actor, having sung and composed for television in The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys with Howie Mandel, CBS’s Beakman’s World, and Comedy Central’s South Park, among many others.  She won “Best Solo Show” at the NYCInternational Fringe Festival for her 34-character play Freedom of Speech in which she sang gospel, country, and rap music, and is currently developing a science-fiction Rave opera about the return of the goddess, and was a master presenter at the Voice and Speech Teachers’ Association (VASTA) conference in Singapore.