Melissa Webber

I am a traveling Alexander Technique teacher with a Suzuki strings background. I have taught Alexander Technique group and private lessons to Suzuki teachers, students, parents, and studios in Alabama, Arizona, California, the Carolinas, Colorado, D.C., Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Germany. Visit my website to see my current and upcoming locations.

MY STORY
My childhood days were filled with Suzuki violin and cello. Suzuki lessons cultivated my personal development through wonderful learning experiences. Unfortunately, like many string players, I also experienced tendonitis. Pedagogical curiosity about my own and other instrumentalists’ painful, chronically inflamed wrist joints and other overuse injuries led me to the Alexander Technique.

As a string teacher, I wanted to prevent my own students from suffering tendonitis like me. I started Alexander lessons with Martha Fertman to learn preventative teaching strategies for my students. To my surprise and happiness, my own tendonitis disappeared in the process. The technique saturated my life. I felt both freer and more connected to the world. Long-term ailments like the runner’s knee I’d endured since my preteen years of soccer, track, and cross country dissolved. My life is filled with running, rock climbing, swimming, dancing, and anything else fun that pops up.

ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE TRAINING
My Alexander Technique studies began in private study with Dr. Martha Hansen Fertman. My teacher training continued with Martha through the Philadelphia School for the Alexander Technique where I also studied with Ariel Weiss, Zoana Gepner-Mueller, and Dana Calvey. For several summers as a teacher trainee, I attended Viterbo University’s Residential Alexander Technique Intensive Workshop where Martha taught alongside Joe Krienke, Carol Boggs, and Anne Waxman. While living in New Jersey, I participated regularly in teaching exchanges as a trainee member of the Alexander Technique Teachers of Greater Philadelphia. I completed the Art of Running course for Alexander Technique teachers with Malcolm Balk and Lindsay Newitter.

MUSIC EDUCATION AND TEACHING
My Bachelor’s degree was in Music Education with a focus on cello at Indiana University Jacob’s School of Music in Bloomington, IN. While studying at IU, I had the opportunity to teach for the Fairview Violin Project, the IU Cello String Academy, and Coda Academy.

My studies include Suzuki cello and violin teacher training, which greatly influences my overall teaching philosophy. I was a 4-8th grade string lessons and orchestra public schools teacher for 8 years. During this time my instrumental music teaching became inseparable from the Alexander Technique.