About Me
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Mission: My first job is to help the student to Love music. Then everything is easier. With my experience and concern for each student, Everyone can be successful . Guaranteed!
Welcome to a fun way to increase brain power and add spice to your life!I have a Bachelor of Music Education Degree, Majoring in Piano, Minor in Voice from the University of Central Arkansas. I was Taught by Artists in Residence, performers in the State Symphony and even a Carnegie Hall piano solo performer.
I am Nationally and Permanently certified in piano teaching, Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). My title is Tabitha Hymer, NCTM, Nationally Certified Teacher of Music. Current or Past Member of MTNA (Music Teacher’s National Association), TMA (Texas Music Teacher’s Association), WMTA (Waco Music Teacher’s Association), NFMC (National Federation of Music Clubs), TFMC (Texas Federation of Music Clubs), and the local federated music club,Waco Euterpean Club for many years.
Honors, Awards* Valerie-Klipsch Scholarship, piano performance, 2000* Member Alpha Chi (National Honor Society)* Scholastic Art Award, Kansas Arts Commission* Graduated Magna Cum Laude, 3.9 Grade Average* Outstanding Community School of Music Undergraduate Student Instructor Award 2001-2002 awarded by the University of Central Arkansas Community School of Music
+Have over 25 years experience in teaching piano and over 20 years teaching violin. Have experience working with a school orchestra for some of my student teaching. Had a teaching strings class in college as well.
+Nationally Published: In the year 2020, I was selected to be the Fiddle Solo Advisor for the National Federation of Music Clubs Festival Bulleton for the years 2021- 2024. I wrote 9 pages in this National guidebook for festival pieces, which is used nationally for 4 years.
+Have taught accordion for a short while. It is a lot of fun walking around playing a piano! I am willing to teach it too! It is an instrument that makes a lot of sense to a pianist who know their theory.
+Averaged around 50 students for over many many years.
+Was hired by Midway ISD to teach violin privately for the Midway orchestra students.
+Taught four years of private piano and two years of piano classes through the University of Central Arkansas Community School of Music at UCA.
+Taught piano classes of 20 at Parkview Magnet School in Little Rock.
+Taught hundreds of students private music lessons over about a 25 year or so period from ages 5 to 88.
+Chairperson for the National Federation of Music Clubs Piano Festival for four years at the University of Central Arkansas.
Attended numerous piano, music, and violin teaching workshops in and out of state.
---------------------My Teachers:
Started taking lessons at the age of 7 from my mother (who as a child studied with a concert pianist in St. Louis, Mo.).Then later in school ages, I took lessons from a nice talented lady who had her Master's Degree in Music with piano as her major, Mary Beth Cunningham. Very many of her students earned top ratings in State festivals.
I also studied with Ivonka Drankova, an amazing Bulgarian student of an artist in residence, Dr. Neil Rutman from the University of Central Arkansas.
I enjoyed totally amazing classes by an artist in residence, Neil Rutman, in Piano Literature and in Piano Pedagogy (how to teach piano). Neil Rutman is an International Piano Competition gold medal winner. Neil Rutman has many international awards and has even performed in Carnegie Hall. He has also been recorded on CDs for sale. (one is titled "Chopin: Scherzo, Ballade, Etudes and Mazurkas", Mozart Piano Concertos, Poulenc- story of Babar the Elephant, Nocturnes in the Napoli Suite. He has a nice book for sale also "Stories and Images, and Magic from Piano Literature".
He regularly produces contest winning piano performers in piano. He is totally amazing to watch and hear perform. You can find him on youtube. I loved watching and hearing so many of his wonderful performances in addition to learning from him throughout the years.
I was honored and privileged to enjoy private piano lessons (5 years) and Theory classes many years under Dr. Carl Anthony, the principal concert pianist at the Arkansas state symphony, the Little Rock Symphony. He and his wife, Carolyn Brown also have made professional CDs and performed in various parts of the world. They have performed in major conservatories of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai in China. Dr. Anthony and his wife even performed a recital in 1992 at the request of President-elect Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. He and his wife were named "Best Chamber Music Performance" by the Arkansas Times Newspaper. He is a true master in music theory, an outstanding performer and his piano lessons were equally amazing too.
In a manner of speaking, Anthony is the Great "Grand student" of Franz Liszt. His teacher was Ozan Marsh, whose teacher was Egon Petri, whose teacher was Franz Liszt. So I am a great-great grand student of Franz Liszt, a famous piano virtuoso composer. I was privileged to be one of only about 12 students every year to be taught by Dr. Carl Anthony. I heard him so many times answer the phone turning many people down to have him for his or her teacher. I was so blessed.
My amazing violin teacher was Dr. Linda Hsu, a Yale Graduate and The Concertmaster of the State Symphony, the Little Rock Symphony for many years. She also has performed in other parts of the world, which includes New York Debut Recital at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, recitals at the National Taiwan Recital Hall in Taipei, and performances in Korea, China, Costa Rica, Germany and Austria. She has appeared as a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the Taipei Century Symphony Orchestra, the Greece Symphony Orchestra of New York, the Blue Lake Festival Orchestra in Michigan, and the Pine Bluff Symphony Orchestra.
My voice teacher was amazing also. Christine Donahue, soprano from Pennsylvania, has performed with numerous opera companies throughout the United States, Canada and abroad including New York City Opera, Cleveland Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Pennsylvania Opera Theatre, Arkansas Opera Theatre and the Hong Kong Opera to name a few. Concert performances include engagements with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Houston Symphony and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ms. Donahue has won special acclaim for her portrayal of Lucia di Lammermoor, Violetta in La Traviata, the title roles of Tosca and Madame Butterfly and both Pamina and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute among others. She was a winner of the Luciano Pavarotti/Opera Company of Philadelphia International Competition, recipient of a Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant and Sullivan Grant, and took second place in the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions. She holds a M.M. degree in Voice and Opera from the Juilliard School of Music and a B.S. in Music Education from Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
I have attendend numberous Master classes with various artists at the university. For fun, I also took lessons from 2 state Fiddle Champions, Timothy Trawick and Bill Thurman also studied a very short time with Mia Orosco, a National Fiddle Champion. However, I started playing the violin in 3rd grade.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1980-1998Experienced in education for these 18 years. Home-schooled my two children from kindergarten through high school after which we attended college together. Because of their education, both children were able to skip college algebra and college trigonometry. My daughter, Clover, who was a year too young for college, was also able to skip college pre-calculus and go into calculus, a 4th level college math class. She attended college three semesters earlier than if she would have graduated with a public school.
She was awarded a Presidential scholarship to the University of Central Arkansas worth $1,800/semester extra in addition to tuition, fees and books and made straight A's in college until graduation. (Then the cost for UCA was $1900 per semester.) At age 20, she graduated from college with a 4.0 grade average with an Electrical Drafting Degree. For several years she worked as an electrical drafter and a processing engineer with McDowel Research before having children. She also has a Bachelor Degree in Process Engineering. However, She currently is homeschooling her and her husband’s children, who are 15, 12, 11, 10 and 8 years old. Four of the children are adopted, two from birth and two as older children whose mother passed away. She has always had a heart to adopt since she was 7, so is living her dream! She and her husband have a heart to help children. Of course, I love being a Grandma! They are all sweet beautiful grandchildren! They all have had or is having piano lessons for years except for the youngest one, who is on the waiting list!
My son, Joshua, was awarded a two-year scholarship to the University of Arkansas in Morrilton. He is highly skilled in computer technology, being sought by businesses at the age of 14. At age 20 he worked in technical support at Acxiom, in Conway, Arkansas. He was the youngest one on their staff. He currently is a Director of Technology for the school District, Bremond ISD in Texas. He has worked there many years. He has been on TV (digitally filmed in Dallas) several times with a technology panel on a program called "Spiceworks". He and his wife have 2 sweet girls ages 13 and 10. The 13 year old granddaughter took lessons for 4 year and a half and voice lessons for a year. She loved playing and singing at the Hippodrome! The youngest granddaughter age 9 was delighted to have "her turn"! She wanted to start earlier, so I started her at a younger age because I just can’t say “no” to her! lol
Miscellaneous:
Did freelance writing and photography for the Little Rock Newspaper, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, front page of the River Valley Section. Taught Beginning and Intermediate Spanish at McClennan Community College for the Adult Education Department. Taught Elementary Music K-6 in Arkansas. Taught Elementary Music K-6 in Waco ISD. Have an out of state Teaching license for Instrumental and Vocal Music K-12, and Spanish K-12. Taught Spanish to supervisors at Brazos Masonry.
Hobbies/ Interests:++ Piano playing, violin playing, singing and I love Spanish, I am bilingual. :) ++ Swimming and Roller-blading++ Traveling++ Biking / hiking / and kayaking++ Reading/ Gardening++ Fine art painting/ other fine arts and crafts/ throwing pots/ sewing++ Church and I love being a Grandma to my Grandchildren!++ Weight training and Swimming ++ Have 6 cute pet hermit crabs....Hunky, Chunky, Monkey, Ditto, Baby and PeeWee. Student Successes:
Several of my students have been awarded music and piano scholarships after studying 5 years or so with me. Of course this is when they are older students. MENC (Music Educators National Conference) only gives one $15,000 scholarship per state. MENC chose my student who I instructed for at least 7 years in piano to receive that scholarship -- only One Person in the state, and she is from Lorena. Another student was offered a job in Branson, Missouri as a warm-up performer. This girl paid for 45 minute private lessons, and practiced 3 hours a day. She is also making money as a piano teacher too. Another two of my previous students are composers and sell published music. Another student makes $800 per wedding event that he plays for. He regularly makes money playing in various paid jobs. Another one of my students was awarded a scholarship to Harding University, another one of my students had half of MCC college paid for with her voice scholarship, etc. Recently a student received a scholarship for her music therapy degree. This happens more in the teen-age years as there is not many scholarships offered to grade school children. :) Of course they do start in grade school.
Strengths:I love children and enjoy working with people of all ages. I love music, teaching, Spanish and playing the piano and violin!Weaknesses:I do not like to be very early, but very close to on time. I like to pack in as much as possible. Oh and Dark Chocolate ... Below is me performing at the University of Central Arkansas in 2003. I performed from memory for 45 minutes and this is just a part of it.
Welcome to a fun way to increase brain power and add spice to your life!I have a Bachelor of Music Education Degree, Majoring in Piano, Minor in Voice from the University of Central Arkansas. I was Taught by Artists in Residence, performers in the State Symphony and even a Carnegie Hall piano solo performer.
I am Nationally and Permanently certified in piano teaching, Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). My title is Tabitha Hymer, NCTM, Nationally Certified Teacher of Music. Current or Past Member of MTNA (Music Teacher’s National Association), TMA (Texas Music Teacher’s Association), WMTA (Waco Music Teacher’s Association), NFMC (National Federation of Music Clubs), TFMC (Texas Federation of Music Clubs), and the local federated music club,Waco Euterpean Club for many years.
Honors, Awards* Valerie-Klipsch Scholarship, piano performance, 2000* Member Alpha Chi (National Honor Society)* Scholastic Art Award, Kansas Arts Commission* Graduated Magna Cum Laude, 3.9 Grade Average* Outstanding Community School of Music Undergraduate Student Instructor Award 2001-2002 awarded by the University of Central Arkansas Community School of Music
+Have over 25 years experience in teaching piano and over 20 years teaching violin. Have experience working with a school orchestra for some of my student teaching. Had a teaching strings class in college as well.
+Nationally Published: In the year 2020, I was selected to be the Fiddle Solo Advisor for the National Federation of Music Clubs Festival Bulleton for the years 2021- 2024. I wrote 9 pages in this National guidebook for festival pieces, which is used nationally for 4 years.
+Have taught accordion for a short while. It is a lot of fun walking around playing a piano! I am willing to teach it too! It is an instrument that makes a lot of sense to a pianist who know their theory.
+Averaged around 50 students for over many many years.
+Was hired by Midway ISD to teach violin privately for the Midway orchestra students.
+Taught four years of private piano and two years of piano classes through the University of Central Arkansas Community School of Music at UCA.
+Taught piano classes of 20 at Parkview Magnet School in Little Rock.
+Taught hundreds of students private music lessons over about a 25 year or so period from ages 5 to 88.
+Chairperson for the National Federation of Music Clubs Piano Festival for four years at the University of Central Arkansas.
Attended numerous piano, music, and violin teaching workshops in and out of state.
---------------------My Teachers:
Started taking lessons at the age of 7 from my mother (who as a child studied with a concert pianist in St. Louis, Mo.).Then later in school ages, I took lessons from a nice talented lady who had her Master's Degree in Music with piano as her major, Mary Beth Cunningham. Very many of her students earned top ratings in State festivals.
I also studied with Ivonka Drankova, an amazing Bulgarian student of an artist in residence, Dr. Neil Rutman from the University of Central Arkansas.
I enjoyed totally amazing classes by an artist in residence, Neil Rutman, in Piano Literature and in Piano Pedagogy (how to teach piano). Neil Rutman is an International Piano Competition gold medal winner. Neil Rutman has many international awards and has even performed in Carnegie Hall. He has also been recorded on CDs for sale. (one is titled "Chopin: Scherzo, Ballade, Etudes and Mazurkas", Mozart Piano Concertos, Poulenc- story of Babar the Elephant, Nocturnes in the Napoli Suite. He has a nice book for sale also "Stories and Images, and Magic from Piano Literature".
He regularly produces contest winning piano performers in piano. He is totally amazing to watch and hear perform. You can find him on youtube. I loved watching and hearing so many of his wonderful performances in addition to learning from him throughout the years.
I was honored and privileged to enjoy private piano lessons (5 years) and Theory classes many years under Dr. Carl Anthony, the principal concert pianist at the Arkansas state symphony, the Little Rock Symphony. He and his wife, Carolyn Brown also have made professional CDs and performed in various parts of the world. They have performed in major conservatories of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai in China. Dr. Anthony and his wife even performed a recital in 1992 at the request of President-elect Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. He and his wife were named "Best Chamber Music Performance" by the Arkansas Times Newspaper. He is a true master in music theory, an outstanding performer and his piano lessons were equally amazing too.
In a manner of speaking, Anthony is the Great "Grand student" of Franz Liszt. His teacher was Ozan Marsh, whose teacher was Egon Petri, whose teacher was Franz Liszt. So I am a great-great grand student of Franz Liszt, a famous piano virtuoso composer. I was privileged to be one of only about 12 students every year to be taught by Dr. Carl Anthony. I heard him so many times answer the phone turning many people down to have him for his or her teacher. I was so blessed.
My amazing violin teacher was Dr. Linda Hsu, a Yale Graduate and The Concertmaster of the State Symphony, the Little Rock Symphony for many years. She also has performed in other parts of the world, which includes New York Debut Recital at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, recitals at the National Taiwan Recital Hall in Taipei, and performances in Korea, China, Costa Rica, Germany and Austria. She has appeared as a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the Taipei Century Symphony Orchestra, the Greece Symphony Orchestra of New York, the Blue Lake Festival Orchestra in Michigan, and the Pine Bluff Symphony Orchestra.
My voice teacher was amazing also. Christine Donahue, soprano from Pennsylvania, has performed with numerous opera companies throughout the United States, Canada and abroad including New York City Opera, Cleveland Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Pennsylvania Opera Theatre, Arkansas Opera Theatre and the Hong Kong Opera to name a few. Concert performances include engagements with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Houston Symphony and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ms. Donahue has won special acclaim for her portrayal of Lucia di Lammermoor, Violetta in La Traviata, the title roles of Tosca and Madame Butterfly and both Pamina and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute among others. She was a winner of the Luciano Pavarotti/Opera Company of Philadelphia International Competition, recipient of a Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant and Sullivan Grant, and took second place in the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions. She holds a M.M. degree in Voice and Opera from the Juilliard School of Music and a B.S. in Music Education from Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
I have attendend numberous Master classes with various artists at the university. For fun, I also took lessons from 2 state Fiddle Champions, Timothy Trawick and Bill Thurman also studied a very short time with Mia Orosco, a National Fiddle Champion. However, I started playing the violin in 3rd grade.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1980-1998Experienced in education for these 18 years. Home-schooled my two children from kindergarten through high school after which we attended college together. Because of their education, both children were able to skip college algebra and college trigonometry. My daughter, Clover, who was a year too young for college, was also able to skip college pre-calculus and go into calculus, a 4th level college math class. She attended college three semesters earlier than if she would have graduated with a public school.
She was awarded a Presidential scholarship to the University of Central Arkansas worth $1,800/semester extra in addition to tuition, fees and books and made straight A's in college until graduation. (Then the cost for UCA was $1900 per semester.) At age 20, she graduated from college with a 4.0 grade average with an Electrical Drafting Degree. For several years she worked as an electrical drafter and a processing engineer with McDowel Research before having children. She also has a Bachelor Degree in Process Engineering. However, She currently is homeschooling her and her husband’s children, who are 15, 12, 11, 10 and 8 years old. Four of the children are adopted, two from birth and two as older children whose mother passed away. She has always had a heart to adopt since she was 7, so is living her dream! She and her husband have a heart to help children. Of course, I love being a Grandma! They are all sweet beautiful grandchildren! They all have had or is having piano lessons for years except for the youngest one, who is on the waiting list!
My son, Joshua, was awarded a two-year scholarship to the University of Arkansas in Morrilton. He is highly skilled in computer technology, being sought by businesses at the age of 14. At age 20 he worked in technical support at Acxiom, in Conway, Arkansas. He was the youngest one on their staff. He currently is a Director of Technology for the school District, Bremond ISD in Texas. He has worked there many years. He has been on TV (digitally filmed in Dallas) several times with a technology panel on a program called "Spiceworks". He and his wife have 2 sweet girls ages 13 and 10. The 13 year old granddaughter took lessons for 4 year and a half and voice lessons for a year. She loved playing and singing at the Hippodrome! The youngest granddaughter age 9 was delighted to have "her turn"! She wanted to start earlier, so I started her at a younger age because I just can’t say “no” to her! lol
Miscellaneous:
Did freelance writing and photography for the Little Rock Newspaper, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, front page of the River Valley Section. Taught Beginning and Intermediate Spanish at McClennan Community College for the Adult Education Department. Taught Elementary Music K-6 in Arkansas. Taught Elementary Music K-6 in Waco ISD. Have an out of state Teaching license for Instrumental and Vocal Music K-12, and Spanish K-12. Taught Spanish to supervisors at Brazos Masonry.
Hobbies/ Interests:++ Piano playing, violin playing, singing and I love Spanish, I am bilingual. :) ++ Swimming and Roller-blading++ Traveling++ Biking / hiking / and kayaking++ Reading/ Gardening++ Fine art painting/ other fine arts and crafts/ throwing pots/ sewing++ Church and I love being a Grandma to my Grandchildren!++ Weight training and Swimming ++ Have 6 cute pet hermit crabs....Hunky, Chunky, Monkey, Ditto, Baby and PeeWee. Student Successes:
Several of my students have been awarded music and piano scholarships after studying 5 years or so with me. Of course this is when they are older students. MENC (Music Educators National Conference) only gives one $15,000 scholarship per state. MENC chose my student who I instructed for at least 7 years in piano to receive that scholarship -- only One Person in the state, and she is from Lorena. Another student was offered a job in Branson, Missouri as a warm-up performer. This girl paid for 45 minute private lessons, and practiced 3 hours a day. She is also making money as a piano teacher too. Another two of my previous students are composers and sell published music. Another student makes $800 per wedding event that he plays for. He regularly makes money playing in various paid jobs. Another one of my students was awarded a scholarship to Harding University, another one of my students had half of MCC college paid for with her voice scholarship, etc. Recently a student received a scholarship for her music therapy degree. This happens more in the teen-age years as there is not many scholarships offered to grade school children. :) Of course they do start in grade school.
Strengths:I love children and enjoy working with people of all ages. I love music, teaching, Spanish and playing the piano and violin!Weaknesses:I do not like to be very early, but very close to on time. I like to pack in as much as possible. Oh and Dark Chocolate ... Below is me performing at the University of Central Arkansas in 2003. I performed from memory for 45 minutes and this is just a part of it.
