07/07/2025
Hello and Welcome to the Musical Minds professional page!
To me, music is a gift that should be accessible to every child. It is inextricably linked to who we are, our relationship with ourselves and the world, and our holistic development. It is why I have spent almost sixty years immersing myself in not just music performance, but dance, art, language, and its impact on our evolution. I have absorbed not just music education, but studied child development, child psychology, neuro-cognition, and the pedagogies most relevant to today. Through my professional life I began to question musician wellness and pursued training in various coaching practices, somatic approaches, mind-body practices and movement therapies. It is my belief that musicians do not automatically receive that which most benefits them in mind, body and soul, maximizing their ability to reach their full potential. My curriculum begins before starting an instrument, setting up the mindset, somatic connection, and self-awareness necessary to play. My coaching reaches those who desire greater ease in playing, in creating life-balance for themselves, and in healing the psycho-emotional system toward optimal functioning.
Here is a sampling of services available to you whether you are a music teacher, instrumentalist, private instructor, professional performer, music student or parent of a young musician. I am committed to serving musicians in the ways we most need and rarely receive in our training. These include:
Performance mindset
Practice for performance
Mindfulness and somatic integration in performance
Artistic expression and accessing flow in performance
Movement therapy toward mind-body integration with and without the instrument
Musical Minds curriculum teacher training; Musical Minds integrates aesthetics, mind-body work and creative development toward learning the instrument
Musical Minds is on Facebook, Skool, Kajabi, YouTube, Vimeo, and GarnerStudio2.com. I offer free classes, teacher training, workshops on somatic mindfulness and overall musician wellness, sessions on performance and audition preparation, private and group coaching sessions, and a community group. There are fourteen book/CD publications, free articles on academia.com, and published articles in ten journals any of which I can share.
My credentials include:
BM Violin Performance Gingold, Biss, 1986 IU
MS Music Ed, Child Development, Inter-related Arts Ed with an emphasis on Dalcroze Eurhythmics and Piano 1993
Violin/piano soloist for the Suzuki Talent Education Association under William and Constance Starr 1968-1982
Graham modern dance training 1968-1980; Ballet, Jazz, Choreography 1980-1982
Tenured first violinist Sacramento Symphony 1987-1990
Orff certification 1992
Kodaly certification 1993
Suzuki certification violin 1-10 1995
Musical Minds author and educator 2006-present
Recital violinist, chamber musician, Irish fiddler, Baroque violinist 1995-2022.
Certified NLP coach, Certified Somatic Attachment Specialist, Certfied Polyvagal Clinician, Certified Interpersonal Neurobiology
Trained in Primal Alexander, Introduction to Body Mapping, Transformational Coaching, EMDR, Jungian Individuation, Body-Mind Centering Neurocellular Patterns
In process: Timani (musician’s body and functioning) three-year certification, Introductory Laban technique, Introductory Bartenieff technique
You are free to contact me through Messenger, Facebook or email: [email protected]. Realizing your dreams, desires, goals…anything you wish to create are critical to your well-being. I offer free consultation conversations to explore what possibilities are before you and options on how we choose, direction and arrive at where you want to be.
