Christie is a talented musician with a great demeanor for students of all capability and experience levels. She makes learning music fun and interesting while still staying on task. I would recommend Christie to any parent looking to introduce their child to piano or voice, or for more experienced students looking to expand their skill set.
— Sabrina Brindle
I have had the honor of being one of Christie’s students for 5 years. Not only is Christie my vocal coach, but she is one of my closest friends. She has taught me more about myself and my voice then I ever would have imagined. When I first started taking lessons with Christie, I had already had a decent amount of vocal training and wasn’t sure of what I was hoping to learn from her. Luckily, Christie was full of brilliant ideas that not only helped me grow as a vocalist, but as a musician. She taught me the importance and basics of music theory, helped expand my vocal range, built up my repertoire in multiple genres of music, and so much more.
One of the main reasons I love working with Christie is because she helps me build my confidence more and more every lesson. I am a major perfectionist and am very hard on myself because of that. Christie helps me forget that voice in my head telling me “I can’t do this” and convinces me to trust myself. This has opened so many doors for me in music.
For example, I never saw myself as knowing strong enough vocal techniques to sing jazz. However, Christie pushed me to work towards the iconic “Blue Skies” scat solo done by Ella Fitzgerald. I continued to argue with her about it, claiming I sounded funny and didn’t have that kind of skill. Eventually, she got through to me and I learned the solo. It took a lot of patience, writing out each note and analyzing every run, but I did it with her help. The feeling of accomplishing that insane scat solo is one that has stuck with me since that day, and I owe it to Christie. I am now a featured vocalist with Purdue’s Jazz Band.
She has pushed me to become a vocalist that even the negative thoughts in my head can be proud of.
Christie, thank you.
— Julia Maletta