Teaching
Tatum is passionate about setting students up for success from the very beginning, modeling and nurturing a lifelong love of learning through her teaching. Lessons are structured around a clear routine, with focused learning objectives and varied pedagogical materials to support deep understanding and long-term progress.
She embraces an individualized approach, tailoring lessons to each student’s unique background, interests, and goals. Her teaching balances artistic development with a strong technical foundation and proven practice strategies, helping students break ambitious goals into manageable, attainable steps—while enjoying the process along the way.
Since 2017, Tatum has accumulated extensive experience in private teaching, group classes, masterclasses, chamber coaching, theory tutoring, orchestral sectionals, and competition adjudication. Tatum is passionate about incorporating musicianship, storytelling, and mindfulness in lessons to help her students become confident, balanced, and expressive musicians. Currently, Tatum manages her own private studio in Houston, Texas, and teaches at the Paganini School of Music.
Over the summers, she devotes her time to professional development and her students at StringTime summer camp in Washington D.C. – a nonprofit program dedicated to providing access to instruments and high-level musical instruction for young beginners.
During her undergraduate studies in Cleveland, Tatum taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music Academy, The Laurel School, Aurora School of Music, and the El Sistema Program at Rainey Institute.
Tatum’s favorite part of teaching is building lasting relationships with her students and their families. Through these connections, she has the privilege of investing in and witnessing pivotal moments of growth and personal development through music education that will positively impact her students’ lives, wherever life takes them.
Tatum’s teaching philosophy is influenced by her extensive Suzuki training, having completed all ten books with both Tanya Carey and Abbey Hansen, group class training with Carey Beth Hockett, and receiving a minor in Suzuki Pedagogy from the Cleveland Institute of Music.
