Teacher Feature: Lee Hadden

I think it's time to share the 'secret lives' of our faculty; that is, lives of our faculty outside teaching at Creative Arts!
Lee Hadden has taught at Creative Arts since 2002, a little over 8 years.
He teaches violin and viola (Suzuki and Traditional) on Wednesdays. When not at Creative Arts, Lee is extremely busy taking lessons, performing, observing other instructors, and teaching music at a variety of different schools including Hartt School of Music in CT and his home studio in Newton. Other than teaching, Lee loves woodworking and angling.
He sent me a few pictures of his favorite hobby to share with our community.

Lee fishes at Walden Pond every morning. This means waking up well before sunrise to get a few hours' worth of fishing in before tending to his busy work schedule.

 Brown Trout caught at Walden Pond

Ask Lee about his annual fishing record. Last year he caught 159 trout, 92 Black Bass, 18 Silver Bass, 3 Walleye, 1 Striped bass and a few Perch!

This was taken on a fishing trip to the Great Lakes.

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Check out the bait fish used to catch the large one!
Since Lee began keeping records, his best fishing season consisted of 282 trout, 21 Black Bass, 2 Silver Bass, 1 Fluke, 1 Steel Head salmon, a few dozen Perch and Silver Bass, and 8 Sheep Head!

Close up of teeth from a Parrot fish, which Lee caught on vacation in Mexico. Parrot fish primarily eat algae, an organism living symbiotically inside coral. Using its front teeth, Parrot fish scrape coral off reefs and extract algae by grinding up the coral in their throats. They pass the indigestible calcified coral 'skeleton,' which builds up on the sea floor resembling sand. Parrot fish also nip ears of divers when they get too close! Ouch!

Another curious fact about Lee: he practices violin and viola EVERY DAY. In fact, his record is 2,507 consecutive days of practice. That's 6 years and a little over 8 months of uninterrupted practice time. If you take music and wonder why you're not advancing...are you practicing every day? That's what it takes to improve and learn technique. Hard work does pay off!