Music For Everyone Call Us: 303.543.3777 Open Hours: Mon – Thurs. – 2:00 pm to 9:00 pm / Sunday – 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Music For Everyone Call Us: 303.543.3777 Open Hours: Mon – Thurs. – 2:00 pm to 9:00 pm / Sunday – 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm
I grew up in Louisville, KY, home of the Kentucky Derby, My Morning Jacket, and Days of the New, and the birthplace of jazz vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. I attended an Independent college called Bellarmine University, where I double majored in Jazz Performance and Music Technology. I studied for 3 semesters at the University of Louisville, taking advanced theory and some related graduate courses to further my musical understanding, and performed in the Jamey Aebersold Jazz Studies Program.
I’ve been teaching and tutoring private lessons since 2008, run sound professionally for a number of medium and large music acts including KRS-One, Hatebreed and Code Orange, Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn, Mushroomhead, and Deadmaus. I’ve been a gigging musician for almost 15 years, been on tour, and recorded on 10 studio recordings and albums. I’ve also been producing, mixing, and mastering as a freelance engineer for approximately 10 years.
My goal with each of my students is to tap into what makes music excite them. What is it that drew them to playing guitar, or ukulele, or the bass or WHATEVER? Sometimes, nowadays especially, I don’t get that answer right away, often because the student can’t answer that question, and that’s fine. But by asking questions, getting them to listen to new music, introducing them to new bands or styles, it won’t be long before we hit a nerve, and then it’s off to the races!
I always like to warm up with 2-3 octave scales and arpeggios, starting in C Major, ascending and descending. Rinse and repeat modulating through the circle of fifths until you arrive back at C. This can also be a great tool for the intermediate guitar players, because you can start exploring new fingerings, hearing chord sequences, and really getting comfortable with diatonic harmony. Don’t have a clue what I’m talking about? Great! We can explore it together!
Rock - Dream Theater, Animals as Leaders, Polyphia, AC/DC, Nirvana
Jazz - Chick Corea, Christian McBride, Jaco Pastorius (duh!), Michael Brecker, Kamasi Washington
Classical - JS Bach, Beethoven, Anton Webern, Claude Debussy, Dmitri Shostakovich
Metal - Megadeth, Slayer, Rings of Saturn, At the Gates, While She Sleeps
Funk/Soul - Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Level 42, Curtis Mayfield, Parliament
“A comfortable musician is a LAZY musician.”
~ My mentor, Dave Clark (no, not that one)
Growing up, music was that thing in grade school that kept chasing me, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to outrun it. My father was “Mr All-American” and was the golf, basketball, and tennis coach at the K-12 I attended before high school. He was the starting quarterback for his high school, ran track, played baseball, basketball, and golf, and played on the University of Kentucky’s rugby team in college. So naturally, I assumed I was an athlete.
But the music teachers were always bugging me to join choir, take guitar lessons, or just generally explore my musicality. But I wanted nothing to do with it. At least, not until I destroyed my ankle at football practice sophomore year, got in an argument with the head coach, and “walked” off the team 3 weeks later. A friend of mine had started taking guitar lessons, and after playing his dad’s guitar for about an hour and learning everything he’d been working on for over 3 months, it became apparent to both of us that I really should start playing music. Naturally, we started a band. We were bad. Like, really bad. Like, nails on a chalkboard while you throw silverware down the garbage disposal - bad. But it didn’t matter. I’d been bitten by the bug. And I haven’t looked back.
THE LESSON STUDIO BOULDER MUSIC LESSONS