I teach regular weekly guitar lessons online through Zoom or Facetime.

I love teaching guitar lessons. It is fulfilling, joyful work I have done with success since I first started teaching in 1999. Teaching guitar is a gift. When my students reach past their previous goals, write their first songs, or their eyes light up with a sudden new understanding, everything feels new and exciting again for me too. I feel incredibly grateful to be able to teach and share with my students.

The focus of my teaching is on building connections with music and fostering creativity. Technique and music theory — including sight-reading — are important components of my curriculum, but always as a means to developing creative guitarists. Whatever repertoire a student chooses can be, and is, used in the lessons; but not simply so the student can play songs just like the record. Rather, once the student can perform the piece (anything from Bach to The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, from Taylor Swift to Van Halen and AC/DC), the songs get broken down into their elements so the student can learn to write and improvise; first in the styles of their favorite bands, and eventually with their own unique musical voice.

I am the author of The Guitar Player’s Notebook – Music Theory and Manuscript Paper for Creative Guitarists, and my musical training includes a BA in Music from Central Washington University for classical guitar performance, studying Jazz guitar performance at Cornish College of the Arts, and Flamenco guitar with Miguel Serrano in Salamanca, Spain. But perhaps most importantly, I have learned by being out there, writing music and performing. It’s my real world experience as a full time working musician that is often the biggest benefit to students who want to become professional musicians, or who just want to sound better when jamming with friends.