About Me
I'm a guitar teacher located at East Blaxland in the Lower Blue Mountains, 10 minutes by car from Penrith. I teach private lessons Monday through Friday from about 10am to about 6pm.
Education
BSc (hons) in Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, 1998. Graduated with 1st class honours.
Certificate IV in Small Business Management, Northside Business Education Centre, Chatswood, 2001.
Teaching Experience
I've taught guitar on and off since 1988. I've also tutored and/or taught classes in other subjects including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Astronomy, at university and high school level. This background has given me plenty of experience in understanding how people learn, what they get stuck on, and what motivates them.
Guitar Is Fun!
If it's not fun, why do it? There are much more productive ways of not having fun.
Learning any musical instrument can feel awkward, so it helps to have a teacher who wants you to feel confident and relaxed while you're learning.
How I Make it Fun
I'll teach you the songs you love.
During your first lesson, we'll talk about the music you like. Then I'll design a course of study that will teach you the fundamentals of guitar playing by teaching you your favorite songs. You'll learn the basics of music theory and practice along with the songs and music that you love.
How I'll make it not-too-easy and not-too-hard.
Some people call this "scaffolding", which is a big word that means making sure you learn A before I teach B. That is, building on your existing knowledge as if we were building scaffolding from the ground up. Scaffolding demands patience and careful attention to progress. It also requires humility: The teacher must be open to rethinking a lesson if it isn't effective.
I'll bring my love of music and teaching to each lesson.
Enthusiasm is contagious.
That's me having fun with my guitar (okay, its a ukulele, but you get the idea). Unfortunately, the uke came to an untimely end and it wasn't until about 10 years later that I became a serious student of the guitar.
How I Learned Guitar
I started learning the guitar by taking lessons in classical guitar. When I began I knew very little. I could vaguely remember my cousin teaching me how to play a "C" chord, but that was it. I was only young and I didn't know what most of the different styles were or even what style I was learning. I just went to the guitar teacher and practiced what he taught me.
Before too much longer, I learned that classical guitar is a distinct style in its own right. As the name kind of hints at, classical guitar is a type of classical music — which is usually played either solo or backed up by an orchestra. It wasn't really what I was into as a teenager, so I stopped going to the lessons after a few months.
Moving On
After having learnt the basics, I went on from there to devour every modern (i.e. rock) guitar book that was sold at my local music shops that I could afford. I was fortunate that I was able to learn well from books, and I was always eager to try out my latest guitar skills by jamming with anyone I could find. At school it's pretty easy to find other people to play music with, so I was always hanging around the music rooms, going to any after-school guitar classes that were on, and so on. I was the kind of kid who would draw pictures of guitars on the front of all of my school subject folders (or anywhere).
I stuck fretboard diagrams with notes and scales over my walls. I bought a tiny guitar (not much bigger than a ukulele, but it was a real guitar with six strings) to school and carried it around with me. Together with a friend I made a pretend "fretboard" out of a bit of wood, nails bent across it for frets, and six fishing lines going the other way for the strings. It was small, easy to carry, easy to hide, and was used to practice scales under the desk while sitting in class (or anywhere).
Teaching
Before too much longer, people started asking me to teach them. Most of these students just found me, I never looked for them, though I did teach at a music school in Leura in the Blue Mountains (The Leading Note, with Tim Dobson) for a while.
An Investment
If you learn guitar, it's something that you'll have for all of your life. If you love guitar, it will always be there for you. Even if you haven't played for a while, it's something that you can pick up any time and start again from where you left off.
Or, if your music tastes have changed, you'll be surprised how easy it is to pick up again and learn new types of songs. Like riding a bicycle, once you learn the basics of guitar, it's something that you never forget.
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