Singing and speaking aren’t the only ways to use your voice. The way you play an instrument is also uniquely yours!
In addition to my main instrument (the voice) I also teach mandolin, piano, and beginner guitar. I use the Nashville numbering system quite heavily in all my lessons, so if you join in on a jam session you’ll be able to hang even if you only know 3 chords!
Piano
With piano lessons, you’ll learn how to navigate the keyboard, choose voicings for chords if you’re playing with other musicians, and self accompany. I’ll help you get comfortable at the piano with good hand and posture technique, and you’ll learn how to read music as well as playing by ear to give you a wide range of options when you play music for yourself and for others!
The piano was my first “real” instrument (I don’t count the month I spent playing recorder in the first grade before switching to piano) and it is a big reason I have kept playing music throughout my life.
Mandolin
The mandolin is the first instrument that I began studying as an adult, and it is such a joy to play! I see it most often in bluegrass band settings, but the mandolin plays wonderfully as a solo instrument and in blues, classical, and jazz genres! I focus mainly on blues and bluegrass mandolin, and teach both acoustic and electric styles. If you’re new/intermediate to the mandolin or are looking to work on improvisation and dexterity, mandolin lessons are for you!
Guitar
I am in my heart a rhythm guitar player. I love the sound of the pick on the strings, a palm muted thunk, or a counter-rhythm finger picking pattern behind a strong beat. I teach acoustic and electric guitar for beginners, where you’ll learn chords and chord patterns, scale patterns that will help you get to soloing and improvising over chord changes, and how to hold your own beat while playing a song. Once you’ve gotten familiar with basic chord shapes, we’ll move into different voicings and how playing just a few of the strings at a time changes the feeling of the music and the way you play your guitar.
