Music is fun but it’s also hard! It helps to have someone who’s been through the challenges themselves and with others.
I’ll help you create some realistic goals and make a plan to achieve them. We’ll meet weekly, you’ll show me what you did and we’ll decide what to do next. Sometimes a lesson is like a lecture, and sometimes it’s more like a training session, I like to think it’s always fun!
I have studied many different styles of music through many different methods. I read music and play by ear, I play with people with a wide range of types of education. Whether we work out of an established method book or forge our own way from recordings you love, we will find the best way for you to reach your goals.
Contact me now to set up a free consultation over the phone or zoom, no pressure to sign up for lessons.
For Beginners:
- Music fundamentals and history
- Active listening
- Reading notation
For More Experienced Students:
- Audition preparation, repertoire development
- More fundamentals!
- Jazz improvisation
- Blues improvisation
- How to play in a band
- Practical music theory and fretboard knowledge: scales and chords, and how to make them work for you
- Ear training
- Intensive short courses introducing idiomatic styles like Chicago-style blues, surf styles, 6-string finger styles, and more. A great way to explore certain approaches on guitar, bass, or double bass.
- Deep dive into a certain artist; what makes their music unique and how do you sound like that?
- After your free consultation, I charge $40/half hour or $70/hour. Lessons are paid for in advance by the month.
- Lessons are at my studio near Queen and Dufferin, or via Zoom. Many of my students prefer Zoom for the convenience. I discovered during the lockdowns that it’s barely a compromise at all!
- We’ll work out a schedule that works for you and for me. Steady weekly lessons are good for some and not for others. Sometimes life doesn’t allow for a regular meeting time, so don’t hesitate to ask for what you need.
- With 1 week’s notice, we can cancel or reschedule a lesson with no questions asked. Any less notice causes scheduling problems, so try not to let that happen. If it happens more than once or twice, I reserve the right to keep the fee and not issue a make-up lesson.
- One of the advantages of coming to an individual for music lessons rather than an organization is flexibility and informality. Don’t hesitate to ask if you need something different or if you’re not sure about anything.
It’s important to note that private weekly lessons are a great supplement to a musical education or various musical activities, but are definitely not enough on their own. It’s important to understand that, much like in teeth brushing, body building, sports playing… you get the picture… 30 to 60 minutes of engagement with the activity per week will not let you achieve any goals, or feel the satisfaction of improvement.
I strongly encourage all students to (besides practicing what I say) play regularly, jam with others, play with recordings, seek out other educational and performance opportunities, discover new music, listen to it, see live music and generally get involved in music beyond lessons with me.
I will go out of my way to help you find these sorts of things. Without them, lessons start to feel quite inadequate – they are after all a very small amount of time to try and develop fluency in a language as complex as music.