My school has a number of traditional and classical instructors. You would think as one of the rock-oriented instructors I would be engaged in an extremely contemporary pursuit. But I’m beginning to think the exact opposite is true. Every day I more or less do exactly what my guitar teacher did with me in a
All you have to do is scan YouTube comments and you see the ubiquitous “Wow, that girl is so talented.” What’s wrong with that comment? Talent is invisible. There’s no way to tell from a musical end product how much the performer’s natural talent has contributed to that product. What the commentator is really saying
Friendship is a tricky thing for any kind of mentor or instructor. I strive to get to know my students as people. My job gives me a privileged one-on-one window into the lives of a very broad cross-section of people. I teach homeschooled kids, adults having a mid-life crisis, teens transitioning to college, kindergartners, retired folks. It’s
I don’t even remember what Perception: Part Two was going to be. Why? Because less than 24 hours after writing Part One, I struck my head on an overhanging concrete stair at work and began a many month, unexpected journey into the world of recovering from a concussion. It strikes me ironic that my last
A recurring theme in my experiences as a musician–both performing and teaching–is how subjectively people perceive situations. As a performer I have noticed–often to my own shock and dismay–that there seems almost no correlation between how I feel about my performance and what people have to say about it afterwards. It has taught me that
I thought Field of Dreams was a really strange movie when I saw it. I’m not sure I remember it correctly. But the resonance of a piece of art is sometimes unrelated to your appreciation of it at the time. The phrase “Build It and They Will Come” (applied in the movie to Kevin Costner’s
Better put: boring lives achieve more. I spend a large portion of a typical week in one room, a beautifully equipped 220 square foot music studio with 11 guitars, a drum set, a 88 key synthesizer and a full recording setup. My house is on the same road as my studio, 7 miles south. I
I not only teach guitar and bass, but direct a music school that has over 30 instructors. I have never advertised a job opening. But I get lots of unsolicited resumes. In looking over resumes, I often don’t see the real information I’m looking for. What’s most important to me is your philosophy of teaching,
When you are fresh out of music college, you imagine teaching in collegiate terms. I’ve had many young teachers who work at my music school, Kaleidoscope, advertise that they teach (say) guitar, songwriting, music theory, composition. The reality is that your entire evening might be six- to ten-year-old students who are beginners. Scales suddenly become
I was asked a couple years ago, almost accusingly, how I could possibly have so many private students… week in and out. The tone of my inquirer suggested either a) I was using some sort of voodoo magic or b) I wasn’t playing fair (taking more than my fair share of the available clientele in the