Teaching

Lessons for Guitar, Ukulele, Drums, and Effects Pedals taught privately and through Presidio Hill School.

Approach: “Personally, I hated taking music lessons–they always seemed like a drag, focused as they inevitably were on music I didn’t really like or care about. Yeah, there’s some basics to get down, but I’m all about you, the student, playing the kind of music you like and are psyched about asap. Songs you like, styles you like, etc. If you actually reach the point where you’ve mastered all that, then, maybe, it’ll be time to move on to music you don’t like as much…”

Effects Pedal Lessons: “Like many musicians, I became intrigued by the potential of effects pedals to expand what I could do with instruments, but I spent YEARS and years and years hopelessly tangled up in them, wondering why they weren’t working, getting them to work only to find that what worked this time wouldn’t work next time, and sllloooowly, eventually (yet still), figuring out how not to get snagged in the innumerable pitfalls inherent in these sorts of things. Now I’ve actually got a rep for being pretty good at it, but It took me ages, and man, I gotta say I WISH there’d been someone around to give the kind of effects pedal guidance I’m offering here–I would’ve been spared years of agony and heartbreak, and been a lot better a lot sooner. Effects pedals (distortions, delays, phasers, loopers, etc) can exponentially expand what you can do with your instrument (or voice) …once you know enough not to be hamstrung by them. I can get you there a helluva lot faster then you would spending years stumbling blindly through trial-and-error like I did. A lot of what your favorite musicians do that seems ‘magical’ or the result of some unearthly genius can actually be done easily, by you, with the right pedals, at the right settings, in the right order–pedals that, these days, are readily available anywhere. I’ll show what these pedals can do, show you how to avoid frustrating technical pitfalls, and help you get that sound you’ve been after, as well as sounds/feels/textures/ you had no idea were actually in your grasp. The only possible downside is that you’ll kick yourself for not having done it sooner.”