Jesse Wilson Music Lessons

Jesse is a native of Tulsa, OK who recently relocated to the Sandy Springs area of Atlanta. He is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist and holds a Bachelors of Music in Music Composition from the University of Tulsa. Jesse has been a private piano teacher since 2012. During those years Jesse has taught all ages and all skill levels. It is his goal to teach his students the importance of classical training while doing so with unconventional means and allowing for a more organic growth of the student’s abilities and curiosities about music. Since beginning teaching, Jesse has found great enjoyment in teaching beginner piano and introduction to music theory. Jesse wishes that aside from teaching his students how to play the piano, that he is able to make each student realize that they have the potential to do, discover, and find happiness in anything they choose to do.

Jesse’s earliest memories of music are of his father singing Motown classics throughout his childhood at home and while riding in the car. In the sixth grade, Jesse joined beginners band playing flute. From there, Jesse quickly learned that music was an amazing and inspirational outlet for him and decided one instrument would not suffice. Jesse began learning other instruments, bassoon, percussion and eventually in High School, joined the drum line for marching band. These instruments helped Jesse grow as a musician yet there was still an instrument he had always wanted to tackle, the piano. Growing up in an African American Baptist church, Jesse had always been fascinated by his church’s piano player who was missing several of her fingers but could still make the congregation rise to their feet and dance every Sunday morning.

After explaining his desire to learn the piano to his parents he was devastated to learn his family simply couldn’t afford private piano lessons. When his church congregation caught wind of such news they bestowed a gift unto Jesse’s life that would change it forever. They began paying for his piano lessons. With already knowing how to read music in both treble clef and bass clef, piano came naturally. For quite some time his family was still unable to purchase a real piano and he remembers practicing on a simple, long sheet of paper that was printed with a diagram of the piano keys. Eventually, again with the help of his church, Jesse was finally able to get a real upright piano which he still has to this day. It wasn’t long after the gift of that piano that Jesse was writing short instrumental songs although having very little knowledge of music theory.

From those early songs sprang a desire to compose music in longer and more in depth forms. While sitting in church one day his mother asked just what he planned on doing in the future with his new found interest. The answer came quickly and uninterrupted, Jesse wanted to compose music for video games. With that goal in mind, Jesse graduated high school and began to study at The University of Tulsa where he was classical trained and eventually graduated Cum Laude with his Bachelors of Music in Music Composition. Growing up without much knowledge of classical music and attending a classically training school proved to be a challenge for Jesse during those years. But it wasn’t long before he began to forge his own way through the classical training school as he discovered CDs in the school’s library of 20th century “Tape Music” and “Electronic Computer” composers.

These composers such as, Terry Riley, Morton Subotnick, and Milton Babbit, spoke music composition in a way that Jesse could understand through the transformation of sounds rather than the strict classical modulation of intervals and pitches. During his time at The University of Tulsa Jesse held several forward thinking recitals that included live computer improvisations and collaborations with art students from the University to recreate the installation art pieces which he had learned about from the many electronic composers he admired. Although he turned down the opportunity, Jesse was accepted into the Electronic Music Composition Masters program at Mills College in San Francisco where many of the artist he learned about at The University of Tulsa had studied.

Since college, the piano has taken Jesse to discover people and places he never would have imagined. Focusing more so on Pop piano in the last few years, Jesse has had experience in musical direction for the theater and special events, as well as experience in producing and recording pop and electronic music. Before relocating to Atlanta, Jesse was also a member of the Jason Ferguson band, which was chosen to play at the 2013 Center of the Universe festival in Tulsa, OK, which is currently the largest music festival in Oklahoma. From the friendships cultivated in that band, Jesse was chosen to play piano for Jason Ferguson as he opened for one of Jesse’s favorite artists, Anna Nalick.