Beginner Guitar & Bass

The first lesson or two will likely involve assesing a student's current abilities, musical goals, and interests. From there, creating a plan for study should include learning new concepts but also learning how to apply them through musical examples, be it music a student already enjoys, or exploring new music to as well. The most important element is to find out what excites and inspires a student so that they continue to want to practice and learn more. I believe that learning HOW music works is important, rather than just memorizing countless chords and scales, but learning theory is something that must be done carefully and in context, because it can be something that is easy to understand if done well or with flexibility, or it can end up frustrating if done rigidly or from the wrong angle. Knowing if and when to approach these sorts of higher concepts really depends on the student, their age and music experience, and their own learning styles and ways of best understanding concepts.

I began my college education as an Elementary Education major, though finished my Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with an Holors College degree as well from Ball State University. While I currently have sparse experience giving formal musical education directly throughout my life, I have much occupational experience working with children and/or behavioral learning, on top of almost fifteen years of personal experience as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and performer.

I start out at $20 for a flexible half hour lesson (flexible meaning if we end up going a bit over that, it's fine, no worries about extra cost). If you request that I drive to your location, I may add another $5-10 depending on distance, but the afforemention cost also includes my own time outside the lesson to prepare and do some lesson planning for each student.

While I don't have formal experience giving music lessons, I have given them informally to friends and family here and there throughout my life. I also have other experience tutoring or training others in other areas, such as behavioral therapy or even just job training as a store manager. I have a diverse work history, so that has provided me lost of opportunities to learn how to teach very different skills to different people in different ways!

Outside of music, I have taught students ages 2-17 primarily through my different job experiences. For music specifically, I have mostly given a few lessons to peers and family around my same age or younger. I am not opposed to working with adults of any age, though; my experience just lends itself to working with younger students primarily.

I recently began working at a local instrument repair store and have had the opportunity to start learn a lot more about instruments, effects pedals, as well as building or repairing them. While not a major, singular event, my main goal currently is to start working solely in the music field so that I can turn music from a side hobby into my profession, one way or another.