Tara Linhardt

I am an award-winning multi-instrumentalist who has had a passion for teaching music for many years.  I teach Mandolin, Guitar, and Ukulele and theory lessons. I have won many awards for my skills as an instrumentalist and some for songwriting. I began with classical and folk guitar playing as a kid, and then also fell in love with the mandolin as a young adult. I have taken first place in instrumental contests such as at The Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention, the Maury River Fiddler's Convention, Watermelon Park Festival, and The Deer Creek Fiddler's Convention just to name a few.  I also have been nominated in multiple years for Washington DC bluegrass instrumentalist of the year. I have performed in Bluegrass, Swing Jazz, Irish, folk, blues, and Himalayan-Appalachian bands, as well as some others. I have not only been working professionally as a performance, recording, and teaching musician over many years, but also am sometimes hired to give talks and presentations on traditional Appalachian music, Himalayan musics, the history of mandolins, etc. I made a documenatry film along with some colleagues on the history and culture of Appalachian and Himalayan musics called The Mountain Music Project as well. I have performed, done screenings,  and given lectures and presentations as such places as at National Geographic, The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, The Rubin Museum, Vassar College, and a number of Universities, Arts Organizations, etc. That being said, I am happy to just cut to the chase and help my students learn to just play some tunes, improvise on, and soup-up some songs, or also to incorporate music theory and music history into a lesson if questions arise. 

I love teaching music and helping folks get into the fun of playing song and tunes, jamming, improvising, songwriting, doing standards, etc as soon as possible. I like my students to have fun with their lessons as well as learning a lot.  I do have a Masters in Education and also have learned a lot of my music in jam session in various types of jams and stage situations over the years in bluegrass, old-time, gypsy jazz, folk, blues, and world music contexts.   I have found it best to find and teach the fun in music and after that is established the music theory and repertoire of tunes just follows and is incorporated easily in over time. I have studied different styles of music and I think that has helped my over all playing abilities in all of the genres. I can teach many aspects of music theory of a variety of styles of music but I do not require all my students to have to learn to read music if they do not want to. Some people can do great approaching music from different angles. For some of my teaching I am happy to use tablature, sheet music reading, adding audio recordings, showing folks fingering patterns on the fretboard, and/or whatever will work best in my opinion for a given student given their level, background, and learning style. 

I teach each student based on their level and interests and what I think will be the most effective tunes, techniques, and strategies so I do not wed myself to a particular book or text. I do have some resources I can share, or make, or use depending on what we are working on so the students can have something written as well as audio play along recordings that I can custom make for students as we go along.  I love to help my student reach their goals as fast and as fun as possible!