Learn "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift on Ukulele

Hi there.  My name is Mr. Jeff.  I've been a professional musician, songwriter-composer and music educator for over 25 years.  I've taught classes at colleges and music schools in Washington, California, and New Jersey.  My classes have consistently received great student reviews and I pride myself in quality, easy-to-understand classes taught in a fun manner. I've been playing guitar since I was a boy and playing ukulele for about 7 years.  I've commercially released 4 guitar-based albums and one ukulele based album of my original music.

Among the first classes I'll be offering thru Outschool will be one called
"It's All About You."  In this class you'll learn the steps needed to write a poem or a song lyric about someone you should be quite familiar with: YOU!   I'll show you ways to go about finding rhyming words and synonyms that are going to make your poem or song lyric that bring out the right energy, mood, and essence of you.  I'll give you tips on how to find the right words and avoid the wrong ones.  And then, with a little work on your part, you should be on the right path to writing an interesting and fun poem or song lyric.  "It's All About You"  will initially be offered as a 3 session course, 45 minutes per class.

Some other classes I'll be offering are how to play 2 hit Taylor Swift songs on ukulele: "Shake It Off" and "Me"  In these one-session classes, I'll show you the 3 or 4 chords you'll need to play these songs, give you tips on how to move from chord to chord, and then guide you through the chords in the order they appear in the song.  And if you put in some practice time at home you should be able to play along with the recordings either at full speed or at reduced tempo (and I'll show you how to do that, too).  In the near future I hope to offer other single song how-to-play uke classes for hit songs featuring other popular artists such as Adele, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, etc.

My style of teaching is all about fun, focus, being flexible and accommodating, and doing everything I can to ensure students understand and do what I'm instructing .  Along with those observational skills, I always do my best to try to present the material in an engaging and easily understandable manner.

My passions are guitar, ukulele, music and songwriting and I believe my students can pick up on my love of music and teaching almost immediately.  I always try to give my all to each student and each lesson and students tend to pick up on this and stay with me for years rather than weeks.  That along with the fact that I play and understand and am qualified to teach a variety of genres and styles.

I plan on offering more ukulele, songwriting, and creative writing classes thru Outschool in the near future, so be on the lookout for those.

And to close out on a personal and fun note, I believe that many obstacles can be conquered. I say that from my own experience, specifically when I learned guitar as a kid.  I started guitar lessons at around age 11.  My teacher (who had a band signed to a major record label at the time) watched me hold the guitar and fumble my way through a chord or two and then he told me in no uncertain terms: "You're left-handed, you're goofy, and you've got no natural ability on the guitar."  Yet, miraculously somehow, even as a shy only-child, I didn't run out the door of his house.  Instead, I hung in there, tried as hard as I could, and continued lessons for a few years.  And about 2 years into those, that same teacher would go out of his way to introduce me to his other students, saying: "Hey-say hi to this guy here, he's my best student!"  Yup!  He was referring to me.  
Oh, yeah--one other part to the story--25 years later my teacher called on me to be a guest performer and play guitar on his album.  Quite the turnaround.  So I'm a firm believer in people's ability to overcome obstacles and succeed at something they may not have natural skills in.