Whatever level of experience or skill a student is at, these lessons are personally tailored to meet them where they are in their musical development with the goals of increasing their technical abilities, developing their understanding of music and enjoyment of playing. 

Lessons will focus on:
Basics - how to tune properly, how the strings and frets work to make notes and chords
Chords - what they are, how they're played, various ways to play each chord, and an array of chord progressions
Scales - what they are, how they're played, and how to use knowledge of scales to create melodies, fills and solos
Theory - keys of songs, how and why different chords go together, and how the melody fits in
Songs - learning from existing songs is a great way to learn how to train your ears how to listen for chord changes, hear the key of the song and, by playing along, understand through example how it all comes together.

This is a hands-on lesson, so students should arrive ready to go with their guitar - acoustic and electric guitars are both appropriate for these lessons.

Here is what the first few weeks of private lessons may look like. Because every student comes to lessons at a different level, these outlines will vary. 

Week of 1/3: Assessment of skills & goals
Week of 1/10: Fundamentals of the guitar
Week of 1/17: First chords
Week of 1/24: Chord transitions
Week of 1/31: Additional chords
Week of 2/7: How chords work in a key
Week of 2/14: Intro to scales
Week of 2/21: Putting it all together


"Homework" and practice expectations will vary from student to student, but like any skill, the more you practice the more you're going to get out of it. I encourage learners to practice at least 15 minutes per day- this reinforces muscle memory and leads to better technical ability, which in turn results in more gratification from playing the instrument. What I find happens is that sometimes those 15 minutes are all someone can spare on a particular day and that's still beneficial. But some days those practice sessions stretch out and students get so engrossed they don't even really realize how much time is passing, and some real breakthroughs can come. My aim is to inspire joy from playing the guitar so practice becomes something fun to look forward to, rather than a chore or obligation. Usually, I'll have students practice the techniques learned in that week's class, but sometimes I'll give them a side project to work on during practice time to change things up a bit and avoid things becoming too routine.

Scheduling: Please message me to set up a day and time that works for you. These lessons will be scheduled based on the learner's availability.  Because this class is set up as private, ongoing lessons, over the course of that time period, it is not uncommon to run into scheduling conflicts from time to time. I have a flexible schedule, and I'm happy to arrange make-up times for the occasions when either the student or myself is unable to meet at our usual set time.