Music Lessons in Oakland, NJ

Instruments: Piano Guitar Bass Guitar Double Bass Keyboard Electric Guitar Acoustic Guitar

I am an experienced and enthusiastic teacher who loves to share the joy of music with students of all ages. I also have an active performing career, mostly in jazz with occasional forays into the worlds of rock, folk, hip-hop, classical, and latin music. In addition to The Swingaroos, current projects include: The Milkman and Sons, Hello Bittersweet, and Fake Tapes. He began his musical journey on piano with Reese Scott, and then switched to bass. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice Trumpet Saxophone Flute Clarinet Recorder

I love to see students grasp concepts.  It is extremely rewarding to see students understand a concept and be able to explain how neat it is to a parent or friend.  When I get a new student, I get to know exactly what their goals are.  We set long term goals, and we make progress by setting manageable short term goals every week.  I inspire the student to reach their goals by providing tools to help, and custom lesson plans that are fun and engaging. Read More

Instruments: Piano Voice Music

My love of music and performance started at a very young age. Piano lessons at 8 and singing in choirs around 9 years old and I've never stopped. I received my Masters Degree and Performance Certificate in Classical Voice from Northwestern University and my undergraduate degrees in Vocal Performance and Music Composition from Texas Tech University. I specialize in classical music, R&B, pop, and speech work centered around gender and identity. Read More

Instruments: Guitar Bass Guitar

I have an open approach to teaching guitar, and encourage students to utilize knowledge obtained through my lessons in whatever context they prefer as opposed to gearing them towards a certain style of playing. Much of my own teaching was based in jazz, but I have managed to find myself utilizing much of what I was taught playing in a heavy, shoegazey rock band. The preferences of my students are important to me, and while setting goals for progress is important, it is important to me that students learn at their own pace and move forward on their own initiative. Read More

Instruments: Violin Viola

For beginners who are children, I start with the essential Suzuki method which includes a focus on musical listening imitation, parental involvement (at very young ages) and creating an effortless technique. The Suzuki books are great in that they provide a great foundation and an extremely logical progression for taking students from complete beginners to an advanced level. For advanced students, we can branch out into a wide variety of classical concertos or other repertoire (this happens around Suzuki book 6) I love to teach adults, and I try to structure my teaching in accordance with adult students' goals and interests. Read More

Instruments: Clarinet

My teaching style allows room for students to explore their own individual interests while remaining within a framework of achievable and incremental goals. One of the amazing things about music instruction is it allows people (especially younger students) to learn the process of incremental goal setting and achievement for long term success. I like to work with my students to develop a set of goals and a game plan for how they can achieve what might seem far off to them. Read More