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Nick V In Home In Studio
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Instruments: Guitar
Styles: Pop, Rock, Blues, Folk, Latin, Funk, Hip Hop, Electronic, Reggae, Latin Jazz, Soul, Punk, Avant-garde

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Nick V   In Home In Studio
Instruments: Guitar
Styles: Pop, Rock, Blues, Folk, Latin, Funk, Hip Hop, Electronic, Reggae, Latin Jazz, Soul, Punk, Avant-garde

Where I Teach:
In Your Home My Studio
Ages Taught: 6-53
Levels Taught:

EMAIL US OR CALL 877-687-4524

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ABOUT
Degrees / Training / Special Info:

Accepted into Berkley School of Music in Boston, but decided for financial and and philosophical reasons to go a more self-directed path.

Awards:

2015- Being offered the opportunity to take further lessons with the guitarist Julian Lage.

2012 until present- Playing with multiple performing bands

2007- Making my first home recording

Overview:
When I was first introduced to music, I had a great guitar teacher named Jonny Rodgers, who offered lessons after school. He nurtured my love of music and interest in it, always giving suggestions and offering new things to learn, but never demanding a set path. He made music seem like a mystery that no one has figured out and that we were working together to learn more about it. As a result, I practiced liked crazy of my own volition and was able to realize my passion for music from a pretty young age, which I'm really grateful for. I would love to give that opportunity to other people interested in music, because it was so valuable for me. I'm very patient and warm and compassionate toward people and have had lots of nurturing influences in my life. I like to see people grow and believe that creative and expressive acts like music, are very fluid and don't have a one size fits all method. I would like to listen a student on his or her level and let that guide the process, and then offer knowledge and suggestions that will help people discover or achieve their goals. It's all about the student and making the process fun to help with the challenge, and letting people see that no ones really knows for sure what they're doing so it's okay to wade in and try whatever you're interested in. As for my playing, I've been playing seriously for about 12 years, or since I was 10, and right now am transitioning into becoming a performing and recording musician. I've gotten lots of helpful feedback from people over the years, who have been very encouraging of me and pushed me toward pursuing music as a career. I'm working on writing and singing now as well. Music is my biggest passion, and I listen and play as much as possible.
EXPERIENCE
I started teaching lessons when I was 16 working for a music day camp in Bellevue, WA. I loved working with young kids who liked rock music and had heart when it came to their love of music. My mom has been a teacher my whole life, and I believe in people passing on knowledge and experiences to each other to help people grow and discover the world.  I think my strongsuit would be in teaching players closer to the beginning of their playing journey, as that was the most formative time for me and when I had the strongest teacher influence in my life. Most of my philosphies would best work from a beginning player's perspective.  Having self-taught myself many things I think I can relate to player's who are similarly self-taught, play more intuitively, and haven't had a technical or theoretical background to a huge degree. I think I can help a lot with getting people out of the boxes they create for themselves in playing as that's my biggest goal as of late. And I definitely see music as being a hugely sacred and spiritual act that humans have been doing forever, and not just something that's taught in schools and done to win competitions or have careers, so I can relate to people's emotional connections to music and explore that side as well. Being able to express musically is a joy, and so my approach is to foster an engagement with it, and focus on your unique relationship with music, rather than forcing people to follow obligatory structures. More advanced players--my specialty area is improvisation and I think I could be of help for those interested in this area!
METHODS USED
First lesson: talk a bit about students' goals or if they don't know, or if they're just trying it out, it's all fine, and we'll go from there. I want to know what kind of music somebody likes and what gets them excited. Favorite songs can be goals for new students, so they can see results pretty early on. I had great teachers that showed me chords for my favorite Beatles and Beach Boy songs and that let me have fun while building up dexterity. As a guitar teacher, I don't emphasize note reading early on, unless that is desired, in which case there's few good books we can work through. But I found learning how to play yankee doodle over and over was a lot more tedious and frustrating, then getting that initial feeling of "I can play a song! This is what it feels like to play music!" that I got from learning songs early on. My guitar teacher had some great ways of introducing scales that I can pass along too, for those are interested in solos. I am really interested in improvistion and so for those who want to be a lead guitar player, I have lots to share in those areas.  Essentially, I try go by the student, and give lessons that will make someone push throught the challenging bits because it will be worth it for them. I want you to discover what's fun about music to you! Advanced players: more in depth talks, jamming together, and sharing ideas and philosophies. I have some excellent and sort of out of the box practice strategies that I learned from taking a few lessons with Julian Lage (which I hope to do more of, and pass along anything else that I learn). I am certainly not a theory master general, but if you want to talk about feel, improv, how emotion relates to music and look at things from a fresh perspective I think I could help out loads.
LESSON STYLE
I'm very encouraging and patient! I really think everyone goes at their own pace and anyone can get to what's fun about music for them with some practice. I'm here to help in any way. And am great at looking for what makes you tick, specifically, and then structuring lessons around what is inspiring and exciting to you. I try to make more technical aspects fun and help people through the initial phases of awkwardness or discomfort with a miminum of stress and allow to feel okay with the process and enjoy the progress that comes. If you're advanced I like taking a more individualized approach that can focus more on artistic concepts or ideas that may stretch how you are approaching the instrument and help remove boxes or patterns you may be feeling stuck in and identify new avenues that make you excited. 
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