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BM, NYU Steinhardt, Music Composition & Theory, with intensive study in Jazz Bass & Classical Guitar
2018 - NYU Steinhardt Composition Department Graduate Award 2018 - Composer Fellowship at Nief-Norf Summer Festival (Knoxville, TN) 2017 - Cisum Percussion composer residency 2015-2017 - New York Youth Symphony student composer 2015 - Atlantic Music Festival composer residency
I'm a passionate and motivated music teacher, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who is sharing the love of music with curious and excited minds of all ages and backgrounds! My journey with music began when I started playing the guitar about 16 years ago, and have since picked up a myriad of other instruments, and additionally have seriously explored classical composition and music production. I recently graduated from NYU's Steinhardt School with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Theory & Composition, where, in addition to my degree studies in composition, I also studied Jazz Bass and Classical Guitar performance with top professors. I perform regularly all over NYC in countless bands, and work frequently in recording studios, both as an instrumentalist and as a producer. I have a strong classical background but also have a passion and professional involvement with hip-hop, soul, RnB, rock, metal, and more, so I'm happy to teach any student absolutely whatever style that they're most interested in, and love to find ways to infuse musical literacy skills into these styles!
I began teaching occasional guitar and bass lessons while in high school, and toward the end of high school, During summers in between years of college, and before college, I taught/coached several groups of young musicians in fledgling bands, guiding them through the steps required for both cohesive performance and original songwriting. Since then, I've continued teaching private students, and have expanded my teaching domain to include (and often focus on) songwriting, composition, music production, and music theory. I love sharing the amazing feeling of mastering a new musical skill and integrating it into your vocabulary with any student of any age or skill level, as these experiences were extremely formative for me as a young musician, and those same skills have brought me endless joy and satisfaction over the years.
Because every student learns differently and processes music in different ways, I tend to try to build an entirely new curriculum for each student, based on their interests, age, and skill level. For beginning classical guitar students, I use Aaron Shearer's "Classic Guitar Technique", and then move onto simple repertoire, but for other less classically-oriented instruments (Electric Bass, for example), I use music that the student is already interested in to build lessons in instrument technique, music theory, listening skills and more. I'm also an enormous advocate of communal learning, so developing skills playing, performing, and composing with other musicians, both more advanced musicians and similarly-skilled colleagues, are important skills that I focus on in my teaching.
My teaching style is overall based on building skills, technique, and general awareness in individualistic lesson settings, and then applying those skills in hands-on exercises, be them exercises in composition, performance, recording, or anything else! I encourage students to collaborate with their peers as much as possible, and often bring more than one student together to play, write, and jam in a double or sometimes even triple lesson setting. A community of friends is essential for a young musician to be able to build a relationship with music based on excitement, fun, and a shared love of the musical experience. I do my best to build all angles of this on the independent musical interest of the students, and I often will spend my own lesson planning time listening to what a student listens to, seeking potential lessons and skills to build on music the student is familiar with already, and also to expose them to more music they might be similarly inspired by.