About Me

A brief biography about yours truly.

• About Your Teacher
  My experience as a guitarist started at age 16. I had taken lessons here and there and had been in different garage bands, but I had never had the opportunity to really excel in guitar. In the fall of ’89, I decided I had to take my playing further and enrolled in the GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology) course held at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California.
  
  The GIT course provided a wealth of knowledge as well as many opportunities to play and perform with extremely talented players from all over the world. After receiving my GIT certificate, I decided to share what I had learnt and become a teacher myself. In 1990 I began my career as a private teacher.
  
  My reputation as a teacher in the London community opened up an opportunity to become the first electric guitar teacher at the Western Ontario Conservatory of Music (now Conservatory Canada). Once I completed my contract with Western I began teaching privately again.
  
  
• The Joy of Teaching
  Since my first experience as a guitar teacher back in 1990 I knew I was on to something. Sharing what I had learned with my students and watching them grow musically was an absolute joy. It also gave me a chance to learn about the people in my community, something I would never had been able to do in any other capacity.
  
  Spending just 30 minutes, once a week helped me to learn lots about my students´ personality, ambitions and concerns. When you teach, you´re not just teaching, you are also learning; learning about how different people respond differently to your teaching methods. For some, a direct method of looking at the material in front of them helped, while others responded more to talking through the material together, and others just wanted to play, play, play!
  
  I definitely love all the different personalities and dynamics each student brings in with them. They are as rewarding as they can be challenging and I´ve never had a student that didn´t teach me something in return.
  
  
• Guitar Ergonomics: More Gain, Less Pain
  Practice, practice, practice. It can be so much work, but did you know that if you are not playing properly that you can actually do more harm than good? We all know poor posture can cause problems with your back, but as a guitar player we can also do some serious damage to our wrist, neck and shoulder. My approach to the guitar adopts methods borrowed from the classical approach as well as a combination of styles borrowed from modern guitarists. The result is an ergonomic approach that frees the body from physical limitations and allows more energy to be spent learning.
  
  
• The Future: Never Stop Learning
  I´ve never been a big fan of method books. Playing out of other teachers´ material just did not sit right with me. I could never find books that I could adopt as THE best method of teaching. So I never used them. All the material I use to teach has been developed by myself to address the needs of my students. Through constant research I´ve continued to add and enhance my material. My goal is to never stop working and learning. I hope to pass down my personal dedication to learn onto my students, just to show how much fun learning can be.