I spent about a decade of my life studying music in formal settings. Academia gets a lot right, but its biggest shortcomings stem from trying to distill or generalize information for the masses and having to assign grades by some semblance of a standardized metric. This means we get a lot of people who get A's but still can't really improvise well. I found that learning music in a classroom setting was difficult. The content was there, but the execution fell short.

 

I want to provide university-level improvisation instruction without overlooking the elements of nuance that are so integral to making music. Think of it like taking college improv, history, listening, and performance courses all rolled into one, plus the coaching element of private lessons and minus the grades and one-size-fits-all mentality. As such, these lessons aren't instrument-specific. The primary focus is on the art and process of skill-building as it relates to music performance and improvisation, so the emphasis is on your brain and inner ear. I want students to learn how to teach themselves by teaching them the process of self-instruction.

 

As I progressed through the university system, I started to feel that weekly lessons were so dense in terms of information that I needed more time to get the most out of them. I would leave lessons knowing that what I'd just learned would take weeks of studying and exploring, and balancing halfhearted practicing and math homework for a week wasn't giving me the best yield. I'd much rather students take a couple lessons to get started, learn how it works, and then come back once in a while if they feel they need more assistance. I'll help you become aware of things you should be paying attention to, you go spend some time on them, and come back when you feel you've made some progress or have questions. However, the goal isn't to tell you what you need to work on. Ultimately, the goal is to show you how to identify those shortcomings yourself so you can do it in the future. 

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In addition, I want to demystify the building blocks of music in a way that helps students practice efficiently. What's important about transcribing? What isn't? How do I use or ignore modes? Who do I want to sound like or draw elements from? How do I even do that? How do I say something in my improvisation? How do I play faster? How do I play ballads? Continue ad infinitum.

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These lessons focus on one central pillar, which is the idea that teachers can't improve you. Only you can improve yourself, and teachers can only guide. 

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