Garret S.

General Info

• Certified Music Teacher

  Certified Music Teacher

  Our rigorous hiring process requires a completed application; an interview with our professional recruiting specialists; personal and professional reference checks; and annual criminal background checks for the duration of each teacher's employment with us.

  
• Background Check Complete

  Criminal Background Check

  In order to ensure the safety of our students, all teachers undergo a thorough criminal background check, which includes: Social Security number trace, multi-state criminal search and a nationwide sex offender registry search.

  
• Levels: Beginner to Advanced

• In-Home Lessons: No
• In-Studio Lessons: No
• Ages: 5 & up

Subjects Taught

Bass Guitar, Guitar, Piano, Singing, Mandolin, Music Performance, Music Theory, Songwriting

Education

Laney College; Oakland, CA - Music and Fine Arts - 1981-1983 (Associate degree received)
Cal State Un. Northridge - Engineering - 1983-1985 (Bachelor's degree received)
Univ. of Southern Calif. - Electrical Engineering - 1987-1988 (Master's degree received)

Specialties

I prefer a harmonic (chord oriented) approach to teaching music, over the melodic (line oriented) approach. Chords are the base on which all melody rides, so a real understanding of music must begin with chords. I stress ear development, showing my students techniques to allow them to start figuring out favorite songs on their own as soon as possible. With voice students, I stress pitch, breathing, good tonal placement, and understanding how small changes in that placement can give your ... voice a whole different sound.

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Lesson Details

In general, I teach my students to first internalize the music you want to play--hear the song so deeply in your head, it's almost like an internal CD player. Once you can hear everything that's going on in a song, it's just a short leap to learning how to translate what you hear in your head to chord changes you make with your fingers. That's the secret to developing a golden "ear".

If say I'm teaching guitar, we start by learning the basic chords, then ... as soon as possible, we start ... stringing them together into songs. I encourage my students from the outset to bring in the songs they want to learn to play. Although I may recommend certain songs from time to time, in order to nail down some particular skill, I generally leave it up to the student to choose his or her own repertoire. So I'll teach you to play any song you like. But more importantly, I'll teach you how to go about figuring out songs on your own. That's a skill that can actually be taught, and once it's mastered, once you learn how to play by ear, you can truly become your own teacher! You also never have to buy sheet music again! (Which BTW is wrong at least 75% of the time!)

With my voice students, my emphasis is on developing correct pitch, proper breathing and good tonal placement. Every singer has a different vocal "mask" they generally sing from. While this often forms the basis of their unique individual style, sometimes it becomes a vocal "cage", limiting the voice or confining it to certain styles of music. I try to acquaint my students with techniques to break out the walls of the cage and explore all the vocal textures they're capable of. With the voice, as with any musical instrument, it's as much about listening and hearing as it is about singing. Singing harmony, for example, with another singer requires that your ear be attuned to the changing chords of the song. Otherwise your harmony will sound out of tune.

With my bass students, it's about learning patterns, scales, runs, chord progressions, but it's also about learning to play with good groove and accurate time, because the bass, in addition to framing the chordal structure of the song on the bottom, is an integral part of the rhythm section. And again, with the bass as well as with the guitar, training the ear to hear the changes is an integral part of being a true musician...able to play along in any situation, whether you've played the song before or not.

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