Acoustic Guitar with Keven K.

I have been a guitarist for 15 years. I'm well versed in many styles from rock to metal, classical to jazz, and many styles in between. I mostly compose on the 8 string guitar for my progressive metal band and have been performing in various bands for the past 10 years. I have studied with notable rock, classical, and jazz guitarists. I completed my undergraduate degree in Musicology with a focus on classical guitar, and have recently earned my Master of Fine Arts in Sound Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I have taught privately and at music academies. My students ages have ranged from 7-70 from beginner to intermediate/advanced. My main specialty is electric guitar but I am also well versed in acoustic guitar techniques like finger-style and hybrid picking. Each student comes from a different ability and learning level so every lesson is specific to the student's needs. For beginners I like to start with proper ways of holding the guitar ie left and right hand placement and then jump into reading tablature and playing basic riffs of rock and roll like Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and Iron Man by Black Sabbath. From playing single string riffs, we move onto power chords and more complicated melodies and songs. Reading standard notation is highly stressed and the fun rock stuff is usually supplemented with reading out of Hal Leonard Guitar books. Once a basic proficiency is reached we move onto more advanced topics like scales, chords, and the theory/harmony behind them. I try to balance the more theoretical and technique based approaches to guitar with learning favorite songs of the student and other classic/contemporary rock songs. Other topics covered in lessons are listening to music(especially the music you are trying to learn), writing/composing, playing with and improvising with others, rhythm and soloing techniques.