Guitar with Matt M.

I am a professional jazz guitarist, singer-songwriter and teacher. I've been teaching music to students of all ages privately and in groups since 1998. After graduating from William Paterson University with a Bachelors Degree in Jazz Performance I spent 10 years in New York City working as a freelance musician and operating my own guitar studio. Since that time I have also been affiliated with several teaching studios, private schools, public schools and international schools. With a comprehensive background in Jazz, Classical and Rock guitar as well as electric bass, piano, music theory and voice; I am uniquely qualified to teach students of all ages and levels. As a teacher, I think it’s most important to provide my students with a well rounded musical education that focuses on and adapts to what they are interested in learning. Music lessons should be fun and I always keep that as my number one priority while also making sure that my students are getting a solid musical education that they will be happy with now and in the future. I pride myself on being patient, enthusiastic, empathetic and always prepared. I’m familiar with all of the most popular methods and have also created a large library of my own teaching materials. During my career, I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to teach several different populations in the US, Greece and Germany. These diverse experiences have been extremely challenging and helped make me into a stronger teacher. From 2001-2003 I taught at the Center for Individualized Training and Education(CITE) which is a special needs school in Providence, RI. At CITE, I worked with students ages 6-17 and learned a lot about how to use music to bring joy to students who are not necessarily able to engage in a traditional musical education. In 2016, I created a music program in Athens, Greece for refugee children seeking asylum. I worked in conjunction with the School Box Organization to raise money for instruments, and taught guitar and hand drum classes at a school they had set up in a refugee squat. Although I'm no longer at the school, I am still helping to oversee the program and plan to do more of this work in the future. During my time in New York City, I worked with kids attending some of the most exclusive private schools in the country and dealt with the challenge of fitting music into an extremely demanding and high pressure educational environment. All of these experiences have helped shape my teaching philosophy as well as my views on life and music. I am currently teaching students in Boston as well as online lessons in Canada, Europe and the US.