Guitar Lessons with Theory Integration by North Carolina Central University Educator

Hey! I'm Ben, a guitarist who loves to help others learn guitar! I've been playing about 25 years and have been teaching professionally since 2005. I can take you from the basics all the way to improvising a solo, or how to write your own songs. I'm comfortable in rock, jazz, blues, r&b, and many other styles. I play acoustic and electric. I can teach you about music theory and how it applies to the guitar fretboard. I help students understand the guitar and understand music. What do you want to learn? That's what we will work on in our lessons. As for credentials, I have a masters of music in Jazz Studies from North Carolina Central University, and I got my bachelors degree with a minor in music from Appalachian State University. One of my favorite musical styles to play is swing: the music of Django Reinhardt and jazz from that era really speaks to me.

For the adult student, I will ask you, 'What do you want to learn?' The answer to that will be what we will use to structure our lessons. You may need to work on certain right or left hand techniques to achieve what you want to do, so we will develop a plan for that. Many students start by wanting to be able to play a certain song, or the music of a certain artist. For beginners, I break songs down to the first steps, progressively adding more and more layers as your skills develop. I can help you learn to read music if that's what you'd like to do. For younger students, I use method books to guide the creation of basic skills. Parents generally want reading music to be a part of their child's leaning plan, but there many areas of guitar that do not stress that skill. I use backing tracks and play-alongs to augment students' practice experiences. I weave music theory into everything I teach.