Studies: Private Guitar Lessons 1967-1987:
Education & Degrees :
Currently employed/teaching at:
Previously taught at:
Early Education:
In 1977 I graduated Claremont HS and attended Berklee College of Music (Boston, Mass).
In 1978 I then became a student at the Dick Grove School of Music (formerly in Studio City, CA), and since then have studied with many top notch Los Angeles studio guitarists, classical and jazz guitarists for many years, and more recently several graduate level music theorists and composition teachers/composers and musicologists.
While I was at Berklee College of Music, the main guitarist that totally changed my life was jazz guitarist, Pat Martino. It was my early time learning from jazz guitarist Pat Martino at his hotel room seminars given for a handful of us Berklee students that Martino opened my eyes and raised my total awareness and fully understand the concept of self-instruction and using music and the guitar fingerboard itself as the source of information.
Many players now are coming out of Guitar Institute of Technology (known as GIT) and people often wonder if I attended GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology). As a full time student at Dick Grove, they had many of the same teachers that were also teaching at GIT including many of my own teachers: Joe Diorio, Ron Echete, Ted Greene, Robben Ford and several other high-level Los Angeles studio guitarists.
The Dick Grove school employed many of the same guitarists who taught at GIT, and featured almost all of them during weekend guitar seminar classes as part of the Grove guitar program, chaired by Russ Tuttle.
During the time I was at Dick Grove in the late 1970's and early 1980's, GIT was still somewhat undeveloped and did not have anywhere near what it contains today. I studied Harmony and Composition with Dick Grove himself, and I have integrated Dick Grove's Modern Harmonic Relationships method and Chord Family concepts alongside traditional classical functional harmony to my own teaching methods for the past 40+ years.
My main early influential teachers in my life have been:
Several years later, many valuable (private) information sessions (not really actual sit-down traditional guitar lessons, per se) spent personally with Allan Holdsworth.
Later Education:
For the study of Music Theory and Musicology my main influential teachers have been Dr. Kathy Lamkin, Dr. Reed Gratz, Dr. Nancy Van Deusen and Dr. Robert Zappulla along with Dr. Peter Boyer.
For composition I give many thanks and full credit to my professor, Dr. Edward Zeliff.
I firmly believe that mapping out the guitar itself can be the best information source, and that time spent learning and playing music itself is absolutely the best teacher. By studying one person's method or another person's method you only seek to form a logical system to understand deeper that which is already available directly from the instrument and the music itself! This is why some of the greatest musicians and guitarists in the world are primarily self taught - John McLaughlin - self taught, Allan Holdsworth - self taught, Wes Montgomery - self taught, Eric Johnson - self taught, Frank Zappa- self taught, Dick Grove- self taught. To me it becomes increasingly evident that the information is available to anyone and that lessons are only a means and an organized path to follow to understand music.
I believe I have developed a method (Scaletone System for Guitar and Bass) that is far superior to anything currently being taught in any school and I would like to offer my skills and method to you here in these lessons.