Lessons

My teaching philosophy:

You gotta love what you do. Except that in the case of a musical instrument, there are a number of things one must do first. You need a good technical foundation, tone, rhythm, and a grasp and understanding of the music (to know is to love) in order to develop a good interpretation. You will also develop good practice and sight-reading habits. I hope to involve you in ensemble playing at some stage. You need a large amount of patience and a commitment to practice diligently for about an hour a day. Only then can these skills grow (one of my teachers used to say that Rome wasn't built in a day). And once these skills are there, you will have such fun imparting pieces to any audience in your performances, and, of course, listening to yourself while you play and enjoying what you hear. Then you also learn to appreciate the subtleties of your favorite artists' playing more and more... I want to teach you everything I know from the beginning to the advanced stages of classical guitar, and renaissance and baroque lute.

I can also be of help with the rudiments of folk guitar playing - you will learn all about progressions, strumming, finger-picking, bar chords, the works! If you come for individual lessons, you can bring a CD of your favorite artist and I will teach you to play in that style. And in Theory, getting you to listen for and understand harmonic progressions.

I rent out guitars and lutes for my private lessons and classes. Lutes are usually custom-made and have waiting lists...but one can do quite well tuning the g-string to f# for the beginning and learning tablature and some wonderful pieces that way.

My individual lessons are $30 for 30 minutes, $45 for 45 minutes, and $60 for 60 minutes.

I speak Polish, German, English, French and Italian.