I have been teach­ing in the local area since 2010 both pri­vately and for the Strat­ford Music Cen­tre on numer­ous instru­ments. I teach mainly from home, but am able to travel if needs be. I offer very com­pet­i­tive rates for both hour and half hour ses­sions so can cater to every need. Whether you’re 8 or 80, there will always be an instru­ment for you and I want to be the per­son to show you!

Gui­tar

I started learn­ing gui­tar at the age of 10 after I wanted to learn some­thing new, hav­ing played the vio­lin for 3 years pre­vi­ously. My love of the gui­tar and music in gen­eral launched into the stratos­phere after I made this deci­sion, and I can hap­pily say I’ve never looked back! At 16 I’d gained my grade 8 Rockschool exam and had started my aca­d­e­mic jour­ney into a pro­fes­sional music career at Strat­ford Col­lege study­ing the Music BTEC. I con­tin­ued to develop aca­d­e­m­i­cally when I went to Coven­try Uni­ver­sity and thor­oughly stretched myself play­ing reper­toire at a licen­ti­ate diploma stan­dard for my final year in 2013. I’ve got quite an eclec­tic taste in music, mainly swing­ing towards rock and metal, how­ever my real love is pro­gres­sive rock. Span­ning from clas­sic 70s prog like Yes and Gen­e­sis, to mod­ern pro­gres­sive metal bands like Dream The­ater and Haken, I will lis­ten to it all. I think it’s the real com­plex­i­ties in time sig­na­tures and har­mony that really grab my atten­tion and make me think wow!

Bass Gui­tar

I am com­pletely self-​taught on bass, hav­ing thrown myself straight in when I joined Mid­lands band Cyanide Later. Hav­ing been used to string instru­ments for some time, the bass came very quickly to me, which has helped me to gain a good rep­u­ta­tion for being a top qual­ity player in the local area. Through play­ing bass I have come to appre­ci­ate many of the leg­ends of the indus­try such as Jaco Pas­to­rius and Flea for their flu­id­ity and speed of play­ing, and their abil­ity to with­stand the blisters!

Vio­lin

My first love. I started vio­lin when I had only just turned 7 after a local music teacher saw my poten­tial whilst I was in a singing for fun group. Why I picked the vio­lin, I don’t know, but I think it was the best deci­sion of my life. Since then it has enriched my life every day and I can hap­pily say I have no regrets. I achieved my grade 8 ABRSM exam aged 18, and am cur­rently the leader of the sec­ond vio­lins for Strat­ford Sym­phony Orches­tra. If I was to pick a favourite period of clas­si­cal music, I don’t think I could really say a spe­cific era. How­ever my favourite com­posers would have to be Stravin­sky, Mahler, Vaughan Williams, Delius, and Rach­mani­nov to name but a few. My real hero is Nigel Kennedy, who has bro­ken down the class bar­rier for clas­si­cal music and made it acces­si­ble to every­one. He adds a very play­ful side to an often quite stuffy genre of music, just look up his ver­sion of Monti’s Czardas!

Ukulele

Another com­pletely self taught instru­ment, I actu­ally learnt by chance as I was asked to do some cover teach­ing for a friend so had to quickly learn it in a week! It’s a very acces­si­ble instru­ment to learn as they’re cheap to buy and easy to learn. Like all instru­ments it can be learnt at any age, as at one stage I was teach­ing a stu­dent in her sev­en­ties, so it can be done! I try to avoid the cliché music of Hawaii and George Formby, but if that’s what you want to learn then I am more than happy to oblige.