Teaching Studio

(more information on my Thumbtack profile)

Teaching privately has been my primary source of income for almost two years now, and I can say with absolute sincerity that it’s one of the best and most fulfilling parts of my life as a musician in New York. I’ve worked with students at all levels and of all ages (this is no exaggeration - my youngest student has been 4, oldest has been 75). I am profoundly passionate about music not only as my own personal means of expression but also as a shared social experience and as an opportunity for others, of all ages and all skill levels, to experience joy and to grow as people. I believe that a good, encouraging, supportive teacher can not only help a student develop musical skills, but also gain self-confidence.

My teaching practice spans guitar at all levels, bass guitar, songwriting/lyricism/production, and avant-garde composition. I’m comfortable teaching a very wide breadth of repertoire, techniques, concepts, approaches to theory, but I view all of it as a way to help the student get where they want to go. I have students are learning folk guitar, growing into more confident songwriters, playing bass in shoegaze bands, developing as avant-garde noise composers, or just, like, building some skills so they can jam on the weekends. I’m into all of it.

I am comfortable working with notation or by ear according to the desires of the student. I strongly believe in the value of ear-training and often teach melodies, rhythms, etc, through singing and clapping. I’m happy to work with many modes of notation according to the student’s goals, which include (but are not limited to) Western staff notation and tablature.

For fun - some recent undertakings with students have involved breaking down music by Big Thief, Tame Impala, Bonnie Light Horseman, Alex G, Tom Petty, Simon and Garfunkel, James Brown, Fela Kuti, and Nirvana, as well as conversations about topics in music theory including introductory functional harmony; creative approaches to developing voicings on the guitar; practice strategies for playing chord changes; aurally-driven methods of internalizing rhythm; and just intonation. I’m as comfortable (and happy) teaching a beginner who loves music but doesn’t know anything about the guitar how to adjust their hand to comfortably play a G chord as I am talking about bebop changes, the lyricism of Frank Ocean, or the harmonic series.

My own journey as a guitarist been going for 14 years now. That time has taken me from playing rock, bluegrass, and jazz in bands and combos through to high-level study at New England Conservatory, where I majored in Contemporary Improvisation and minored in Music Theory, and studied with Joe Morris, Anthony Coleman, and Stratis Minakakis, as well as at Oberlin College, where I studied jazz guitar with Bob Ferrazza, and at the Savannah Music Festival, where I worked directly with Julian Lage and Bryan Sutton. In this past year, my own musical practice has involved releasing my first record of songs (called Torso, artist name Cole Blu), scoring a film, running a concert series for experimental music, putting together two bands, and finishing my first record of contemporary classical music. (And teaching, a lot, which was really fun.)

My pricing model can be adjusted according to need. Let's chat!