My Credentials

I am a career music teacher: I majored in Music Theory in college and I have been teaching ever since because it is my passion.  In 1996, I graduated from Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University.  I first started teaching music lessons out of my car by going into students homes.  After I got enough students, I taught for local music stores in my area of the far west suburbs of Chicago.  During that time, I did a stint as the Music Theory chairman of the Illinois State Music Teacher Association's Achievement in Music (AIM) exams.  After that, I opened my own commercial space in Naperville that I held onto for 13 years.  During that time, I wrote a guitar method, authored hundreds of sheet music arrangements for guitar and piano, and taught recorded hundreds of students.  I have now closed that studio and teach from home and at various tutoring centers.  

Though it's important to many people to have a teacher who is degreed in music like I am, I don't see my degree as the essential ingredient of being a good teacher.  In my opinion, there are plenty of excellent music teachers out there who are not degreed in music or any other subject.  I am a good teacher because I recognize a balance between music as a serious discipline and as a source of joy and humor.  Though I have always been my silly self as a teacher, as I have gotten older, I believe my teaching skills have aged like fine wine.   I know how to make learning music fun.  My greatest reward is when my young students grow up and tell me they still play their instruments and sing as adults -- this happens reliably often.  For me, that is the goal: to create a student who will have many lifetimes of gaining musical skills.