Jeffrey L.

I was in band class in middle school where I had played the tuba. Band class is where I got a solid idea of how rhythm works, how time signatures exist within music, how to read (and sight read) music, and generally how to keep up with a full band as a whole. I took music appreciation where I had learned about how music was like from literally the beginning of time, to modern day era. I learned how music affected us as musicians, and where music began to evolve into a more formulated structure as seen in pop song hits we have today. I was in band class for two years of high school, where I had played percussion instruments. In those classes I learned how to keep up with extensive rhythm, and how to further elaborate my time signature skills, as well as being the backbone of the full band.

My private education involved copious amounts of music theory. I had spent hours with my instructor in which he taught me the basics of music theory, and eventually more advanced content. I learned complex musical languages, such as circle of fifths, differences between harmonies and melodies, key annotations in music, advanced time signatures, major and minor scales, scale degrees, modes, basic chords, diminished chords, 7-9-11 chords, chord progressions, transcribing music to different keys, applying key changes mid song, getting advanced look at song structures, and many many more things I had picked up either through my then music teacher, or through simply reading about it in my various music books.

As of recently, my current band, Between Then And Now, has been playing shows in the San Antonio era, where we have been drawing crowds of around 30-60 people every show. We have been told that we are filled with energy and know how to keep a crowd entertained, on top of having great music to go with it. This is the last band I plan on performing in, as I plan on this band to take me and our members straight to the top of the music industry.

As of recently, though, I got serious about teaching when I took my best friend of the last 5 years, Ashwin Chary, under my wing. Ashwin wanted to learn how to play guitar, but didn't really know how or where to start. I helped him pick out an acoustic guitar (since in my opinion, that's the absolute best type of guitar for a beginner to start), and from there I've taught him proper guitar holding technique, how to properly strum a guitar with down/up movements, how to form various chords, how to fit those chords in with various other chords, how to apply scales to the songs he's writing, how repition in music is never a bad thing, how to write in 4/4 and 3/4 time signatures (, and even both at the same time), how to properly jump around the fretboard seemlesly, and just about anything that a beginning guitar player would NEED to know. This started in January of this past year, and the progress he's made since then has blown my mind. He always tells me that without me and the lessons I have been giving him, he wouldn't be nearly as good as he is right now, and that warms my heart. There's still a lot of teaching to give to him, but right now, he's been progressing at a rate that I've never really seen before.