My Story Teaching Guitar in Boston

There has never been any shortage of guitar players and instructors in Boston. We have international headline players of world renown, the esteemed faculty of Berklee College of Music, Longy School of Music, New England Conservatory (NEC) and other prestigious music schools; and also many students who are constantly being churned through there.

When I told my advisors at Berklee I was going to teach guitar for a living, and do it before I graduated, they were a bit skeptical. With so much competition, how could I develop my own roster of students?

After seeing first hand that even pouring hours per day into practice doesn't guarantee results, I became obsessed with the idea that inputs ≠ outputs. I read about musicians and developing musical skills and was somewhat disappointed. With a few exceptions, there was relatively little good information about how people get good at playing an instrument.

Consider that a person may be very physically active, walk many miles a day, and do strenuous labor, but still not develop into an elite athlete or even have the type of body that they might desire. And yet others are able to achieve outstanding results in even a fraction of this time. Even elite athletes often only train for an hour or two per day.

I was convinced that effective results are a product of quality practice, focusing on the right problems at the right times. And that this is true for busy professionals who'd like to learn an instrument as well as for players aiming to develop truly advanced ability.

The lessons I have acquired along the way not only have helped me to improve as a musician and guitar player, but have inspired me in everything that I do. At age 28 I began learning Mandarin, and even achieved a very high level of ability (professional working ability). Native speakers often say that they can't hear any accent at all in my voice.

This is considered unusual for adult learners of foreign languages because neuroplasticity declines gradually with age. But when you learn how learning itself works, it starts to feel like anything is possible.