Experienced tutor in Guitar in Philadelphia, John offers private lessons tailored to your needs.

John is not only an excellent guitarist, but he also has great pedagogical intuition, which is no doubt influenced by his own extensive experience being taught by world-class guitarists. Despite considering myself to be a pretty good self-learner, John has been able on numerous occasions to point out and help me eliminate various subtle inefficiencies in the motion of both my left and right hands, which has led to more fluidity and less flubbing in my playing. The result is a more enjoyable playing experience with less frustration, as well as more freedom to focus on artistic interpretation. I can't recommend John highly enough.

John is an excellent teacher. Even though I have only had a few lessons with him, he has made a major impact on my playing. First, he improved my tone by carefully analyzing my fingernail shape and how I was striking the strings, and then showing me how to file my nails more effectively, The difference is tone was amazing. He then came up with new fingerings for some Bach and Borroso pieces I was working on that made difficult passages easier to play as well as more musical sounding. John also made other recommendations for phrasing and highlighting the melody lines, which came from his careful listening to my playing. Between lessons, he was available for lengthy email discussions and he send me PDFs of music I requested. Finally, John is very warm, personable, and approachable, and he offers critiques and recommendations in a matter-of-fact, generous manner that makes it easy to hear. He is also willing to share his own struggles with the classical guitar, which is disarming and reassuring. Oh-- and BTW he is an excellent player! I've loved listening to him play either live or in videos.

I worked with John for a short amount of time. In that brief period he corrected my technique, made music theory enjoyable, and became someone I talk about music with. He values the lesson time as much as you and makes learning fun by having you choose what you want to learn. Practice never feels like practice and I often found myself putting in more work to make the lessons more informative. John is a down to Earth guy and I would 100% recommend taking lessons with him!