James Lipka
About
I'm a graduate of Berklee College Music. I've been playing professionally for over 15 years, and in that time I've played almost every style you can think of. I've played in rock bands, blues bands, country bands, celtic groups, jazz combos, solo finger style gigs, and I've worked extensively as a pit musician. I've been fortunate to be able to play with many great musicians in virtually every scenario you can think of, and through that experience I've learned the real world skills necessary to be a successful musician, and those are the skills that I focus on in my teaching.
After teaching off and on throughout the years, I began teaching full time about 5 five years ago. Very quickly I became dissatisfied with a lot of the educational material out there. I found it to often be disorganized, overly complicated, or the material was not presented in an intuitive manner. I believe in breaking things down to their component parts, and taking an organized and thorough approach to learning. I began designing my own curriculum that builds skills one step at a time. For beginner students, I have a graduated program that will having you playing all of the basic chords and rhythms in no time. For more advanced students I have pathways for rock, blues, and finger style. I also offer a program that explores all of the triadic elements of the guitar, which is applicable to virtually any style. In addition to the harmonic and melodic elements of music, I also place a strong emphasis on the rhythmic aspects as well.
Bachelor of Music, Berklee College of Music
In addition to my own curriculum I recommend the following:
For younger beginners:
Hal Lenoard Guitar Books 1 & 2
For sighting reading:
A Modern Method for Guitar by William Leavitt, Books 1 & 2, as well as many of his associated reading studies.
For Classical Guitar:
The Carcassi Method Book