John Laufenberg
About
Hello! My name is John Laufenberg. I have over 20 years of real world experience in music that I apply to my lessons and teaching curriculum everyday. I also hold a College Degree of Musical Arts in Commercial Music Performance that I received in May 2012 with guidance from career greats Dick Gimble, Jon Fox, Beth Ullman, Bill Howard, and Pat McKee, among many others.
My musical training has always followed a very structured path. I initially began taking lessons in his early teen years, learning scales, chords, vocals, and basic songs like any other musician but it really became more than that for me. It became an outlet and helped fuel creativity in all other aspects of my life and I love getting the chance to pass that on to my students.
While playing with bands in college I began to learn to master other instruments along the way and studied other aspects of music including jazz, classical, songwriting, theater, music composition, and music business. In the years since, I've been on tour with Texas Country acts William Clark Green, Brandon Rhyder, Bri Bagwell, Josh Ward and many others.
I would describe it as results driven. Since I typically work with students one on one, I always try to clearly define the goals with each one. Not what I want to achieve, but what they want to achieve, what they expect from our cooperation. Then, considering their current level of musical skills, and what kind of personality they are, I come up with a clear plan for the entire year, including some milestones, in order to evaluate our progress regularly. Then I choose my teaching methods, adjusting them to the plan and the ultimate goal we have with the student.
I would say that my teaching method is highly adaptable. I do not really prefer one teaching method, or one way of interacting with the students in the classroom environment. Because in my opinion, every student is different, so is each lesson, and a good teacher should always adjust their teaching to their audience, the level of discipline in the class, the difficulty of the lesson, and so on. I simply prefer individual approach to teaching, and I alternate between being an authority, demonstrator, facilitator, and delegator. Student texts vary depending on the students individual goals and interests.