NO GATEKEEPING – From the moment you pick up an instrument with the intent to play or open your mouth with the intent to sing, you are a musician, no ifs, ands, or buts.
NO SNOBBERY – Music is music. We all have our favorite bands, genres, songs, et cetera, but there are no objective critieria that make any one band, genre, or song better than any other. My goal is to help you make music that you like. If you enjoying making it, there are people out there who will enjoy hearing it.
NO RULES – Only guidelines. 😉 What matters isn’t some arbitrary set of ‘rules’ that say which notes you can or can’t play where; what actually matters musically is the relationships among the various elements. Theory shouldn’t dictate what you play; theory itself is a tool to help describe and understand how and why a bit of music sounds the way it does. That understanding can help you be intentional about what you choose to play based on how you want it to sound.
NO DUMB QUESTIONS – Curiosity is your friend! If you want to understand something, I can assure you that I want you to understand it. (And if I don’t know the answer, we can figure it out together, and now we’ve both learned something! 😊)
NEVER TOO LATE TO START – Grandma Moses started painting in earnest at the age of seventy-eight. I didn’t sing (in public), play an instrument, or write a song until I was nearly thirty. Do I wish I’d started sooner? Sure! But as the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is fifty years ago; the second best time is today.
YOU DON’T NEED “TALENT” – Interest and effort are what count. If you are interested in making music – whether singing, playing, songwriting, recording, or the like – and you are willing to put modest but consistent effort toward your goals, you will find yourself doing the thing you dreamed of doing!
