My Focus: Creativity, Finding your “Sound”, Exploring, Learning Fundamentals, Learning Technique, Writing Music, Jamming and Improvising.

Hi! I’m Andrew. I am a mid 30’s aged silly father of two young daughters (with hard to pronounce names). When I’m not playing music, I’m usually outside, trying to help my wife with the garden, collecting eggs from our hens, or pretending to know how to fix things around my house. I was born and raised in Delta, BC, before moving to the island in 2015. I often try to make people around me laugh, and would guess that I have about a fifty percent success rate. Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

The instruments and topics I focus on teaching are: Guitar/Bass/Ukulele (advanced level), Piano (beginner), songwriting and music theory, and improvisation. I received a Diploma in Music at Douglas College focussing on Classical guitar. That was a very disciplined and critical time, which served me well. But nowadays, when I am teaching someone how to play music, regardless of what that instrument is, my goal is to make them feel comfortable with themselves and the sounds they are creating. We are our own hardest critic, and I find that I enjoy playing music when that critical voice in my head is as quiet as possible. Sure, we need to listen to that voice sometimes, but not all the time. I believe in understanding the technical side of playing an instrument, as well as music theory. But an aspect that is often overlooked is improvisation and creative expression. To me, a great musician is someone who can just pick up an instrument (or use their voice) and play whatever comes to their mind at that moment. In every lesson, I make sure to put in time working on improvising, jamming, and just making stuff up.