Looking for teacher, preferably in person in Boston area

Teacher's Lounge
#1

Hey, I could really use some lessons. While I have made some progress over the years by examining my playing and trying some CTC methods, my playing is still far slower, far choppier, far less smooth, and far less musical than I’d like.

Does anyone know any teachers, preferably in person in the Boston-ish area, who are really into teaching how to improve this kind of technique?

Most teachers I’ve ever had who want to teach shredding simply give exercises to do, without taking an analytical approach to the fine grained details of what my current technique is and how to transform it. I’m sure that works great for some people, but for me, I feel like there are some major kinks in my technique that need to be worked out, and I get major walls early on that impede my progress. If it were a matter of just playing more technical exercises to get faster, it would have happened years ago.

1 Like
#2

I don’t know if he’s still teaching but Joe Stump is from around the Boston area and he can defintely shred. He’s been teaching at Berklee(sp?) for a number of years so maybe he can teach too.

Another monster in the area as far as technique and all-around musicianship is Bruce Bartlett who is also affiliated with Berklee. Saw him at Ryle’s Jazz Club when it was still around and he was “wicked pissah”!

#3

Thanks!

Ah yeah, I’ve actually thought explicitly of reaching out to Joe, he’s the only person I could think of at Berklee that might have been into this sort of very technical work. But I didn’t, I wanted to try to find someone who I knew was familiar with some of the CTC literature, if possible. Also, IME Berklee professors charge quite a premium for private lessons, which is to be expected.

I actually studied with Bruce for 2 semesters. I doubt that he would really want to delve too far into analyzing the fine details of picking mechanics and doing technical exercises, he’s far more interested in the musical aspects of music, like ear training, transcription, phrasing, chords, and everything else. He’s more of a “work on the music, and the technique will follow” kind of person, which I respect a great deal for many types of music. (Actually, IME, just about every Berklee prof I’ve had a lesson or office hours with is a “technique will follow” type of person). But for me, right now, I feel that technique is of paramount importance, because I feel like technique has always been my biggest stumbling block. The “technique will follow” approach never quite worked out for me, or at least didn’t get me as far as I’d have liked.

Also, I could be wrong about Bruce, maybe he is into technique and I just never asked him the technical questions, because I was less interested in technique back then. But I don’t really think so.

#4

So I’m in Brighton, and I’m familiar enough many of the right hand mechanics, and honestly If things weren’t so utterly calamitous for me right now, I would just say grab your guitar, come over on the weekends, I’ll just show you what I know. Peer to peer. No teacher/student

Maybe when things die down a bit, and if you are still stuck looking someone, we can talk a bit.

#5

Awesome, thank you, that’d be great! I’ll pm you with my details, feel free to message anytime you might have availability!