I am a Portland music teacher,
with my primary instrument the mandolin (all styles). I also teach the banjo (folk, ragtime, and blues) and Irish music (flute, tin-whistle, cittern, and bodhran).
Music theory is at the center of my teaching method for the mandolin, and so I begin directly with grammar exercises we enjoy playing and singing together. These never fail to convince the new student that it is comfortable and encouraging to develop idea-making right along with the gathering of songs and technique. We dig into this process by harmonically mapping out first position and unfolding melodic idioms across the chord progressions of familiar folk songs. On this solid structural base the learning of style is exponential. This foundation building benefits players of all levels. Distilled from forty years of teaching and hundreds of students of all ages and levels, the method has now come into focus and purpose – to build vocabularies for the young player charged with harmonic clarity and rhythmic vitality.
In the end the goal for us all is to participate in the art of collective improvisation, to have the strength and confidence at our own technical level to give the mandolin creative flight in ensemble with our friends. This is what the mental leverage of music theory gives us. Whether it's weaving through an Appalachian modal song, taking a vivacious bluegrass break, spinning yet a new variation on that favorite country rag, pushing the rhythm and texture to the edge with the Delta blues, or delivering us to turn-of-the-century New Orleans and beyond – the mandolin made conscious can carry us back home into the heart of our America.
And beyond. Throughout my career I have explored extensively and woven into my teaching the cultural roots of the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic elements of American musics. European traditions leading to classical music gave us our chordal foundations, Irish tunes delivered the melodic invention of bluegrass, and through the Malian blues and the African diasporas in Cuba and Haiti came the polyrhythmics of ragtime and New Orleans jazz. When Louis Armstrong's improvised melodies convened with Django Reinhardt's proto-European harmonies, Gypsy jazz was born. It's here that much of my music theory teaching now focuses.