Gabriel A. — Guitar Teacher — Mile End, Montreal

Master of Music in Jazz Performance at McGill University (2024) Certificate in “Interprétation et créations musicale” at Université de Sherbrooke (2020) Bachelor of Arts in Popular Music Studies at Bishop’s University (2019) Background: I started to learn guitar at age 11, inspired by the popular music of the time such as Green Day which taught me my first “power chords”. Soon after, I discovered Classic Rock and Blues which was a real epiphany! The expressiveness and improvisation I heard in the Blues are still a major aspect of my playing to this day. After high school, I studied guitar at Cégep de Sherbrooke and my ears started to open up to new sounds: classical music, funk , heavy metal, prog-rock, etc. At the same time I started to get my first gigs teaching and playing ambiance music for corporate events. It is when I studied at Bishop’s University that I really got into jazz, a music that still inspires me to this day. While studying there I got more and more gigs and was able to land two teaching jobs right after I graduated. I am regularly performing in jazz duet, trio and quartet settings as well as with a rock band while I am still perfecting my craft at McGill University.

I think the best way to learn guitar and music is to integrate theory and technique as a part of song learning. Building repertoire is always a great source of motivation and as you dig deeper into the songs to understand their construction you get to learn much faster! Learn guitar rudiments by learning songs Improvisation Musical notation reading Music theory & Composition