John P  

5

  5.0 (7)

Instruments: Guitar, Ukulele, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Styles: Rock, Blues, Folk, Country, Gospel, Spirituals

Hey, John; how did you learn to play the guitar? The short answer is, Johnny Cash taught me how to write songs and Neil Young taught me how to play the guitar. But actually, there is much more. Alan Bing the Music King in St Joseph Missouri was my first band teacher from fifth through eighth grade. He was awesome! I learned much about performance and being an artist from him. My high school band experience was awful. I didn't participate my senior year and was really aching for musical interaction with other musicians. Even though I didn't play the guitar yet, I got a lot of inspiration and encouragement from Eddie Van Halen. Crazy, right? it's true, though! My mom played the piano and my dad played the guitar. During that time of no creative writing classes or playing the trumpet my senior year, Dad taught me how to play The Wildwood Flower on his guitar. I played it non-stop and began jamming with friends. I was even invited to play the trumpet with our local Cortez Family country band, but I couldn't jam on trumpet because I had no real working knowledge of music theory. I got an awful Global electric guitar for Christmas that year and played it constantly. After I moved out on my own, Dad bought two acoustic guitars. I thought he had lost his mind! He said I could pick one of them to take home with me. That Ibanez V300 is still my favorite guitar. One day that summer I was at Mom and Dad's house and wrote a song. It was a great song. I had no idea how I could have possibly written such a good song! It had to have come from God. I knelt down and prayed right there by the easy chair in the living room. I thanked God for the gift he had given me and had no idea what to do except promise him to always use the gift for good and not for anything bad. An incredible feeling swept over me. I didn't have the words to explain it at the time other than it was a Jesus thing. I worked hard, got married, had children, and played the guitar and wrote songs in every available moment. I was in some garage bands and blues bands which turned into a series of really good three piece power trios playing bars and for private parties and benefits. I knew there was much I didn't know about music, so I enrolled in music classes at the local college. While in college I played the baritone in marching band, sang in the school choir, was in classical guitar ensembles, the pep band as a guitarist and the jazz band too. I taught a class about cowboy music as an employee of the Allied Arts Council in St Joseph, Missouri. I performed as a classical guitarist for art shows, dinners, and concerts. I attended incredible guitar master classes with Christopher Parkening, Anthony Glise, Marc Regnier, Miguel Rodriguez and Larry Beekman. It was during my MWSC years that I was asked to begin a Suzuki guitar class. I taught Suzuki guitar lessons for three years. I also taught summer arts program courses in computer music and beginning guitar. I taught private lessons on bass and guitar at the college, at Bentley Studio and in my home. I began attending church with my three-year-old daughter and was asked to begin a youth hand chimes choir. I also taught music for our vacation Bible school, became our first choir director that wasn't sitting behind an organ, and we also added a contemporary worship service. After college, I got a job in Kansas City, Kansas teaching vocal music to kindergarten through fifth-grade students. I led the classes with a guitar and taught students instrumental music with rhythm instruments, keyboards and guitars. We put on some awesome programs that the students helped to write. It was an amazing time! I was given the opportunity to be a part of the district-wide First Things First initiative, which was a major transformation of the way Kansas City School District educated students. I had an idea for an enrichment program which would take advantage of this new opportunity for creative teaching and learning, bringing in experts from the community to teach from the perspective of their profession using life skills to address the teaching standards and goals we had as public school educators. My building principal and teaching staff at Quindaro Elementary embraced the idea and we entered a new era of learning and renewed excitement about going to school. Next, I decided to go into education leadership and become an elementary school principal. I received a master of science degree from Northwest Missouri State University in Education Leadership, Elementary. I aced every class! From being a less than average student who hated school to becoming a 4.0 graduate teaching school, this was another miracle! During the six years of teaching music in Kansas City, Kansas I lived and attended church in Platte City, Missouri. After visiting the church I asked the contemporary service pianist if I could bring my guitar and join her for worship. The two of us, the pianist from the traditional service, the music minister, and the sound guy began to grow the worship ministry. Soon we were in need for a full-time worship leader. After much searching and trying a few people for the position my pastor asked me to consider the job. I was surprised to be asked, but after praying about it I couldn't say no. It made sense to me that all my experience to this point had prepared me for what was ahead. For thirteen years I was a music pastor. We added a third Sunday morning service, purchased land and began to have our evening services as often as possible in the barn on our future building site. Our production ministry expanded to address technical needs of contemporary worship. We hosted two churches in our youth space until we all just got too crowded. By then they were well established and moved out successfully. Through the local minister's alliance, we had community wide-wide worship services and outreach ministries. I was blessed to be successful in adding teams and processes to grow the church and the worship ministry, teaching and learning all along the way, with much love, prayer and support from an amazing congregation of dedicated worshipers of Christ. I was in a worship study cohort of worship leaders in the Kansas City area for six years and we still remain close to each other today. The worship workshops and classes I have attended are too numerous to mention. Although I have moved on, the ministry of the church continues to grow. Life in Platte City is good with several amazing churches and one of the best school districts in the state - which is prayed for and supported by the local churches. God is so good! Currently, I have a non-music day job and am the guitarist for Calvary Temple in Kansas City, Missouri. I am also the guitarist for live events with good friends in a contemporary Christian group called Tory Creek. I have strong ties with local churches and church musicians and lead a rich life of music and ministry.

I teach music with the goal of creating life-long learners who appreciate beauty and can enjoy the simple pleasure of making music on their own and with other artists. I do this with an urgency in the short term combined with a vision for the long term. If you have only one lesson with me, I want you to know how to play the guitar when we are done. That lesson takes a little more than an hour, but it works. Going forward after the initial how-to-play introductory material I will provide you with ongoing lessons, support and feedback and we will explore your art as far as we can take it. After that you will continue to learn as you create, study with share with other artists. The curriculum we will use will consist of hand-written sheets I've created to explain basic theory and guitar fretboard knowledge. Additionally, I will ask you to purchase a guitar instruction book. I prefer Mel Bay's Children Guitar Method, Book 1. Be sure to get an edition that has a CD or online audio to go with the book. The most recent version has online audio and video. Another good instruction book is Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method, Book 1. Again be sure to take advantage of purchasing the edition which includes a CD or online audio so you can play along as you read the music. Both of these books are the beginning of series of books which include various specific areas of music studies. Good stuff! The reason I prefer these guitar instruction books is because they agree with my style of teaching - keeping it simple. Some music publishers offer books which are very complicated. If you need a music teacher to explain every little thing, that's not a good instruction book! But a simple instruction book with a teacher to guide you is fun and rewarding. We will glean a lot of learning from what is contained in these easy to read and understand books. This is true for children and adults. The reason I prefer the Mel Bay Children Guitar Method is because most people want to learn how to play the guitar while singing songs or play the guitar with someone else singing the songs. The Children Guitar Method begins with that end in mind. You will begin by learning chords you can play with one finger. That's as easy as it gets. Very quickly you will actually play songs on your guitar. Then we will use the same book to learn how to read standard notation so you can play the melody of songs in songbooks. I don't have to teach you every song you want to learn. My goal is to teach you how to learn songs on your own. To teach reading guitar tablature I use a guitar method book written by a local guitarist in Kansas City, David Smart. In the progression of teaching and learning, you should learn chord charts and standard notation for the reason mentioned above and at least be familiar with how to read tab so you can decipher it when you encounter it. Knowing how to read chord charts, standard notation, and guitar tablature is the complete suite of learning how to learn music from books. Learning how to play songs by ear is also something I will teach you. It is a myth that someone who can play by ear is just born with it. Maybe they were born with a gift for that type of thing, but anyone can learn how to play music by ear with some basic theory. Advance complicated songs take advanced theory, but it is all based on basic knowledge. Playing rhythm guitar and lead guitar, improvising solos, using a capo, playing in different keys, how to play with more than one guitar player in a band, finding your space in an ensemble and many more practical things you will encounter as a guitar player I will also teach along the way. Ask questions. For electric guitar players, I will teach you how to use your amp and the concept of how to use your pedals, different types of electric guitar playing styles, how the electric guitar fits in with different types of ensembles, who is the coolest person in the room, and many other electric guitar specific topics will be discussed as we learn from the same material our acoustic brothers and sisters are studying. To summarize, it will be my goal to quickly teach you how to teach yourself and share your knowledge and talent with others. This will be the beginning of a life of making music and appreciating the beauty of it.