You can find plenty of decent tutorials on YouTube, however they won’t be tailored to your goals or needs as a student. You also can’t get feedback on your music, which is extremely important for making real progress in your songwriting. Some of my greatest breakthroughs happened when I sought out a mentor and got direct feedback, and for that reason I am a big proponent of private teachers.

We cover a variety of topics in our lessons:

• Listening to some of your favourite songs and deconstructing them to see what makes them great
• Weekly bite-sized songwriting exercises, with feedback in every lesson
• Contemporary music theory from the basic to advanced level
• Producing and mixing professional level demo recordings in your home studio
• Career development (branding, writing marketable songs, writing songs for sync, artist development)

The first lesson is free, that way you get a chance to decide first whether it’s the right fit for you. After that, each lesson is $45 USD for 1 hour. I also offer cost-effective packages for students who would like to receive lessons on a regular or long-term basis.

No. If you have absolute zero knowledge of music or how to play an instrument, we will start from the basics and build you up from there. Keep in mind that if you have no musical theory knowledge, some of our first lessons will be more theory-focused in order to get you up to speed. You don’t need to have any theory knowledge to write great music, but having a good foundation will take some of the guesswork out of your songwriting process and make you overall a stronger musician. Having good theory and aural skills will also help you greatly when working with other musicians.

You will need to have the Zoom app downloaded on your computer and a good internet connection. I also recommend having a keyboard, which will easily allow you to play chords and melodies. You can find them cheap on Ebay/Kijiji, at your local music store, or on Amazon. If your primary instrument is guitar, that will also work. As a bonus, if you have a DAW or notation software that will help. If you don’t have one of those or don’t know what they are, don’t worry, I’ll go through them with you and point you to some free options if you’re on a budget

That’s a very good question, and it’s important to understand a teacher’s credentials and experience before you sign on for lessons with them. I have 10 years of songwriting and composition experience, including commissioned work for real orchestras, theatre productions, and television. I graduated Humber College in Toronto with a Bachelor in Music, my main area of study being jazz and contemporary music. I’ve also been teaching music theory, songwriting, and sound production privately and in group workshops for 3 years now, for which you can find testimonies from real students above. The first lesson with my students is always free because it’s important to me that the fit is right for both of us. You’re the one paying for the lessons, and I want you to be happy with them.