Music teaching

Contact me you'd like me to teach you: ethan at ethanhein dot com.

I teach guitar, mandolin, harmonica, music theory, composing and arranging, Pro Tools, Reason and film scoring. I've primarily done this one-on-one with private students, but I've also taught electronic music and film scoring to classes in the New York City government's Computer Resource Center program, and at the Student Television Arts Center on Long Island.

At Amherst College, I studied jazz theory and improvisation with Andy Jaffe. Andy wrote a pretty good book called Jazz Harmony, but I prefer The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine. Also, I've found Kenny Werner's classic Effortless Mastery to be extremely useful for the psychological and emotional side.

After college, I studied jazz guitar with Joe Giglio. I also studied blues/ragtime guitar and bluegrass banjo with Jack Baker.

Various friends and bandmates have taught me a lot, formally and informally, not to mention my sister Molly (my first guitar teacher.) A wise jazz musician once said, "All the answers are in your living room," meaning your record collection, and I've tried to take that to heart.

People always ask me if there's a good guitar book I can recommend. The answer to that, sadly, is no. A good teacher is the best resource. Also, there's a great deal of good music teaching material out there on the web. For instance, aspiring jazzers should check out Jamey Aebersold's awesome web site.

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