I'm mazdisocveer.cfd — I teach guitar because I almost quit twice.

I was twelve. A neighbor was moving out and left a classical guitar by the trash. I pulled the neck joint apart with a kitchen knife, glued it back together with wood glue I stole from my dad's garage, and started teaching myself with a stack of library books on folk music.

First honest chord was a G major — except I played it as a barre, because the books only taught barre forms. Took me four months to land it cleanly. Four months of putting the guitar down for a week, picking it up again, failing the same chord, putting it down. My mother offered to take me to lessons. I said no. I wanted to figure it out alone.

That stubbornness is still here. I now run mazdisocveer.cfd's practice room the same way: not by handing students the answer, but by structuring the right question at the right time. The chord eventually came. So did the next ten years of fights with my hands.

Why I started teaching for real.

I played in three bands through college, played in two more after, taught casually for years while working a day job at a music shop. The day job is what taught me how most people actually learn — they walk in with a specific song stuck in their head and a budget, and they need someone to bridge between the two.

In 2018 I started teaching full-time online. The first year was rough — I over-explain, I create too many handouts, I treat every student like a conservatory applicant. Then I learned: the lesson isn't the syllabus. The lesson is the conversation with the person holding the guitar.

What mazdisocveer.cfd teaches.

I teach four tracks: beginner acoustic, intermediate electric, advanced improvisation, and theory lab. The underlying philosophy is the same in all four — sequence the right thing at the right time, keep your ego out of the way, play songs you actually want to play.

If I had to summarize my method in one line, I'd say: I don't sell shortcuts, I sell sequence. Progress isn't about how much you can cram into one intense week; it's about the order in which things are introduced so each new skill has somewhere to land.

Personal milestones — the honest list.

• 2014 — Won a local fingerstyle competition, lost a regional one, decided teaching was a better path than touring.
• 2018 — Went full-time as an independent guitar teacher. Noticed that 60% of my income year one came from three students who sent one friend each.
• 2020 — Pivoted video lessons properly. Learned what microphones actually work for online teaching (the Shure SM7B changed my life).
• 2023 — Passed 100 active students across the USA. Capped intake at 40/week to keep quality.
• 2025 — Still playing every day. Writing a beginner method book that doesn't suck.

My teaching certifications and training.

I trained privately with two jazz guitarists (Berklee alum and one who never went to Berklee and is the better player, predictably). I hold no formal guitar pedagogy certificate — the institution route wasn't for me. What I do have is ten thousand hours of one-on-one teaching hours with adult and teen learners, and a working knowledge of what tends to break students' progress at week four, week ten, and month six.

What I'm not, for the record.

I'm not famous. I will not make you a shredder in six weeks. I will not promise a record deal. I won't claim my method works for someone who isn't actually willing to put in 15 minutes a day, and I won't pretend music theory is exciting for everyone (it isn't — but it's useful, and we make it useful). I'm a working independent teacher, and the right students find me because they want an honest plan more than they want a flashy promise.

If that sounds like the kind of teacher you want to work with, send me a message. I read everything personally.