Piano, Guitar, Bass & Drum Lessons in Tempe, AZ – Music Lessons Arizona

11 Ways to Effective Piano Practice for Beginners

Practice is essential to develop skill in any endeavor, especially piano playing. However knowing how to structure one’s practice time can be challenging for students and busy parents.  Parents, have you wondered: “How do I help my child structure their piano practice time at home?” As a piano school owner and professional music educator, my… Continue reading 11 Ways to Effective Piano Practice for Beginners

Four Powerful Ways for a Confident Piano Performance

Performing for a live audience is an exciting and exhilarating experience, but even seasoned pianists can feel anxious before taking the stage. Anxiety is not a bad thing. In fact it’s an important element that drives us to prepare and succeed. But if we let our nerves get the better of us, we fail to… Continue reading Four Powerful Ways for a Confident Piano Performance

How to Find the Right Piano?

A Buyer’s Guide for Beginner to Experienced Piano Players Whether your child is a complete beginner or an experienced piano student, this guide will help you decide what piano will best fit your needs. Keyboard, Digital Piano, and Acoustic Piano. What are the differences? There are lots of options when it comes to pianos. Let’s… Continue reading How to Find the Right Piano?

Will Your Child Like Learning the Piano?

Top Five Questions Answered for Parents Thinking About Piano Lessons For Their Child As a piano school owner and a pedagogue, I know how important it is for a child to be engaged and excited about learning the piano. If you are a parent who is thinking about starting piano lessons for their child, here… Continue reading Will Your Child Like Learning the Piano?

Rock Guitar Lessons – 5 Famous Riffs

If you’re a beginning guitar player and want to learn some simple but famous rock guitar riffs, this video series is for you.

In this 5 part series, I’ll show you 5 famous rock riffs, the scales that are used to create the riffs and how you can practice them to get your fingers moving more fluently.

Free download of the PDF with tab and standard notation of each riff. Click the button below.

Lesson 1 – Heartbreaker Riff  – Led Zeppelin

Lesson 2 – Funk 49 Riff – Joe Walsh

Lesson 3 – Iron Man Riff – Black Sabbath 

Lesson 4 – Voodoo Child Intro – Jimi Hendrix 

Lesson 5 – Know Your Enemy Riff – Rage Against the Machine

If you’re a beginning guitar player and want to learn some simple but famous rock guitar riffs, this video series is for you. In this 5 part series, I’ll show you 5 famous rock riffs, the scales that are used to create the riffs and how you can practice them to get your fingers moving… Continue reading Rock Guitar Lessons – 5 Famous Riffs

7 Reasons Why Your Practice Is Not Working


Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut with your playing?

Do you feel like your practice routine lacks structure? Not producing the results you’d like?

Would you like to have more time to practice but find that something always seems to come up and prevent you from putting in the time?

As a music teacher, many students have expressed these problems and challenges to me.

I love to practice and it’s a regular part of my life but for many it can seem frustrating and or ineffective.

So how do you get to the point where you love to practice and are getting the results you’d like?

In this article, I’ll share with you 7 reasons why your practice is not working and what you can do to fix it.

Guitar Chord Forms and How They Work

How do chords work on the guitar? In this guitar lesson video we’ll take a look at the most common forms of chords on the guitar and how they can be moved throughout the fret board. We’ll start by looking at a common power chord based on the E String and the A String root.… Continue reading Guitar Chord Forms and How They Work

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Categorized as Guitar

What’s The Deal With The Modes?

Modes of the Major Scale PDFDownload You might be curious as to what the modes are. You’ve heard other musicians talking about them. You may have found hundreds of explanations of modes around the Internet. But are you still struggling to understand what modes are and how they work? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.  I’ve… Continue reading What’s The Deal With The Modes?

Matt’s Solo Guitar Gig

Solo guitar music can be difficult to perform but I really enjoyed putting the music together for the gig I played last week.  Combining chords, melody, improvising and keeping a groove are essential elements in this endeavor.  This was a great challenge and sparked new ideas and approaches within my practice routine.  Hope you enjoy the video!… Continue reading Matt’s Solo Guitar Gig

Audio Production

“Broken Glass” is written by Ciara Cisneros, a young and talented singer-songwriter in the East Valley.  The tune began as a solo guitar and vocal performance but Ciara and I collaborated to transform the tune in to a full production recording with drums, bass, synthesizers, back up and harmonized vocal parts. Ciara performed all the guitar… Continue reading Audio Production