Life & Work with Jason Myers

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Myers.

Hi Jason, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve been teaching music lessons for 34 years (hey, I started young!). I started teaching some friends when I was 16 and realized I had the right sort of communication skills and patience that one needs to be a good instructor. After teaching in stores and music schools over the course of a few decades, a small but busy at-home business seems to suit me best and is my only teaching venue these days, with rare exceptions.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As with just about all appointment-based businesses, the pandemic was a rather brutal blow. Fortunately, I made the switch to remote lessons within the first week or two of the initial shutdown. While there was some attrition of clientele, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Ultimately offering remote lessons has helped because my potential client base is no longer just those within reasonable travel but anyone with a computer who can use zoom. Nowadays, it’s the client’s preference, and vaccinated students may take in-person lessons. I don’t require much, but these days that one is a must with zero exceptions.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Well, I’m a musician who also teaches music lessons on selected instruments (guitar, ukulele, bass). While doing live performances took a rather hard hit, it’s coming back. While the general application of recommended safety protocol seems to be largely ignored by many, it seems that the risk is also less. Having spent the entirety of my adult (and not quite adult) life as a professional guitarist, I have wound up playing a greater variety of music than most guitar players and have thus expanded my palette to include lap steel guitar, cuatro, charango, and the ukulele. Quite a bit of ukulele it turns out. I found that while there are a lot of ukulele players, there really aren’t very many at all with an extensive knowledge of harmony and the techniques used with other fretted string instruments, so I was rather well equipped to utilize the humble ukulele in unusual and not particularly traditional ways.

One thing that I’ll be happy to get back to is student recitals. For some reason, not a lot of independent instructors do this but I think it’s important. Students have to prepare something of their own selection, and there’s a rather hard deadline. We also do one all-student ensemble tune (I make this mandatory for participation). The ukulele club I run also participates in this, so it is like a 30-40 piece fretted string orchestra of guitars and ukuleles. For those interested in the ukulele club, it’s called the Atwater Village Ukulele Club.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Well, there are certain things that just don’t go well with remote lessons. Due to the delay in audio signal that is inherent in all remote media (Zoom, Skype, etc. all have latency) it is impossible to play together and have both parties hear it as rhythmically intended. Given this unavoidable concession, I’ll sometimes have students play along with what they’re hearing me play so they can experience playing with other people, but I am at a disadvantage to properly critique it because I’m hearing the students playing rhythmically delayed. Because of this, I don’t do it as much with remote lessons. Teaching sight-reading is also a trick because of this as well. I’ve used a few workarounds like having the student play with a metronome on their end, using the screen share option, etc. Unfortunately, what I can accomplish with a pencil, or a movement of either my own or the student’s hand, wrist, shoulder, etc. rather easily in person becomes much more difficult with remote media. In the past, I’ve had students show up with colds, the flu, etc. and they’ve passed it on to me. Which was a real drag. Today’s climate for in-person anything seems to come with an increased awareness of such things, so I can’t say the whole experience didn’t provide a few perks, though all in all I sure wish it had never happened.

Pricing:

• $30/$60 for half/full hour lessons.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.myersmaniamusic.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JasonMyersMusicLessons/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rufustf
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jason-myers-music-lessons-los-angeles?osq=Jason+Myers+Music+lessons

Image Credits
Julianna Parr