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Guitar
Lessons with Susan Palmer
Beginning Guitar Lessons:
 Most
people who take guitar lessons want to learn how to play their
favorite songs, but first they need to learn the basics. I help
students develop their skills quickly and effectively so that they
can play a lot of songs in a short amount of time. I use a clear
system and I simplify challenging concepts by breaking them down
into smaller parts that are easier to understand and play. This
approach helps students develop confidence in their abilities, which
leads to better playing. The Jam Classes give students the
opportunity to meet and play with others on a regular basis, and
that's where they really have fun and get good!
Intermediate & Advanced Guitar Lessons:
The guitar is a
fun instrument because you can sound good even if you don’t know a
lot about theory or the design of the guitar. But after a while, a
lot of guitarists want to take their playing to the next level; they
just don’t know how to do that. I use a clear system that fills in
the gaps that students may have, and then I take them step by step
through a practical course covering music theory and the design of
the guitar. Students can then create more melodic and harmonically
interesting music in a variety of styles.
Level: Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced, Ages 10 and up
Lesson Structure: Private or Group Lessons and Jam Classes
Location: Seattle or Webcam
Fundamental Skills: Jazz, Blues Rock & Folk Styles | Acoustic
or Electric
Contact Information:
leadcatpress@gmail.com
or (206) 349-3226
Biography:
Susan Palmer
is the guitar instructor at Seattle University. She teaches "The
Rock Project" at Cornish College of the Arts, and is the author of
"The Guitar Lesson Companion,” Volumes One and Two. Susan maintains
an active private studio, and has spent the past fifteen years
teaching adults and children how to play the guitar. She is proud to
have many students now actively performing across the United States.
Thanks, in part, to her extensive collection of YouTube lesson
videos, Susan has developed an international following, and recently
began offering private lessons via webcam. Her books have been
adopted by teachers and students in over 10 countries, including
faculty at Berklee College of Music.
Student Testimonials
Nancy - 2011
I’ve been playing and
studying jazz guitar on and off for many, many years, and Susan
is by far the best teacher I have ever had. On our first
meeting, I described the kind of music that I played, what I
wanted to accomplish with our lessons, and Susan came up with a
plan to help me reach my goals. She picked out specific portions
from her most excellent book, "The Guitar Lesson Companion,” for
me to work on, along with a couple of tunes from the “Real Book”
that were perfectly suited for what I wanted to learn. If you’re
thinking about taking guitar lessons, I highly recommend that
you contact Susan.
Christine - 2010
Susan is an extraordinary teacher, musician and Renaissance
woman. Her patience, insight, knowledge and talent know no
bounds. Aside from a keenly intelligent approach to teaching,
Susan has a way of helping her students discover a true passion
for music. She has immense respect for her students, and she
wants them to succeed. She manages to help them understand the
fundamentals while allowing them to explore their creativity and
realize their potential. My son spent only a couple of years
training with Susan, and he still regards her as one of the most
influential people in his life. She taught him, she listened to
him, she believed in him, and she contributed to his lifelong
dedication to music. Whether you are a beginner or an
accomplished musician, learning from this amazing woman is the
best thing you can do for your pursuit of music!
Tim - 2011
I engaged Susan as a guitar instructor
for my 13-year old son. She is nothing short of fantastic. Susan
is focused, demonstrates deep passion for the art, and is
committed to the student learning to play. Susan also developed
a great working relationship with the student. I highly
recommend her work.
Paul Huddleston - 2010
I am happy to write a recommendation for Susan Palmer. Susan
served as my son's guitar instructor for three years, and has
most recently organized and led a very successful music seminar
called The Rock Project at Cornish College of the Arts in
Seattle. Along with her highly knowledgeable and competent
colleague, BC Campbell, Susan harnessed the collective talents
of about 15 teenagers during a week in the summer and provided a
very unique and rewarding experience for them. Each day
presented different styles of guitar performance along with
preparation for a concert, which was fun-filled and enjoyed by
all. This camp served as a major highlight of my son's summer
experiences, and he is eager to participate again.
It is
no wonder that success follows Susan. She possesses an
impressive capacity to grapple with musical creativity and focus
and fine tune a student's abilities while commanding respect and
demanding results in a positive manner. Her passion for guitar
and for teaching has helped her produce and publish a highly
regarded publication, with another one on the way. My son's
introduction to guitar through Susan's instruction can be
described with one word: blessed. We are looking forward to The
Rock Project 2011.
Eric Sorensen - 2009
Susan is one of the most dedicated people I've seen in any
field. She brings a complete passion to her work, conveying a
deep appreciation of music, musical technique and the effort
required to get better. She is consistently positive,
professional and personable. It's all a great formula for the
success of her students.
John O'Halloran - 2009
Susan is an extraordinary guitar teacher. For starters, she
developed her own very thorough course material - book, MP3, and
YoutTube videos - that provides a solid foundation for her
lessons. I'm amazed at how detailed and complete this material
is. There's nothing else like it! More important, Susan is a
great teacher. She always comes up with creative ways for me to
learn a new aspect of the guitar. 'If this isn't working, then
try this . . . ' Inevitably, she finds a method to help me along
this journey of learning the guitar. For me, in particular,
Susan has been very patient and supportive. I have to say,
learning the guitar at my age (and I won't say what that is) has
been difficult and slow. Susan has kept me motivated and helped
me to continue the journey. It's only a matter of time before I
realize this dream. I know she will help me get there!
Matt Hitchman - 2009
When I started playing
guitar I was proud of the fact I was able to play without ever
taking lessons. I ending up playing in a few bands and was able
to get by as a good guitarist, however the more I played the
more I realized I knew very little about the guitar. I could
follow a few patterns/scales and knew a lot of chords but didn’t
understand why these patterns worked. I became stuck playing the
same things over and over and not being able to expand my
playing.
I’ve been studying with Susan Palmer for a
little under a year and am amazed at the amount of progress I’ve
made. In the beginning I was wary of having to learn to read
music but Susan made it a very enjoyable process. Within a few
of months I was able to sight-read using all 6 strings. Being
able to read music is integral to playing and understanding
jazz, folk, rock, and blues as well as any other type of music.
The Guitar Lesson Companion is a great way to start reading
music because it offers very realistic sight-readings Susan has
personally written for all levels, each of the readings
logically leads to the next adding new elements. This method
also involves chords and scale structures so you can begin to
play music right away.
I’ve talked to friends who are
taking lessons with other teachers who avoid these basic
starting points and consequentially avoid a deeper understanding
of the guitar. In my experience this type of understanding is
vital to anyone who is serious about learning the guitar. I
strongly recommend choosing this method of learning the guitar;
you’ll be thanking yourself later and will be learning from a
teacher who dedicates herself immensely to helping her students
learn.
Mark Cote - 2009
Susan is an
excellent instructor. She is passionate about helping students
of all ages reach their full potential. Her mastery of the
guitar and her dedication to teaching make Susan one of the best
professional music educators available. She gets my highest
recommendation.
Peter C - 2009
I
started playing guitar about a year before I started lessons
with Susan. My previous teacher taught me the basics, like the
note names on the bottom two strings, and the basic chords.
Eventually though we just started playing whatever song he felt
like teaching that day. It was fun and I learned quite a bit but
looking back I could have learned much more.
Lessons with
Susan were much more demanding and with time much more
rewarding. The note reading exercises aren't the most fun in the
world, but they are very effective. The packaged in backing
tracks were well produced and made the exercises as fun as
possible.During lessons she made sure I played intime. This
improved my rhythm alot and made it easier to play in the jazz
guitar band she set up for people that have gotten most of the
way through her first book, and are taking lessons with her.
The immense amount of information to be learned about jazz
techniques can seem incredibly overwhelming at times, but Susan
is able to break it up into manageable chunks. She is very
passionate about music, and always full of energy and has a
positive attitude during every lesson. Every lesson that I
prepared for I left feeling like I learned something useful.
Lynn Hepler - 2009
Susan “rocks” -
literally! She is a phenomenal teacher. I took lessons from
Susan for a year and learned more than I ever dreamt possible to
learn in such a short period of time. (I am taking the summer
off from lessons but will resume in the fall.) First of all –
Susan developed her own teaching material – A Guitar Lesson
Companion – as well as her own teaching/learning methodology. A
Guitar Lesson Companion is a book that one could use on their
own; however, working with Susan while working your way through
this book is the way to go – in my opinion. She is able to help
all of her students to learn and grow – despite the fact that we
are all at different junctures in our personal journey. I was
brand new to the world of guitar music and knew nothing about
the strings or chords or frets or anything. Within three months
– I was playing fun tunes. When I struggled with a particular
thing (eighth note rests for example) Susan figured out a fun
and easy way for me to grasp the “rest” concept. She always
finds a way to help you through when you feel stuck. She is
personable, professional, interesting, knowledgeable and best of
all – always positive. One other thing that is a gift – in
addition to learning music – is she helps you – the student –
stay positive and to keep the negative thoughts (“oh I can’t do
this”) at bay. I always walked away from a lesson feeling better
about myself and found that I could apply that to other areas of
my life – not just music. I recommend Susan hands-down and can’t
wait to get back into the groove of lessons shortly!
Charlotte B. - 2009
Susan is basically the
best guitar teacher in the western hemisphere. I've learned more
about music from her in a year's worth of lessons than I did
from five years in band. Her book is both comprehensive and
accessible in addressing beginning to advanced musical concepts,
and she's a very patient teacher who also works well with
whatever your style is. Through supplemental songs and riffs,
she makes the driest aspects of musical theory and rhythm
entertaining. No matter what your background is, you'll quickly
become a much better musician through taking lessons with her.
Paul Swortz - 2009
I am a hobby musician
who was leery of formal instruction -- I am not patient enough
to spend three-four months playing "Row Your Boat" while
learning scales and chords. Susan got this immediately, and
after my first lesson, had me playing a blues riff that made
practicing the scales and chords a lot of fun. She is a
phenonmenal player herself, and her instructional approach
belends just the right amount of "vegetables" (e.g. counting,
sight reading, etc) with ample "desserts" (e.g power chords,
blues riffs, easy rock numbers/tabs) to keep me motivated,
inspired, and practicing. I'm a player for life because of
Susan.
Allie Davis - 2009
Susan
Palmer’s book “The Guitar Lesson Companion” does an excellent
job at teaching beginning guitar with a multitude of useful and
helpful material. It provides straightforward sight reading,
theory, chords, improvisation - not to mention tons of helpful
warm-up exercises. This book is jam-packed with knowledge that
can help make any guitar player better. It’s a comprehensive and
well written piece of work, complete with a CD. Her free online
lessons and instruction only service to compliment this already
thorough and awesome tool.
Susan Palmer, as a guitar
teacher, is no average bear. She goes way above and beyond in
her efforts to transmit her knowledge and obvious love of the
instrument to students. Lessons with Susan are demanding, but
are well worth it. She embeds every aspect of music in your
mind. Insisting that students learn the fundamentals of music,
she sets us up for nothing but success later on. Susan wants
students to work hard and won’t accept less than a 100% effort.
I would be fearful to darken her door without having done my
previous week’s assignment. That being said, Susan Palmer serves
as a teacher, mentor, and friend. Because of all she offers, you
will find that Susan Palmer is one of those few people we run
across in life that we will never forget.
Chris -
2008
I have taken lessons with Susan Palmer for
twelve months now and I am here to tell you that her book "The
Guitar Lesson Companion" is worth every penny. The book itself
is very well organized, comprehensive and has enough content to
keep an aspiring guitarist engaged for quite a long time. The CD
tracks are fun and exciting to play along with and short of
having Susan Palmer at your side, her online videos are exactly
how she approaches the content in person during private lessons.
If you are in the Seattle area and are interested in getting
started, Susan Palmer has my highest recommendation. She holds a
high standard for her students but is very supportive during the
entire process. Always generous with her compliments and words
of encouragement, Susan Palmer is a true ambassador for
musicianship.
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