Hi I’m Steve!

Hi, I’m Steve. I teach guitar in Madison (and on Zoom), and I’ve spent the last 20+ years helping players go from “I’m trying” to I’m playing. That time matters. After thousands of lessons, festivals, studio work, and three albums, you get a teacher who can spot what’s holding you back in minutes, cut the fluff, and give you the one or two moves that actually move your playing forward.

I’m a song-first teacher. We use the music you love to build real skills—clean chords, solid time, better tone—and we start training your ear so you can find melodies and parts without living on tabs. To keep momentum, I run a simple weekly system: a standing time, a quick recap video after every lesson, and a private Dropbox with your videos, PDFs, and tabs. If you want extra structure, I’ll build you a personalized Weekly Guitar Flow so you always know exactly what to practice and for how long.

Beginners get fast wins with chords, strumming, and their first set of songs—without feeling overwhelmed. Intermediates finally connect scales and theory to music they can hear (triads, phrasing, rhythm vocabulary). Advanced players dial in feel, vibrato, and soloing over chord changes so their playing sounds like them, not a checklist.

If you want clear steps, honest feedback, and steady progress you can hear every week, I’d love to work with you.