Teaching Topics and Philosophy

Topics:
Charlie Apicella teaches jazz guitar, beginner guitar private and group instruction. Jazz guitar comping and rhythm guitar styles. Big band guitar. Bossa nova, blues, soul-jazz comping styles. Jazz improvisation, beginners and intermediate. Chord-melody arrangements. Reading music, writing music. Music theory.

Philosophy:
My teaching method has two ideas at it’s core: “Music is Easy,” and “Go to the Source.”
I am a patient teacher. I have helped absolute beginners of all ages up to semi-professionals to feel comfortable with the instrument and to unlock their love of music. They learn that music is easy. My method can be described as “go to the source” and I use jazz records as my main curriculum. My focus is on being able to sit down and play something on the guitar, a complete song, whenever the mood strikes. I learned to play because I was motivated by my love of performing music. This has taught me that The Music is the most important element in studying any instrument, and I have earned to enjoy the challenge of daily practice. I strive to show students that the motivation to learn music comes from within and from the element of self exploration that music study offers.