Music Mentorship
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Hi and Welcome! Here where you can find all the info on the types and styles of lessons and mentoring I offer, as well as an idea of the general spirit and dynamics.
Lessons can be in French, in English, en español.
All ages, from beginner to advanced players are welcome.
I'm currently based in Haute-Nendaz in Switzerland, happy to give online lessons! But ideally chez moi or at your home if you're local.
You can find some more practical info and testimonials at the bottom of the page :))
Rated 5 stars
What I teach
1. Vocals In Harmony and Voice Activation
Any Style, with a lean in the direction of Soul/Neo-Soul, Folk, Blues, Jazz and Music as Medicine singing. Fun and expansive warm-up and training exercises begin with techniques to ground, centre and relax into the space and practice. We then explore further technique, encouragement and expansion via your favourite songs of choice, mantra and improvisation. Then, how does a deep dive into freestyle lyricism and meolody sound to you?
2. Guitar Got Soul
Open to all styles. I play mainly classical guitar these days, but have played acoustic and electric guitars for years. My style has roots in genres as diverse as Rumba/Flamenco, West African Blues, British Folk, Soul, Jazz, Funk, Bossa Nova, Blues, Middle-Eastern Traditional and more.
Access whole new ranges of technique and soulful soundscapes, aiming to make your playing ever more original, iconic, and very much an expression of you.
Learn unique and advanced fingerpicking and strumming styles, add beautiful ornamentations to your rhythm playing, explore and rehearse new scales and patterns from around the world, develop your soloing to emphasise expression and flow over technique, and progress your ability to sing and play simultaneously.
3. Neo-Handpan-ism
I teach handpan as a percussionist and composer. I’d love to mentor your growth as a creator of new techniques, patterns and compositions of these magnificent instruments new to the world and therefore possible to innovate novel forms of play with.
Expect a lot of developments in rhythm, tenderness as well as force of motion, advanced percussive techniques, the exploration of less-usual and more intricate polyrhythms and melodies, as well as a strong foundation-building and advancement in basic techniques and playing style. All this to help you achieve a whole new depth, joy and quality of play.
4. Percussions of Earth, Fire and Body
The techniques of skin on skin, wood and metal, a grounding in these raw earthly elements and sound, are the bones and beating heart of my musicality, and I adore to share this love and passion with others.
I have rhythms and techniques to share with you from my years of trainings and playing headliner performances as the percussionist for the likes of Michael Sebastian, Facesoul, Jessica Wylde, Muti Musafiri, Simran and many more.
I've studied Afro-Cuban Congas, other forms of Latin Percussion, Mandé Djembe and Dun-Dun, Ghanaian Kpanlogo, North African and Middle Eastern Darbuka, Indian Tabla, European Handpan, and Indonesian Kendang.
Expect a rigour of practice and aqcuisition of new rhyhms and techniques to be spiced with embodiment practice warm ups, movement, and jams! Again, my aim is to facilitate the growth of your own style, voice, feel.
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5. The Artistry of Songwriting, Poetry, Lyricism, Composition
There is much technique and strategy for us to explore, people study this for years in university degrees, and we will discuss the key elements.
What I propose truly, however, is space.
Space for expansion into the infinite creative forces of your writing and originality.
This will take the form of warm ups, inspiration games, flow-practices and personal rituals, improvisatory jam and writing sessions to tap into the wellsprings of freestyle, musical accompaniment and mentorship in your personal projects.
How and Why I Teach and Offer Mentorship in Music
My style of teaching is rooted in the view that music is one of the gifts all humanity shares that brings the most love, meaning, connection and joy to our lives. Hence why I chose to study Ethnomusicology and Global Popular Music as a BA, and have dedicated my life to giving others what I’ve been given: the fathomless and regenerative source of energy that is music.
Discipline and work, steadfast commitment and determination are the central pillars to developing as a musician. If you’re not ready to embody this, to live and breathe it, then you won’t grow. But I feel strongly that the source of energy we must tap into for us to achieve this rigour in ways we will ever be grateful for, is in those roots of a sincere love for our craft. We don’t get bored or tired of something we love, really love, neither do we give up on it or find it too difficult.
90 percent of people who decide to study guitar quit, and most in their first year. It’s similar for most instruments and vocals also.
I don’t believe people are fundamentally undisciplined. Some, for example, simply realise that they have other callings, and that’s fine.
The problem is where people who could have become wonderful musicians and enhanced their lives with rhythmic power, beauty, and soulfulness lighting up their nights and days drop out, then later regret it deeply that they didn’t persevere when the time was ripe to do so.
I feel that this is because conventional attitudes towards music in commercial society, and same-old westernised teaching methods, often suck the life out of the life-source that is music! Mainstream music taught us to want to be ego-driven stars, living out the superficial image of our prescribed role models, heightening our status, bedazzling ourselves in the mirror. We soon realise it’s a laughable endeavour, only surface deep. We encounter the heights of the capitalist cliffs to scale, and sore fingers and strained vocal chords, the competition, the hierarchical attitudes, the judgement and cynical, unsupportive attitudes of some musicians towards others. Bubbles are blown, dreams get dashed, people get hurt..
Music like many artforms, in its raw essence, is precisely that which aids us to transcend the trappings of our egoic selves and our ever-frenetic minds. I believe everyone has this musical ability and birthright of permission, that can be tapped, catalysed, alchemised. It appears to be near universal, in our very DNA.
The key, this was at least the case with me and many other artists I’ve shared this with, is in living the unforgettable, really quite life-altering moments where we experience the raw power and wonder of flow-state. Apparent telepathic connection with other artists, playing things we never imagined we could play, euphoria, a sense of awe and expansion, total joy.
Some call this channeling, others call it the flow-state, catching the wave, or the zone. In scholarly circles, it’s described as trance, ecstasy, and even spirit possession depending on the cultural context. Sufi’s in Turkey and other areas of the Middle-East call it Sema, or Tarab, and those of South Asia call it Qawwali. There are as many terms as there are cultures, especially many First Nations cultures that continue to practice long-held ceremonial traditions. Some cultures, of course, see this phenomenon as a moment of union with spirit, and deeply sacred and healing. Now that I’ve lived it enough, I concur.
This has never happened however, not to me at least, while drilling my scales, or while repeating a classical piece for the thousandth time! This happens in performance, with an audience that is immersed, when alone and deep in a mode of creation, and in the best and most liberating jam sessions. As so many traditions comprehend and practice intentionally - it seems that this requires ritualism of some kind. The good news? We can create our own kinds.
These are the experiences that make us truly love the creation of music. This is therefore the drive and direction, the essence I attempt to ignite in my lessons, balanced with a sufficient strong foundation-building of discipline and practice. Because it is still possible to experience the hundredth repetition of a scale as sacredly soul-expansive and so on if you choose to! Or, at least, as enjoyable and satisfying ;)
I’ve had the fortune of learning music, and fundamental attitudes towards it, from masterful musicians all over the world, in cultures that not only consider music as a sacred phenomenon that brings us into contact with the essence of the universe, but practice this in their quotidian. Others, many in academic circles for example, still believe and practice the same things, but are engaged in the art of defining and exploring the layered meanings and possibilities, as well as practicing music in their own ways.
My teachers have included:
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My fabulous vocals professor Thandeka Ndala Mfinyongo of Xosa heritage, Southern Africa;
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Indian Tabla virtuoso, amongst the worlds most well known, Sanju Sahai;
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The wonderful Kouyate Diabate, a kora master griot from Senegal (in photo below);
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Dembis Thioung, a sufi griot master of the dun-dun from Senegal;
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Moussa Koroleko Dembele, a maestro griot composer, bandleader and kora, balafon and djembe player from Burkina-Faso;
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French-Spanish guitar aficionado Guy Dacruz who bestowed bossa-nova and flamenco technique upon me;
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Three more excellent British guitar teachers in my youth, James Peake being the first to ignite the flame with big distortion pedals and the amp turned up to 11.
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Nii Boye Owoo, sensational Ghanaian kpanlogo drumming and vocals maestro and bandleader.
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Lucy Durán - Renowned music producer, kora player/bandleader and specialist in the music of Mali, Cuba and many more, ex BBC Radio 3 presenter, doc film maker.
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Sara McGuinness - bandleader and studio producer of Orquesta Estelar and the SOAS Cuban Big Band, keys player in Cuban-Congolese band Grupo Lokito.
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Dr Richard Williams at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Specialist Academic in Lyrics, Song, Poetry and Musical Literature, History of Emotions, with a special emphasis on South Asia.
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Dr Andrew Channing - Javanese and Balinese gamelan expert and bandleader, who gave me tools in my percussion inventory
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Dr Nick Grey - Indonesian Gamelan professor and band leader.
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Dr Ilana Webster-Kohen - North African Music, Sufi Music, Global Hip-Hop professor.
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Dr Saied Kordmafi - Middle Eastern and Persian traditional music, rhythm and temporality, sufi mysticism and music.
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Jean-Pierre Fourment - Jazz Double-Bass bandleader and Composer from France.
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Serban Babei - London based, world class symphonic percussionist and drummer
Rates
Rates are to be discussed on a personal basis, and depend on local currencies and standard fees, and what we deem fair considering your income. I operate between multiple countries and can't give a fixed rate here. Whatever the case, though, I like to keep prices accessable.
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Core Principles
I feel it an honour to accompany you, in the way that is right for you, sincere and heart-felt for you, on a journey deeper into the worlds of your creativity and musicality.
My core principles include a centering in respect and understanding for where you know your passion for music is taking you. Patience. The interconnection that music is all about. Heart-felt encouragement and solidarity. Firmness only where it is sure to help you remember to practice in a disciplined way at home and so on. And above all, enjoyment!
Feel free to contact me with all and any questions, or just to get a feel for what our dynamic could be. I look forward to meeting you musically!
Testimonials
