I offer lessons on the fiddle, guitar and in songwriting. Lessons can be both online or in person (Baltimore area). I charge $50 for an hour and $30 for half an hour and I offer a free trial lesson. Inquire about lessons at williambrauneis@gmail.com! 

A little bit about my approach to teaching:

 In Effortless Mastery jazz pianist Kenny Werner frames musical education as an overcoming of inhibitions and hang-ups rather than the systematic acquisition of musical skills. My own experience with music education deeply resonates with this perspective. From an early age I took classical piano lessons and learned old-time fiddling by going to jams and festivals. In my classical education I felt I was always underperforming, which made practicing into a chore since it reminded me of my insufficiency, which made me practice less, which made me feel guilty, which further inhibited my playing… etc. In learning the fiddle, on the other hand, I was constantly around encouraging musicians and seemed to improve with no active effort on my part!

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had this experience learning the fiddle, since it has opened my soul to a side of life I can no longer imagine living without. Unfortunately, many people’s experience of musical education is more along the lines of struggles with the piano. As a music teacher I help students tap into their creativity and be propelled by their joy for music. This isn’t as vague as it sounds; I have developed and adapted many techniques to help students relax and play without thinking. 

Of utmost importance in this respect is for students to learn the proper routing for musical ideas. Too often music is learned “in the fingers” (i. e. through muscle memory), which in the long run is severely limiting. To play music effortlessly you must learn to grasp musical ideas in your head and then transfer these to your fingers. Music is much like language in this respect. If we attempted to learn language by just memorizing the sounds of words and developing a system for when to make which sounds in response to sounds we heard we wouldn’t get very far; it is by grasping the meaning of words that we learn to speak. Yet much of musical instruction takes just this approach. Luckily there are intuitive approaches that are more effective and fun!