After literally innumerable failed attempts at learning to play the guitar through other teachers, both live and online, I've finally at long last found a teacher in Sybil at Portland Guitar Academy who's put me on a path of discernible progress. Sybil is a virtuoso as a guitarist but is also a gifted teacher, and it is difficult to find those two qualities exemplified so superlatively as they are in Sybil. She is patient, very understanding, and gives me as a student a realistic sense of what my expectations should be. I would wholeheartedly recommend Portland Guitar Academy to anyone seeking to seriously learn to play the guitar.

I have been playing guitar for years and was self taught determined to figure it out on my own and I finally made the decision to find an instructor and in just the last month of working with Jesse and the Academy I have made more progress then I have ever done before at a rate I did not think was possible. I hit a rut and was frustrated that I was not getting better, everything I was teaching myself was not leading me anywhere and I figured that I have been making noise for years and I wanted to really make music. Jesse has been able to show and explain the guitar to me a way that no other person or book or youtube video has and he is able to break down theory in a way that makes sense and builds upon itself, including connecting theory from previous lessons that have made learning the guitar so much quicker and I am not just memorizing theory I am learning and applying it. If you are a musician and want to get better learn from me and do not waste anymore time, there is no time like now and if you really want to see major progress in your abilities and knowledge this is the place for you.

Brief: Jesse is a terrific teacher, musician and guitar player. Seize any opportunity to work with him.
Long:
I've bee learning from Jesse for a few years now. He has provided inspiration and understanding about many avenues of music (technique, theory, production, composition, mindset, philosophy, health, message, legacy). He is incredibly present, and efficiently identifies goals and obstacles where I lack the experience to articulate them. He works collaboratively, providing dense and effective education in an organic way. I enjoy our lessons. Not only are they fun, but they always yield large progressive steps in my understanding of music... to the point that I've become addicted to the "epiphany" moments. The curriculum is an example in master design. As a student I am excited and engaged in the immediacy of a lesson. I feel empowered by new perspectives and insight following a lesson, and my playing leaps forward every time. This is all very abstract, just know Jesse is an incredible teacher!
More technically, Jesse has helped me improve:
- musical ear, listening and hearing music
- composition, stretching immediate improvisation to longer, larger structures
- intervallic thinking, and the ability to rapidly capture or notate musical thoughts
- interaction with the instrument, posture, ergonomics, strategy
- pattern visualization, the ability to embed theory beyond paper and then apply those visualizations at will
- connection between previously disparate theory structures
- technique, understanding the nuances that make studio quality guitar playing
- confidence in playing and navigating the entire neck
- presence and mindset
- ability to formalize and think about my own guitar goals on the scale of a lifetime, down to the immediate hour of a practice