Most guitar and piano lessons focus on quantity. i.e. learning song after song without really understanding how the music actually works. My mentorship does the opposite. We take songs/pieces you love and use them as a map to decode the entire instrument. We analyse the songs you 'know' and use those to develop specific techniques and fretboard / keyboard geography. Developing your musicianship and ability to play anywhere, in any key, and in any genre.

I don’t train you to copy videos. I mentor you to think and play like a musician.

How We Use Online Tutorials

Independent exploration is highly encouraged, and finding inspiration on YouTube or TikTok is wonderful! 

However, inside the Riff66 studio, we follow the 50/50 Rule: -

• 50% Mechanics & Foundations: Deconstructing technique, fixing tension, mapping geography, and building rhythmic discipline.

• 50% Application & Expression: Applying those exact mechanics directly to the songs you currently play / want to play. For example, If a song you've learned online is brought to a lesson but demonstrates technical regression (e.g. flying fingers, collapsed wrists, poor timing etc.), we will utilise specific sections and phrases of that song to actively re-train the physical foundation.

Practice & Accountability

Quality Over Quantity: Ten minutes of focused, hyper-slow practice focusing purely on hand relaxation is worth five hours of mindlessly playing through a song with high tension.

The Mentor’s Role: I am here to diagnose what is blocking your progress and give you the exact cognitive tools to fix it. Your role is to trust the process, slow down, and prioritise how you play over what you play.

Why YouTube Tutorials Keep You Stuck in ‘Language Limbo’

Imagine trying to learn fluent Spanish by simply memorising and repeating a 5 page speech line-by-line. You might sound impressive for a moment, but you cannot speak Spanish. You cannot hold a conversation, ask for directions, or express your own thoughts.

This is exactly how most online video tutorials teach music (guitar and piano in particular).

They force you to jump straight to the bottom of the pyramid, mimicking whole ‘Stories and Novels’ (Songs) before you have even learned the basic letters, syllables, or words. 

Together, we'll use the natural linguistic hierarchy of music. where you'll go beyond "reading a script" as I mentor you to think, speak, and create, fluently on your instrument to develop true musicality.

I don’t teach music through 'traditional', rigid imitation.

My background is in College and Degree level biological science and educational pedagogy. I look at music, guitar and piano through the lens of cognitive science, neurology, and biomechanics. Because I am constantly refining my own technique alongside you, I know exactly where the nervous system creates tension, how the brain suffers from cognitive overload, and how to build muscle memory. We aren’t just memorising songs; we are engineering your brain to play effortlessly. 

The internet has infinite tutorials, yet millions of players stay stuck in ‘YouTube limbo’, collecting half-learned songs while building a ceiling of physical tension. As a biology lecturer turned music mentor, we'll operate under a 50/50 Rule: 

50% technical mechanics and structural analysis, and 

50% application and creative expression using the songs you love.

I completely reject the idea that you must play boring, rigid exercises for years before touching the music you love. Whether you want to conquer a cool guitar solo or a towering Chopin Étude, we'll bring it into the studio, break it down into tiny, microscopic phrases, and by studying the precise physical motions and architectural structures of advanced music at a deliberate crawl, we can use any song / piece to build elite technique from the ground up.

If we decided that mentoring is the right fit for you, you'll receive a hard copy of your 20 page practice journal, which we will use to keep track of your progress. 

In addition, as you choose songs you would like to take a deep dive into (which we use to inform practice of specific techniques, new chords inversions, etc.) I will create a "Song Sheet" for you, a 5 - 6 page booklet that will we utilise to inform specific "lessons" and devise strategic practice sessions. 

No matter how 'simple' or 'complex' the music, there will be a lifetime's worth of lessons to be uncovered from it!