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The church is where it all starts. I'll teach you to sing from the diaphragm, to bend notes, to build from a whisper to a scream that fills the room. Gospel technique is the foundation of all American popular music. If you can sing gospel, you can sing anything.

I write the words first. Always. The melody finds its way to the words. We'll work on imagery, metaphor, and the art of saying something so specific it becomes universal. Bring a notebook. Leave your guitar at home for the first session.

Learn to count in 7/8, 5/4, 11/8, and shifting meters. I'll teach you the rhythmic language of The Rite of Spring -- the piece that started a riot. Bring a drum, a table, or just your hands. Rhythm is the most primal element of music.

How to write a book that contains an entire world. We'll study structure, character management (I juggled 580 characters in War and Peace), and the art of the long form. This is not for short-attention spans. This is for people who want to build cathedrals.

Learn to structure stories that people can't stop reading. We work on chapter endings, pacing, character reveals, and the art of making your audience come back next week. I wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks and it changed Western culture. Speed is not the enemy of quality.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. I'll teach you to use it. We'll work on voice, timing, and the art of saying true things that make people laugh instead of cry. Bring something you've written. I'll be honest. Honest is all I know how to be.

Wah-wah, fuzz face, Uni-Vibe, Octavia. I turned noise into music. I'll show you how each pedal works, how to chain them, and how to use feedback as an instrument. The Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock was feedback, distortion, and the sound of a nation tearing itself apart.

I arrange entire orchestras in my head, note by note. I can't see the sheet music -- I hear it. I'll teach you to arrange a song for voice and piano, then add horn lines, strings, backup vocals. Start simple. Build. Every arrangement is architecture.

Built it myself. Cigar box body, broomstick neck, three strings. This is how I started. This is how rock started. You don't need a Gibson to make music. You need a box, a stick, and a beat.

A beat-up upright that sounds like Saturday night in Louisiana. Not a concert instrument. A PARTY instrument. Great Balls of Fire was never played on a Steinway. It was played on a piano like this, with the sustain pedal stuck and the lid wide open.

I started singing gospel in church. I ended singing everything. I'll help you find your voice -- not my voice, YOUR voice. We work on breath control, vibrato, and the thing nobody teaches: vulnerability. If you're not scared when you sing, you're not singing hard enough.

The same guitar model I played at the Cotton Club in 1938. Before Chuck. Before Elvis. Before Hendrix. This is where rock and roll started -- a Black woman with a Gibson and a gospel shout.