Browse Items

Learn to write music that makes bodies move. I'll teach you orchestral color -- how a celesta sounds like falling snow, how a bassoon sounds like a grandfather clock. We score a dance scene from scratch.

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.

My father was the greatest swordsman in France. I learned enough to write convincing duels. I'll teach you the basics -- en garde, parry, riposte -- and the storytelling behind every fight scene. A duel is a conversation with sharps.

I'll teach you to draw a face from the front and side simultaneously. We'll break objects into geometric planes, reassemble them, and create something the camera can never capture. Cubism isn't abstract -- it's more real than reality. It shows everything at once.

Learn to apply real gold leaf to paintings, furniture, or frames. I'll teach you the sizing, the breathing technique (one sneeze and twenty euros of gold blows away), and how to mix gold with oil paint for the effect you see in The Kiss. Materials included.

I made the whole world laugh without saying a word. I'll teach you timing, the pratfall, the slow burn, the double take. Your body is the instrument. No props needed -- just your willingness to fall down and get back up. That's comedy. That's life.

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.

I don't teach you to play like me. I teach you to play like YOU. We work on embouchure, breathing, and most importantly -- phrasing. Phrasing is how you tell a story with notes. Anyone can play the right notes. The question is: can you make them mean something?

Learn to write for a big band -- fifteen musicians, each with a voice. I'll teach you voicings, sectional writing, and how to make an orchestra swing. The secret: write for people, not instruments.

I'll teach you to sing behind the beat -- to take a melody and make it yours by changing the timing, not the notes. We work on breath, emotion, and the courage to be vulnerable in front of strangers. No sheet music. Just feeling.

Kind of Blue used two scales for the entire album. Two. I'll teach you to improvise using modes instead of chord changes. Freedom through limitation. When you only have two colors, you learn to paint everything.

I trained for classical concert piano and ended up playing jazz in bars. That's not a step down -- that's a synthesis. I'll teach you to bring classical discipline to any genre. Bach and the blues are closer than you think.