Category Archives: Lessons

Classes, Flute, for Adults, for Teens

Flute Workshop

Join a Sunday afternoon flute workshop designed and led by flutist Carol Adee. The emphasis of this workshop will be on honoring the musicality of each person and enlivening our enjoyment of “flutistry” whether alone or with others. All levels are encouraged.

The format will include the following:

Ensemble workshop

Flying Fingers

Floga

Story Telling

Playing for a positive audience

Show and Tell

Ensemble Fun

Carol Adee holds a M.M. degree from Yale School of Music and a Waldorf Teaching Certificate. She has taught flute and chamber music at Stanford and Dominican Universities as well as Music and Musical Pedagogy for the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training. As a performing musician Carol has worked in a wide variety of new music, chamber, and orchestral environments. She is a founding member of ECHO Camber Orchestra.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1-5 PM.

$140 tuition payable at the workshop.

Applications are due by Wednesday, October 16th, 2024

Apply now.

Faculty, People, Piano

John Mackay, pianist

John Mackay wrote his first song at 3 years old, and began piano studies at age 6. He began his professional career at age 18, playing the Hammond B-3 organ in a number of venues, including television and radio. He studied composition and arranging throughout the 70’s with various well-known teachers in Toronto, where he grew up, but fundamentally considers himself a self-taught musician, through years of listening and playing experience.

As a composer John is active in a number of different fields, including jazz, contemporary classical, theatre, pop and electronic music. He is presently working on a new musical theatre piece with well-known Canadian artist/writer Oliver Girling, based on the James Joyce novel, ‘Finnegan’s Wake’. And alongside that project he has created a 7 movement piece (short movements) around the famous Molly Bloom soliloquy at the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Visit John’s website to hear some of his music.

Board, chamber music, chamber music, Chamber Music, Faculty, People, Piano, Theory and Composition, Viola, Violin

Tara Flandreau ——– violinist and violist

Fourth-generation San Francisco native and long-time Marin resident Tara Flandreau is a violinist, violist, composer/improviser, and conductor.  She graduated from College of Marin and Dominican College, earning Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, and did doctoral work at Columbia University.  Tara has an extensive career as music educator and performing musician. She was chair of the Music and Performing Arts Departments at the College of Marin for many years, where she taught music theory and composition, ear training, strings, computer music notation software,  chamber music, and conducted the COM Symphony Orchestra.  Currently, Tara teaches string lessons and chamber music classes at MCMS, and plays in the ECHO Chamber Orchestra and the Marin Symphony.

Besides classical repertoire, Tara enjoys playing a wide variety of music, from performing at the Monterey Pops Festival recreation of the entire Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper Album, to a SF concert series celebrating the 100th birthday of composer John Cage.  She has performed and recorded with many improvising orchestras and free-jazz musicians.  Among her compositions is a short opera about SF eccentric Grimes Pozikov, the “Human Jukebox” who performed songs on his trumpet in a phone-booth sized box at Fisherman’s Wharf during the 1960’s – 1980’s..  

Tara has also created an extensive music theory resource website called  www.musictheoryteacher.com which has helped music students from around the world to better understand music theory.

Faculty, Guitar, People

Joe Marquez, Guitarist and Recording Engineer

Joe Marquez has been teaching guitar for 15 years, specializing in rock, pop and country. “I like to make lessons fun first, and I enjoy helping beginners gain the skills and confidence they need to experience the thrill of performing and composition.” 

As an artist Joe has placed songs with major label recording artists Cher and Wasp, earning gold and platinum records. His credits also include winning the John Lennon song writing contest for “Hang up Your Halo Tonight.” 

Joe worked as a recording engineer at Prairie Sun Recording in Cotati, where he recorded, mixed and played banjo on the 1992 Grammy winning Tom Waits album “Bone Machine.” He has engineered projects for Greg Allman, The Doobie Brothers, Dick Dale, Guy Clark, Ted Nugent, and the Melvins among others.

He specializes in teaching beginning and intermediate guitar and welcomes players of all ages. He is a father of two and shares his love of music with his family. When his daughter Madeline was 3 years old they recorded their first song together called “Bluebird of Happiness.” Joe also screens songs for the West Coast Songwriters Association and produces music for TV, commercials and film.

Board, Drums, Faculty, People

Sean Nelson, Drums/Percussion

Sean Nelson

Sean Nelson attended the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music Jazz Studies Program under Bob Brookmeyer in Holland, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Berklee School of Music. Since moving to SF in Fall 1996, Sean has had 24 years of professional teaching experience in the greater SF Bay Area, at the Community Music Center of SF, Marin Country Day School, and New Village Music. He joined the faculty of the Marin Community Music School in 2018.

In addition to being a teacher, Sean is also a professional musician performing in many different musical settings with a wide variety of musicians and groups. During his professional drumming career, he has shared the stage with many fine players and composers over more than 30 years playing drums professionally. 

In his lessons, students will get a well-rounded approach to drumming and drum set playing. They will learn the four fundamental drum strokes and the 26+ standard rudiments which make up a great deal of the language of drumming. They will study stick control exercises and snare drum reading fundamentals. They will also study drumset coordination using the rhythm concept of CLAVE (the rhythmic “key”) present in almost all music that has drumming and dancing.  Students will learn about the different rhythmic characteristics of style in music like Jazz, Rock, Funk, Afro-Cuban, Blues, New Orleans 2nd Line, Reggae, etc., and how to make beats and play songs. And we will also practice how to improvise, confidently creating rhythm in the moment and expressing our ideas on the drums.

chamber music, Chamber Music, Classes, Faculty, Lessons

Carol Adee, flutist & chamber coach

Flutist Carol Adee was surrounded by music growing up.  Holding a M.M. from Yale School of Music and a Waldorf Teaching Certificate, she has taught flute and chamber music at Stanford and Dominican Universities as well as Music and Musical Pedagogy for the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training.  

Her many years as Music Director at Marin Waldorf School have contributed to her collaborative spirit and interest in integrating music, story, art and movement into other subjects.  She is currently Music Director at Heartwood Charter School and a Teaching Artist for Enriching Lives through Music, an El Sistema program in Marin County working primarily with the vibrant multilingual children of the immigrant community.
As a performing musician, Carol has worked in a wide variety of new music, chamber and orchestral environments, having played with San Francisco Symphony, Ballet and Opera Orchestras along with other Bay Area orchestras, including touring and recording as principal flute with Women’s Philharmonic for 15 years.  Her solo CD Bach to Nature Three Suites in the Wilderness, has been distributed on several continents and on Spotify.  As a founding member of ECHO Chamber Orchestra, Carol is working to create more collaborative orchestral experiences for musicians and audiences.

Faculty, Guitar, People, Piano

Tommy O’Mahony

Tommy O’Mahony is a professional musician and educator with 15+ years of experience in playing and teaching. A Marin native and graduate of the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley with a Bachelors Degree in music, Tommy has experience teaching music theory and ear training as well as several instruments. In his instrumental lessons, he can teach specific playing techniques or just help you learn songs – on bass, guitar, piano or ukulele. Tommy welcomes students of all levels and ages.

Tommy O’Mahony

Chamber Music, chamber music, Faculty, Viola, Violin

Violist Meg Eldridge

Violist Meg Eldridge grew up in Marin County, and is an active orchestral and chamber musician, and string teacher.

Meg studied at the University of Michigan, the Manhattan School of Music, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She performs with the Marin Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, Carmel Bach Festival, and Philharmonia Healdsburg. She also plays violin with the Archangeli Baroque Strings, Marin Baroque of the Marin String Quartet, which gives concerts throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Meg plays on a viola that was made by Bronek Cison in Chicago in 2007, as well as on a French viola made in Mirecourt in the late 1800’s. She also teaches violin and viola at the Marin Waldorf School and at the Branson School.

Cello, Faculty, Guitar, People, Piano

David A. Lusterman, Founder

David Lusterman

David A. Lusterman is the president of Stringletter, which he founded in 1986, the media company that publishes Acoustic Guitar, Classical Guitar,  Strings, and Ukulele magazines.  He founded the Marin Community Music School in 2009.   David earned his B.A. in Comparative Literature at Columbia University and held staff positions at The New York Review of Books, democracy, The Nation, and [more].  He teaches beginning cello, guitar and piano.

Classes, for Adults, for Teens, Theory and Composition

Music Fundamentals for Guitarists

Taught by David Lusterman

Wednesdays, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Do you already know some chords and songs on the guitar, but feel like you’re speaking bits and pieces of a foreign language?

Do you marvel at guitarists who can easily change the key of a song to fit their vocal range or improvise a solo on the spot?

They’re not doing magic tricks. They’re just speaking a musical language they’ve taken time to learn from the ground up.

In this series of hour-long weekly classes, I’ll teach you the basics of that language — notes, intervals, scales, chords, and keys — as they apply to the guitar.

With our instruments in hand, we’ll use fretboard diagrams and simple exercises to learn the fundamentals of music. We won’t be reading music notation or tab. Instead, we’ll train our ears to show our hands what to do.

No matter how long you’ve been playing the guitar or how old you are, I can help you understand the vocabulary and grammar of music-making and hear the patterns common to pop, rock, folk, and classical music.

I can’t work wonders, so you’ll need to pay attention and apply what I show you to your guitar playing. But don’t worry, I’ll give you the tools you need with simple exercises and drills you can do at home.

You’ll start to understand how music actually works — the alphabet, the vocabulary, the phrases, sentences, and paragraphs — so you can play more confidently and tell your own musical stories.

Topics
The Major Scale and Two-Note Chords
Notes and Intervals
Scales and Modes
Three-Note Chords
Keys and Four-Note Chords
Key Changes and Improvisation

Logistics
Wednesdays, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Location: Marin Community Music School, 55 San Anselmo Avenue, San Anselmo, CA 94960

Fee: $25 per class for new students, $15 for students already enrolled in lessons.

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