Andrew McKnight

Interested in learning guitar and/or songwriting? Just curious but never really tried it? A student considering a career in the performing arts? Crave a better practical grasp of music theory, or want to hone your performance skills? Perhaps learn the nuts and bolts of the independent arts business? Or maybe you just want to be able to enjoy playing 3-chord songs with friends or at home. For any and all of that, I am here to help!

I maintain a small practice of private guitar and songwriting students at home near Purcellville in western Loudoun County, Virginia, teaching both in-person locally and via video conferencing like Zoom to anywhere in North America. My students range from beginners to intermediate players studying acoustic and/or electric guitar, and some come with an interest in using guitar as part of their creative process. 

This autumn I have room for a limited number of new in-person and online students - please inquire now while I still have availability!

I have over 30 years experience performing, writing, recording & teaching in a wide range of genres, but what really matters is each student connecting with what they want to learn. While I love helping beginners learn chords & simple songs they like, I’ve also helped:

• a dad write & perform a ballad for a family milestone
• a HS student learn basic music theory for jazz band
• a young rocker explore basic soloing to jam with friends
• a retiree learn to play & sing a song for her 70th birthday
• write and record a song with a band for student's horse show

It's your time to use as you wish, one on one at your pace and working on what you want to learn. Everyone learns differently, and part of my job is figuring out how you learn and how to most effectively help you learn and master even simple things like hand position for a C chord. We use your unique musical interests to highlight important music theory concepts as needed, learn to read tablature and rhythm notation, and optimize skill building and independence in both hands. 

So much of learning to play guitar is repetitive fine motor skills, and most beginners put ten times the necessary force and motion to their fingers, hands and even arms! I'm only half joking when I say “we work really hard at being really lazy,” because all of that extra work and motion make it a LOT harder to be in the right place for the next chord or the next measure. The real work is being so efficient that eventually it looks like you're hardly moving, because truthfully that's all that's needed! And seeing a student actualize that epiphany for themselves is a big reward unto itself.

We have a LOT of great tools in the palm of our hands with our fancy smart phones, and I encourage everyone to use them - particularly taking video at our lessons to help you access our work during the other 167+ hours of the week! And if we do a lesson on Zoom because of weather or other circumstances, that's a GREAT way to easily capture video of parts of your lesson for your use at home, as well as to write and test tablature together to help you better access other song or solo TABS.

When a student first tries something and it doesn't meet their expectation, I remind them that it will never be worse or sound harder than it is right now, and it will get better quickly with a little bit of focused effort. When a student says "I can't do that", I always add "yet." You might not be able to make it sound great right at this moment, but you will - it's only a matter of WHEN and not IF. And WHEN usually arrives a few minutes later - that's a real confidence builder! The real craft of teaching is helping each student find their pathway to - and through - those little successes that are vital inspiration to continued learning.

Songwriting may seem to come mostly from inspiration, but it is also a lot about process. It's about getting the feelings and ideas fleshed out without any judgment, and then doing the work of distilling and massaging the most vital words and phrases into something coherent and memorable enough to hum the rest of the day. Part art, part craft, and definitely part voodoo and magic too.

Whatever your goals, I'd love to share my experience to helping you them, and I'd be delighted to welcome you into my home studio here in Lincoln or via video conference as you need. Your seat is ready for you - please get in touch and on my schedule today!

Andrew teaching a songwriting workshop for middle and high school students as part of the Chords of Courage songwriting contest, Frederick MD, Jan 2025. Photo by Tomy Wright