A good friend and classical guitar major, Matt Harding, taught me to play guitar by ear during college and to this day I continue to be musically illiterate, but he did teach me good technique. Hopefully someday I'll be motivated enough to actually learn to read music.

In the begining I learned to play mostly folk, blues, rock, and a little bit of jazz and eventually reached a learning plateau due to not being motivated and having never had formal lessons. After moving to the Bay Area I accidentally fell into taking flamenco guitar lessons. How you ask? Of course it was because of a woman. It always seems to be, especially when it comes to guitar.

Flamenco is the hardest stuff I have ever played. It's as technically challenging as classical, but perhaps more physically demanding because of the tapping, golpaes, and other crazy flamenco techniques. And finally, rhythm is of the utmost importance since the true role of a flamenco guitarist is accompanying dancers and singers and improvising to follow the singer as well as adding emphasis as necessary to match the dancers' footwork. It's ridiculous.

My instructor and flamenco guitarist extraordinaire, Jason McGuire, and his wife Yaelisa, Grammy-Award Winning flamenco dancer/choreographer, own and operate a flamenco company, Caminos Flamencos. They have given me the opportunity to perform solo flamenco pieces in several shows featuring student guitarists and professional performers, and now after years of studying I am finally barely good enough to play along for a beginning dance class and start learning how to accompany other performers. It's quite fun being their little monkey-grinder guitarist and doing whatever the teacher wants: "Play an alegrias, oops you started on the wrong beat, start again. Now play slower, faster, stop. Start again. Ok, now play a bulerias, slower, faster, you missed a beat. Now play a sevillanas. Oh you don't know that style yet, ok we'll get to it when you learn it." It's a great gig being able to practice for an hour or so, getting to watch some hot women dance, and I even get paid a little bit. Can't complain.