Music classes
Learn the instrument, and the music it came from.
Nelson studied music at the Universidad de Chile, sang with its Coro Polifónico and danced with the Ballet Folklórico Experimental Loncurahue, and went on to teach guitar at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music for fifteen years.
The approach has not changed: you learn a song, and while you are learning it you pick up the technique, the rhythm and the story behind it. Beginners are welcome — most students arrive having never held a guitar. Players who already read and play come for the Latin American repertoire specifically: the right-hand patterns, the feel of a cueca or a cumbia, the difference a bolero asks for.
Lessons are taught in English or Spanish, whichever the student prefers.
What students work on
- Folk and classical guitar technique, from first chords upward
- Latin American rhythm patterns — cueca, cumbia, bolero, vals, bachata
- Vocal technique, including singing and playing at the same time
- Repertoire drawn from across Latin America, with the history behind each song
- Instruction in English or Spanish
Nelson replies to every enquiry himself.