I've been teaching music for more than 45 years.
That's a long time, and experience certainly matters. But if you're considering taking lessons with me, I don't think the number itself is the most important reason.
What matters is what I've done during those years.
I've studied and performed music across an unusually broad spectrum of styles. Classical music, bluegrass, traditional Irish music, klezmer, folk music, mandolin orchestra music and music from other cultures have all become part of my musical vocabulary.
And much of what I learned didn't happen in a classroom.
It happened by going places, meeting musicians and playing music with them.
Sometimes the Best Lesson Happens in a Pub
I remember being in Kilfenora, Ireland, playing bluegrass fiddle for an audience at Linane's Pub.
Think about that combination for a moment.
An American fiddler, in Ireland, playing bluegrass.
But while I was there, I was also learning.
Traditional Irish fiddling has its own vocabulary of ornamentation, rhythm and bowing. One of the techniques I encountered was the traditional Irish treble, that quick right-hand bow movement that gives certain tunes their characteristic articulation.
So there I was, bringing one tradition into the pub and taking another tradition home with me.
That's musical education.
Klezmer at the Great Pyramids
Another time, music took me to Egypt.
I had the extraordinary experience of preparing and performing klezmer music onstage in front of the Great Pyramids.
There is something wonderfully strange about that sentence even now.
Klezmer itself carries generations of travel, migration, celebration and memory. Then you find yourself playing it thousands of miles from home with one of humanity's most recognizable ancient landscapes behind you.
You prepare carefully for a performance like that. You learn the music. You rehearse. You think about the audience and the setting.
Then you walk onto the stage and discover all the things you couldn't possibly have prepared for.
That's part of being a musician, too.
Two Fiddlers in China
One of my favorite musical memories happened in Hebei Province, China.
I was visiting a musical instrument factory and had learned Ashokan Farewell. At the factory, I met a Chinese violinist.
We didn't share the same musical background, but we did share an instrument.
So I played a little of Ashokan Farewell.
Then she played a passage from the Chinese violin concerto The Butterfly Lovers.
For a few minutes, that was our conversation.
I offered her a melody from the American fiddle tradition. She answered with one of China's best-known works for violin.
The people around us listened with obvious wonder and responded with their own version of applause.
I still remember that exchange because it gets to the heart of what I love about music.
We didn't need to explain very much.
We played.
We listened.
We understood.
And Then There's Bach and Mozart
Back home in Western Massachusetts, I've had entirely different musical experiences.
I've performed Bach and Mozart with the South Hadley Mandolin Orchestra at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum in Hadley.
Again, it's a different world.
Different repertoire. Different expectations. Different ensemble skills. Different ways of listening.
But that's precisely the point.
I don't believe musicians have to live inside one little musical box.
A bluegrass fiddler can learn something from Bach.
A classical violinist can learn something enormously valuable from Irish bowing.
A mandolin player can learn from klezmer phrasing.
A musician studying a Chinese melody may suddenly hear something differently in an American fiddle tune.
Music has borders on maps and in history books.
It doesn't have many when you're actually playing it.
That's What I Bring to a Lesson
When I teach someone how to play a scale, hold a bow, produce a better tone or work through a difficult passage, I'm certainly teaching technique.
Technique matters.
But I'm also drawing on decades of playing with musicians in very different circumstances.
I've prepared concerts. I've performed them. I've played formal stages and informal sessions. I've studied classical repertoire and traditional music. I've had musical exchanges with people whose backgrounds were completely different from mine.
I've also taught students for more than four decades.
That means I've had a very long time to discover something every teacher eventually learns:
People don't all learn the same way.
A technique that makes perfect sense to one student may completely confuse another. One person needs to understand why something works. Another needs to hear it. Another needs to watch it. Another simply needs to try it until suddenly the physical movement makes sense.
My job isn't to make every student learn the way I learned.
My job is to figure out how you learn.
I'm Not Trying to Create Another Me
This is important.
I'm not interested in turning students into copies of myself.
Your musical interests may be very different from mine.
Good.
If you want to play bluegrass, let's play bluegrass.
If you're fascinated by Irish music, let's explore that tradition seriously.
If you want to understand classical technique, we'll work on it.
If you've always wanted to play a particular song and don't care whether anybody considers it appropriate "pedagogical repertoire," bring me the song.
There are fundamentals we need to learn. There are physical techniques that make playing easier and prevent bad habits from getting in the way.
But those things are tools.
The goal is music.
Forty-Five Years Is Really Thousands of Lessons
When I say I've taught for more than 45 years, I'm not asking someone to be impressed by the number.
What matters is everything contained inside it.
Thousands of lessons.
Thousands of questions.
Students who learned immediately and students who struggled.
Children picking up an instrument for the first time. Adults returning to music after decades away. People who wanted to perform and people who simply wanted music to become part of their lives.
And through all of that, I've continued learning myself.
Ireland taught me things.
Egypt taught me things.
China taught me things.
Bluegrass musicians taught me things. Classical musicians taught me things. Irish musicians taught me things. Klezmer musicians taught me things.
And my students have taught me an enormous amount.
I bring all of that into the room when I teach.
Your Musical Journey Won't Look Like Mine
Nor should it.
You don't need to perform klezmer in front of the pyramids.
You don't need to play bluegrass in an Irish pub or exchange fiddle tunes in a factory in China.
Your great musical adventure might be playing your first tune all the way through without stopping.
It might be joining a local session.
It might be playing for your family.
It might be returning to the violin you abandoned when you were 14.
It might simply be reaching that wonderful moment when the instrument stops feeling like an object you're wrestling with and starts feeling like a way to express something.
I've had a remarkable musical journey.
What I'd like to do now is help you with yours.
Study With Me at Sweet Music Studio
I teach violin and fiddle, mandolin, acoustic guitar and double bass online, working with beginning, intermediate and experienced musicians.
Private lessons are available Monday through Friday. Students enrolled in the 60-minute private lesson program also receive complimentary access to four weekly virtual group classes: Mandolin Mondays, Klezmer Wednesdays, Celtic Thursdays and Bluegrass Fridays.
For information or to arrange a lesson, email sweetmusicstud@gmail.com.
Adam Sweet
Sweet Music Studio
Granby, Massachusetts
