One of my goals for 2013 was to find a new teacher. Just as beginning and intermediate guitar players can learn from me, I can benefit from another teacher who is higher up the food chain. My new teacher is Dave Frackenpohl, who teaches jazz guitar at Georgia State University.
I would like to develop more comping ideas, develop more improvisation ideas, and memorize more standards. Dave added one more weakness to my list: I need to be better at transposing on the fly, so we'll be learning each new song in a few different keys.
Dave is one of those teachers who makes you feel comfortable right away, and he seems to have a knack for breaking big concepts down into smaller, more approachable steps. In terms of personality and knowledge, Dave is exactly the teacher I need right now. I'm looking forward to lessons with him on a regular basis to help regain some focus and to help take my playing to a new level.
About Me
- Tom Godfrey
- Atlanta, GA, United States
- When I suffered a lip injury that ended my career as a classical trombonist, I thought my life as a musician was finished, but I fell in love with music all over again when Santa gave me a guitar for Christmas in 2003. Even as I was struggling with my first chords, I was planning a new performance career. As a trombonist, I performed with the Heritage of America Band at Langley Air Force Base, the Ohio Light Opera, and in pick-up bands for touring acts that included Rosemary Clooney, George Burns, and the Manhattan Transfer. Reborn as a jazz guitarist, I sing and play my own solo arrangements of jazz classics, am half of the Godfrey and Guy duo, and hold the guitar chair in the Sentimental Journey Orchestra. I have been a freelance music copyist since 1995, served as Director of Music at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation from 2011 to 2017, and currently serve as Contemporary Band Director at the same congregation.
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