After years of experience as a guitar teacher, Eli Friedmann has developed a broad range of strategies for teaching students of all ages and ability levels. Since students' experience and interests vary so greatly, no two lesson plans are alike.

"For children and beginners, I concentrate on the basics. The student will quickly learn simple open chords that are perfect for strumming through almost any popular song. I emphasize reading of both staff notation and tablature as well as pick and fingerstyle right hand approaches. I am equally at home teaching acoustic and electric guitar, and pay close attention to physical posture and technique so that these factors are not a limitation on style at later stages." ~Eli

For more advanced students who have already built up a basic level of understanding of their instrument, lessons are based entirely on the type of music the student most likes to listen to and play. Although Eli's formal education was centered in jazz and rock he enjoys teaching ALL non-classical styles, including folk, funk, punk, and blues.

"Whatever music YOU love can be learned by working from the recordings you have listened to for years and want to be able to emulate in your own playing." ~Eli

Eli teaches a broad range of style models, including but not limited to Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and extending to progressive jazz and bebop improvisation.

Eli's studio is equipped with a professional recording workstation. Students who wish to record their guitar playing for demo, release, or college applications can get professional sounding CDs of their music produced and engineered in the teaching studio. For examples of music recorded here see the performance page of this site. The gear used includes Daking, Empirical Labs, RME, Carver, and Dynaudio as well as Zachary and Santa Cruz guitars.

Eli Friedmann's 1 hour lessons are reasonably priced with different pay scales for sessions at his Astoria studio (conveniently located less than 5 minutes from the Broadway stop on the "N" subway line) and for sessions at your home or school. Personal references and rates for 30 or 45-minute lessons are available upon request.