Play Your Heart Out,
with Tyler Wickersty
Unlock the soulful musician inside of you,
by taking guitar lessons with Tyler Wickersty.
With guitar lessons tailored to your specific goals and musical taste,
highly effective practice techniques, and a focus on
making practice time into a highly enjoyable experience,
Tyler will transform your playing in just a few short months!
About Tyler Wickersty
Bio
With 14 years of experience playing guitar, a B.A. in Music Performance from Kutztown University, 8 years of being in rock bands that wrote, recorded, and performed around Philadelphia, Tyler Wickersty is a seasoned professional guitar player who is passionate about sharing music with others. Upon announcement of the opening of his guitar studio, his lessons have exploded in popularity. Guitar players ranging from beginner to advanced levels all rely on Tyler to guide their next steps in learning the guitar. A jack-of-all-trades, Tyler teaches all genres and techniques, including rock and roll, blues, classical, jazz, finger-style guitar, shred guitar, acoustic, electric, etc.
"To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable"
Ludwig van Beethoven
Statement on My Teaching Philosophy
by Tyler Wickersty
The main goal for the students in my guitar studio would be for them to graduate armed with the necessary tools and conviction that they can not only be a great musician, but an incredible artist and well-rounded person as well. Through a combination of focused and rigorous study, and an emphasis on continuously growing a passion for music, my students will not only master the guitar, but will learn how to creatively and artistically express themselves through music.
Students come with goals of all sizes and shapes. From the beginner who just wants to “learn to play”, to the intermediate who wants to “learn to shred” or “learn to express themselves”, to the college student who wants to be a professional musician. My lessons will use new challenges to incrementally improve each student’s playing every week, so as to allow them to achieve all their goals, sometimes even faster than they expected! Each student will have the pleasure of a highly positive learning environment that will be created through my use of patience and encouragement. This will allow myself and the students to build within them a strong internal belief that they can accomplish anything they want to do with music.
My guitar students will learn the importance of great technique, and how their technique will shape their sound. Their right hand technique will be improved through emphasis on proper strumming technique, the correct position of the pick in the hand, the correct pick attack strength and angles on the string, and practice of fingerstyle strumming. The students’ left hand technique will be refined by placing their fingers in the correct spot on each fret, building finger strength and agility through exercises and scale study, and by learning how music theory applies to the guitar fretboard.
Students will learn to approach practicing in a way that feels more voluntary than tedious. While students learn traditional professional guitar repertoire from the genres of rock and roll, jazz, blues, and classical, students will also be allowed to bring in music that they personally want to learn. I will use the music that they bring in to keep their excitement in lessons and with music at a very high level, and I will find ways to apply recently learned topics to their brought-in music. Not only will they play the music they like, but I will also teach them how to analyze music, and think about music in deeper ways that the student might not do on their own.
A great education in music comes with not only skills on a particular instrument, but with knowledge on how to be an overall well-rounded, responsible, and respectful individual and citizen in a community. While the students learn how to play the guitar, I will be setting an excellent example as a role model in the student’s life. Students will always be treated with great respect, and they will learn the importance of always being prepared and always striving to better themselves in all aspects of their life. They will also have opportunities to interact with other students in the studio, so that they have the chance to start building relationships with other musicians. Creating a small community among my guitar students will bolster the positivity of the environment and allow them to freely bounce ideas off each other, learn from each other, and eventually even push each other to be the best musician and person they can be.
Statement on Diversity
by Tyler Wickersty
The creation of an environment in my classrooms and guitar lesson rooms that is completely committed to the acceptance of diversity is of the utmost importance to me. While I’m lucky and appreciative of the incredible job my parents did to set me up for success growing up here in America, I’m devasted when I see an incredible diverse person not afforded the same opportunities. I’ve learned much about the great systemic failures and terrible injustices that have been part of American history. It is of dire importance not only that all of us listen to words of those who have had different upbringings than our own, but for all us to do our part to create change for the better in the world around us.
My personal experiences with diverse people around me have allowed me to listen to their stories of when they have been treated differently due to the color of their skin color, or their membership of the LGBTQ community, or their learning disabilities. Hearing what they had to say has been extremely important in developing my understanding of what creates a proper diverse environment. I have worked on music projects personally with people of different races, people from foreign countries, people who are LGBTQ, and I have had a close partnership with a musician who has learning disabilities. These experiences with different diverse groups of people have taught me to respect and embrace what makes us different, and they have inspired me take part in public events promoting equality for all.
My job as an educator is to create an environment where all students, no matter their race, heritage, wealth status, sexual orientation, gender, learning disabilities, or background, have an excellent and equal opportunity to achieve their goals. I will treat all students will equal respect and expectations, while never allowing anything that could hurt the diversity of the learning environment. While maintaining this open and diverse environment, I will also emphasize the role that different cultures play in the world of music. Music education would be incomplete for the student if there was no discussion of how much of the pop music genres we have today were invented by other cultures and people dealing with hardships due to their race. Students will be exposed to lots of different genres of music from different countries and areas around the world, as this will allow them to grow an appreciation and admiration for cultures and peoples different from their own kind. A combination of establishing equality in the learning environment, and teaching students to embrace cultures and people that look differently than themselves, will create a diverse classroom that educates my students not only about music, but to respect and guard the idea that, “all men (and women) are created equal.”
Teaching Sample Video
How to play some of the basic chords:
The barre chord
This video is a sample of my teaching! In just a 30 minute lesson, we would cover multiple topics like this every week! This lesson discusses the "E form" "A form" and "D form" chords.
Guitar Lessons Contract
Contact Information:
Tyler Wickersty
Phone number: 267-275-6363 (texting is okay for quick, non-emergency communication)
Email: Tylerwickersty15@icloud.com
Materials needed:
Guitar
Notebook
Picks
Pencil
Patch Cable
Optional:
Manuscript paper
Tuner (or tuner app)
Recording device (or app)
Metronome (or app)
Access to internet resources (any device that could be used for research, like a phone or tablet)
Practice Expectations:
Beginners/casual players - 30 mins 5 days per week
Players who expect big improvements/want to be more serious - 2 hours 5 days per week
Players who aspire to be professional - 4 hours nearly every day
Lessons/Rates:
Lessons will be on a week-to-week basis, and will be only online until the teacher feels comfortable with returning to in-person post covid-19 pandemic.
30 min: $10
60 min: $20
Attendance:
All students are expected to be ready to play at the beginning of their lesson time.
In order to cancel a lesson without payment being due, students/parents must cancel 24 hours before scheduled lesson time. Exceptions will be made only for emergency scenarios.
Recitals:
Recitals will happen periodically during a student’s time studying with Tyler Wickersty. They will be optional chances for the students to begin gaining performance experience, dealing with nerves, and to show off their studies and improvements! There will usually be Dec and June recitals, with the potential for other recitals to be planned as well.
