Lucas is available for private lessons and draws on a wealth of teaching experience. He holds a Bachelor of Education (Music) and has taught for a period of twenty five years. His teaching style is characterised by a warm, generous spirit that values humour and curiosity within each learning environment.. A genuine wish and willingness to share his love of music underlies all of his teaching.
Lucas has a leaning towards finger style and jazz guitar. Within these genres, he has developed efficient and effective methods to assist students in acquiring a mastery in: technique, aural perception, harmony, theory, improvisation and composition. The key for him, lies in ensuring that the material is always relevant and grounded in the music.
Besides the 'nuts and bolts' Lucas welcomes the opportunity to explore the intangible elements - helping to facilitate students identify and overcome their self-imposed learning obstacles and limitations. This requires great confidence and skill on the teacher's part and the cultivation of a nurturing, trusting environment. Through his study of Alexander Technique, Lucas also acknowledges the significant yet often overlooked - role body plays in developing grace and flow in musical execution.
In 2016, Lucas initiated the Melbourne Guitar Lab which aims to diversify the landscape of music education through face - to face workshops. This has been met with overwhelming enthusiasm from participants providing them with the opportunity to engage and learn from industry successful, guitarists on a range of subject areas: The Jazz Sessions, Alexander Technique for Guitarists and The Advancing Guitarist. Apart from Guitar Labs under his own name, Lucas has been involved in the presentation of artists as varied as : Frank Gambale, Brett Garsed, Slava Grigoryan, Doug DeVries and James Sherlock.
Over a twenty five year period, Lucas has been privileged to have studied/ attended master classes with extraordinary teachers: Ted Greene, Tuck Andress, John Scofield, Pat Martino, Jim Hall, Pierre Bensusan and Ed Gerhard. Lucas is an ongoing instructor at the University of Melbourne (15 years) and Melbourne Polytechnic (25 years). He has also conducted workshops in Australia, the USA and South Korea.
Online teaching examples can be viewed here. For further information contact Lucas directly.
Correspondence from Lucas to a student:
“There is a nice little catch phrase I always try to remember, that of: slow slow, fast fast. It’s essentially the old adage of the hare and tortoise. The slower we go, the quicker we arrive at our destination. And by slower, I mean deepening our attention and refining every little thing. Usually, in our present culture, we prize the opposite, going fast fast in order to get to the destination quickly. Unfortunately when anything is done hastily, mistakes happen, bad habits form, poor technique, injuries… these can be costly and debilitating, ending up taking way longer than the alternative. Now, what happens if we go so slow that we actually STOP? By stopping I mean that we become so deeply immersed in the sound (become the sound) that the issue of striving or trying to attain a goal is no longer relevant. Well, the lovely thing about this is that when we stop, we arrive at our destination! Hooray! Now this is what play is. Think about it. When we are playing, we are in flow, we are joyful and fully present (and ironically lose ourselves). Time disappears and outcome (winning or losing) seems irrelevant.