João Ferreira

My name is João Ferreira and I come from Portugal. I’m based in Den Haag. I’m a professional musician since 2002 and a music/guitar teacher since 2005, I’ve played with many bands and artists and I’ve had hundreds of students over all these years.

Hallo. Ik heet João Ferreira. Ik ben een Portugees woonachtig in Den Haag. Ik ben een gitarist en een muziek en gitaarleraar.

Ik ben in 2005 begonnen met lesgeven. Door de jaren heen heb ik veel studenten gehad, waaronder veel kinderen.Vanuit mijn ervaring met kinderen denk ik dat de beste leeftijd om te beginnen met gitaarspelen ongeveer 6 jaar is.Op dit moment is mijn Nederlands niveau A2, dus ik begin langzaamaan les te geven in deze taal. 

Ik kan een instrument ter beschikking stellen voor de proefles. I can provide an instrument for the trial lesson.

I started playing guitar in 1993, my father listened to a lot of music and I was always fascinated by it. From the time I started to play my life has been only about music. I loved Nirvana and all the rock bands, played their songs for hours. When I was 18 I joined a Jazz school and that changed everything, started improvising and learning new harmonic concepts. I am a bachelor in Jazz and Modern Music for the Lusíada University in Lisbon, there I got two distinctions: Universidade Lusíada Merit Award Scholarship (2012-2014) and Universidade Lusíada Merit Award for Best Jazz and Modern Music Finalist (2014).  What I do today is a mix between all these influences and languages. This is exactly what I share with my students, first the passion for music and then the tools and skills needed to be a part of this wonderful world of playing an instrument. Show them the language, the words and help them build their own voice.

Guitar for beginners. This is the course where you learn the basic guitar skills. I teach electric, classical and acoustic (folk, flatpicking) guitars, you can learn a mix of these similar yet very specific techniques or focus on the one of your preference. In electric and acoustic guitars the first challenges are pick control, hand coordination and left hand positions (and shifting them). With classical guitar the goal will be using the right hand fingers independently, including the thumb for the bass notes and the left hand will have similar challenges to the other guitars. In classical guitar we will be playing polyphonic pieces (several voices) more often, in electric we’ll focus on chords, riffs and solos and with the acoustic we’ll play also chords with different strumming patterns, melodies, solos and lots of flatpicking exercises.

Intermediate to advanced levels. If you want to take your guitar playing more seriously, this is the course for you. After having some control over the basic guitar techniques you may want to take it a little further, improvising, building your own chord progressions and solos and having a next level technique to improve your playing. In Guitar 2 we’ll work with scales, arpeggios, improvising, different picking techniques, more sophisticated harmonies, new chord voicings and tips to play in a group context. We will play blues, jazz and more advanced rock solos and riffs to help you build a strong and confident musical language.

One of the things I’ve been doing over the years is helping candidates to University music courses to get ready for their admission exams and getting the skills needed to begin this new step of their lives successfully. That’s something I really like to do.

If guitar doesn’t interest you but you are curious about theory or harmony I can still help you. Over the years I’ve developed a very big interest in harmony and composition. I’ve spent a lot of time studying harmony and this is a subject I really like to help students with. Understanding and analysing musical pieces, developing your own concepts for your compositions and learning the mechanics behind them. Creating is the ultimate artistic expression but understanding what’s been done before is also very important in developing your own work.

This is also for you if you need help with basic music theory, wether you want to learn it or you have been facing difficulties during your music lessons at school. Ear training and solfeggio are also some of the topics we’ll talk about.

I also teach bass guitar for beginners. In these lessons you will learn pizzicato technique, pick technique, how to play bass parts from popular songs, how to create your own bass lines and how to make them fit the groove and the harmony of the song.