Ted has been a musician and music instructor based in Indianapolis since 1988. Much of his experience comes from playing hundreds of gigs in different settings over the years on guitar, bass, ukulele, mandolin, and more. From his time at the Musician’s Institute in Hollywood, CA, Ted gained the ability to teach himself. He learned that having an understanding of music theory can help students become better musicians more efficiently and effectively, and allows players to continue to learn for years to come. Because of this, Ted highly values applying music theory to all kinds of playing. He ensures that his students know how to play musically and also know the theory behind it. Ted has helped countless students become better musicians by teaching them how to teach themselves this way.

Even after all the teaching and performing I’ve done in the last twenty some years, I continue to discover new things all the time – mostly because I understand how music works. Here’s an example: as I was putting together a lesson on constructing chords I noticed that a C minor 6 has the same shape as an F7 without the root. So I discovered a new rule that I can use both in rhythm and lead playing: you can play a 7th chord with no root anywhere on the neck and you will also have a minor 6 chord that has a root a fifth above that of the 7th chord. Pretty cool!”