As a new guitar teacher at EC, Jon Minei planned to mix things up a bit, and has already. Enrollment is up in guitar classes, different kinds of music are being taught, and guitar players are progressing, Minei says.
“I just want everyone to know that the new guys are in town,” said Minei.
Along with Minei, the new guys in town include Matt Greif and John Dearman. Greif and Dearman play in the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, which won a Grammy award in 2005. Minei and Greif are teaching beginning guitar, and Minei is also teaching two sections of a new intermediate guitar course next semester which was not offered this semester.
Minei attended EC from 1994 to 1997 at which time he decided to be a music major. He has been an instructor at EC since the Fall of 2008. He started playing guitar at the age of nine and has performed around the world including Austria and Japan. In addition, Minei has also performed as a pit musician with a variety of theater companies. He also owns the Opus Music of South, a music academy that guides its students in several fields of study.
Minei and other guitar teachers want to make sizable changes to the program at EC. Minei wants to incorporate more flamenco and ukelele guitar into his classes and expose students to a broad array of music from all over the world. In his classes, he has already tried to broaden his students thinking about guitar music.
“There’s music from South America, Asia, Europe, Russia, and all that stuff, unless you have the written music and knowledge of theory you’re kind of stuck playing your four blues chords and Jack Johnston songs,” said Minei. “That’s fine too, but we kind of want to advance things.”
Many students who have played guitar for years can attribute new skills to guitar classes with Minei. Ray Huff, who has been playing guitar for the last seven years, acknowledged what he had learned.
“I am still learning a lot of stuff I didn’t know,” Huff, 19, said. “I’m learning some new chords and I didn’t know how to read music. I knew how to read it, but I didn’t know how to read it and play it on the guitar.”
Among the other changes, Minei also thinks he can include some ideas that other colleges have implemented.
“On top of that we can do ensembles. Cal State Fullerton has a guitar orchestra, they do all kinds of music from Eastern Europe to African music to Latin and South American music,” Minei said. “That kind of stuff, we ought to be doing it here too. Those are the visions that we all have for the program.”
Students are starting to pick up guitar and register for classes.
“A year ago some guitar players I know didn’t like the class, now it’s the complete opposite,” Esai Saucedo, 20, said. “I’m thinking about taking the intermediary guitar class next semester.”
Minei has tried to align the classes’ syllabus’ with student expectations. He believes this will boost enrollment even further.
“The classes in the past have been strictly classical,” said Minei. “When people look in a class program and say ‘I want to sign up for a guitar class’ they’re think other things. When they came in here and were doing nothing but classical, I think it wore a little thin.”
On Sunday, December 14, Minei will perform at the Campus Theater in Ars Nova Sinfonia and hopes students interested in guitar will be in attendance.
“I actually want to be more involved with the different clubs and the different orchestras here. I want to be in touch with all the music majors,” Minei said.