Hi, I’m Jim Greenfield. Welcome to my site! 2023 marks my 19th year as a full time teacher, and more years playing the guitar and singing than I care to count. I’ve never enjoyed it more. I truly believe I have continued to improve as a musician and teacher, as much from the joy and investment I’ve shared with my students during this time as any advancement in my actual skills. In addition, I always perform and network with other artists whenever possible, and am excited about every aspect of it.
Although I’ve been teaching guitar full time for ‘only’ 19 years, my career as professional solo guitarist and teacher in the Washington, D.C. area spans more than 35 years. In addition, I am a composer, songwriting coach, music theory tutor and performance mentor. I have working knowledge of a wide variety of genres, including but not limited to classical, all forms of rock, blues, jazz, country, folk, and “singer-songwriter” music. In addition to a full calendar of private students at my D.C. studio, I also recently completed my 13th year at prestigious Sheridan School in Tenleytown, D.C. as guitar, bass and ukulele instructor. I have now moved on, but on the best possible terms, and I will cherish many of the students, families and staff I worked with there.
Music has been dominant in my life since I was a child, but I reached a crossroads of sorts in around 1990. After performing as a solo singer/songwriter and lead guitarist for 15 years, I decided to pursue classical guitar, and studied it exclusively for about 5 years. Thereafter I continued band work, session work, and other special projects while working a regular job. Around 2004 I began teaching and playing full time. In addition to various playing and songwriting credits for other artists, I released Solo Masterpieces , a full length classical guitar recording, in 2010, and a 16 song jazz tribute to my mother, ‘Mama Made Me Do It’, in 2016. As of 2023 I continue playing in various bands and combinations, in multiple styles.
in 2019 I also began performing ‘Great American Songbook’ jazz standards for audiences in senior homes and assisted living facilities, a tremendously rewarding experience.
All the while, I’ve had the immense pleasure of mentoring many adults and talented young students, some of whose abilities you can see for yourself in the video archive.
Most recently I moved on from ‘Film at Eleven’, a Maryland-based variety band I had the pleasure of playing with since 2018-as lead guitarist and vocalist. Videos of me with the band are in the video dropdown menu, on YouTube by searching the band name. They continue and thrive at this writing and so do I, as I am now launching a new band, ‘Wayback Machine’. Wayback Machine plays 60’s and 70’s rock, pop and R & B music, but is much more than a ‘oldies band’. More very soon on that!
There are 4 basic areas of greenfieldguitar.com
1. The learning areas of this site is are combination of comprehensive beginner instruction, intermediate/advanced tips and guidance, and a vast archive of short video clip and photos accompanying the various subjects covered. In contrast to a ‘how to play this song’ type of help, this content is more basic (yet solid) reference, stuff that can be applied in many contexts. I truly believe there is something for almost anyone within.
2. The second area of greenfieldguitar is performance recording and video, both of myself and various students. The ‘Media’ area has 2 dropdown menus, ‘recordings’ and ‘video’. There you can find audio files of both my full length CD’s and links to other recordings I have played on, and a library of video performances.
3. The third area provides a description of my teaching style and experience, student testimonials, and a contact page for lessons. If you live in the Washington, D.C. area and love music and the guitar-but feel challenged in any way-take advantage of my many years of experience and caring, personalized service.
4. The fourth area is simply news, whether new posts by me, new content added, or information about upcoming shows or anything that may be of interest.
ON THIS SITE:
* Beginner Online Training
* Lessons description, info and application form
* Intermediate/Advanced section with over 50 different topics
* THE RHYTHM SECTION rhythm training
* Hundreds of video samples accompany the learning pages
* Archive of audio and video performances
* News about shows, new content etc
