The Tuned In Academy

Private Lessons in Guitar and Bass

Conservatory quality private guitar lessons at Tuned In are designed to give you the best overall instruction you need, and to prepare you for what it is that you want to be musically. If you just want to have a lot of fun and play the music you want to play, and learn how do it better, we can help you do that. We will discuss and teach you however about how to look at the music a little more carefully because we believe that music is never just music. Music has meaning, and as musicians, we should all seek to appreciate that better. But if you want to learn how to be prepared for the rigorous auditions of the military bands, scholarship committees, or conservatories—we can do that too. The purpose behind private guitar lessons at TIA is for you to have regular one-on-one personalized instruction, just for you, according to your needs.

Private lessons are just $97 monthly for a half hour (weekly) lesson with regular faculty and $102 monthly with student and associate faculty, that’s about $20-25 less than you will find at other studios in town! And that’s not because you will get less. In fact, you will get so much more. But we are a non-profit and strive to make great music education available to all.

Eric Graf, Associate Faculty of Guitar

Private Lessons in Guitar with Eric

Eric got his first guitar at age 8 and has been playing ever since. Eric has a unique background having attended elementary school outside of Paris (France) and high school in Brussels. He has studied music formally at Arizona State University and at the Dick Grove Workshops in Hollywood. Eric has owned and operated multitrack recording studios since in the late 1980s and loves audio engineering and producing. Eric loves teaching guitar and seeing his students experience the same joy he gets from playing, and the joy others get from listening.

Eric served as worship leader for 12 years at faith Church of the Valley in Chandler AZ and currently serves on the worship team at Turning Point Church in Olympia, playing guitar, bass and drums.

Eric is booking now for private lessons on Wednesday and Friday afternoons and early evenings.

Private Lessons in Guitar with Sam

Sam is a musician and Music Therapist. From Lewistown, Pennsylvania, Sam began piano lessons at 7 years old and fell in love with singing in choirs in the adult church choir as an elementary student. Sam has participated as a vocalist in multiple choirs in middle and high school, along with competing in district and regional choir festivals.

Sam holds a Bachelors of Music in Music Therapy from Elizabethtown College and is a Board Certified Music Therapist. In addition to her studies, Sam sang in multiple choirs in college, including traveling to South Africa with Concert Choir and Jazz Band to perform and work with local choirs.

In addition to piano and voice (her primary instrument), Sam began learning guitar at the start of college and loves playing to accompany her own and others singing to bring people together, which is so awesome—Sam gets the communal nature of music which is crucial to why we do what we do and teach the way we do!

As a music therapist, Sam brings a unique experience of care, consideration, and compassion to how she teaches.

Sam teaches on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings

Sam Wasson, Voice, Piano, and Guitar Faculty, Music Therapist
Wyatt Hobbs, Student Faculty of Guitar

Guitar and Beginning Bass (Student Teacher)

Wyatt is 17 and loves to play guitar. Wyatt is also well versed in drums and bass. While young, Wyatt is already leading music with the worship band in his church youth group and is actively involved in his church worship team band as well.

Wyatt loves rock, metal, and enjoys the blues as well. He’s been playing guitar for 10 years, and picked up the drums more recently but even spent some time studying with Jordan Hays when he was on the team.

Wyatt is homegrown from TIA which we love! He first studied under Ben Vincent, our first student faculty member, and then later studied with Thomas Magnuson when he was on the team. Wyatt, like all of our student faculty, is a homeschooler which is great because we have so many homeschoolers in the greater Olympia area, and, it means Wyatt can teach during the earlier part of the day. Music is not just something Wyatt does, it is his goal in life; to be making music and making a career out of it.

When he’s not playing writing, or recording music, Wyatt loves to hike, hunt, fish, snow ski and water ski, and work out.

Wyatt is currently booking for lessons on early Thursday afternoons

Click here to enroll now for lessons with Wyatt

Private Lessons in Guitar or Ukulele with John

John teaches private lessons in guitar, bass, and beginning piano.

John Brake, Faculty of Guitar was first handed a guitar at only 2 years old. He started taking lessons at a young age, and by the time he was 13 he was playing guitar semi-professionally in local bands. In 2015 John first began taking on guitar students and found a deep passion for education. Since he began teaching, John has had multiple students accepted into the top music performance programs in North America including Berklee College of Music and Belmont University.

John attended Berklee (the number one school for contemporary music) on a scholarship and graduated with a degree in Guitar Performance. Jenna and I are very excited about that as this is where we went, and our approach to music at TIA has been shaped deeply by that experience and education for good reasons. John will be the most formally educated guitar instructor we have ever had at TIA, so we are very excited about bringing him on the team. John has crafted a system of creating comprehensive, personalized curriculum for every student. Alongside his teaching, John has performed professionally throughout the Midwest, New England, and Pacific Northwest playing genres including jazz, pop, rock, fusion, blues, R&B, hip-hop, country, gospel, metal, and folk. He also serves as the music director for his church.

Click here to enroll now for lessons with John.

John Brake, Faculty of Guitar, Bass, and Ukulele
Student Teacher Angelia MC's our Summer Presentation in Olympia

Private Lessons in Guitar or Ukulele with Angelia

Angelia is an Associate faculty member (ukulele, guitar, piano and voice), and the daughter of SD & Jenna. She began student teaching at sixteen, under the direction of Jenna, and SD (her parents), and has been studying music her whole life. Angelia is also a trained pianist and vocalist as well and is one of our most proficient and advanced guitar and ukulele students. She has been singing and studying voice as long as she can remember.

Angelia has been a part of TIA from the beginning and has served as a mentor and leader in vocal and instrumental classes. Students love studying with Angelia! She is sharp, fun, highly capable as a musician and mentor, and one of our busiest faculty members.

Click here to enroll now for lessons with Angelia

Private Lessons in Guitar or Ukulele with Sarah

Sarah teaches private lessons in voice, piano, guitar, and ukulele and is also a licensed and board-certified music therapist.

Sarah, from Greenville, Ohio, began studying music at a young age and completed her undergraduate studies at The College of Wooster in music therapy. Sarah is an accomplished vocalist and multi-instrumentalist working with piano, guitar, ukulele, and a variety of percussion instruments. As a music therapist, guitar is a go to instrument for Sarah in her work, so she brings lots of practical daily guitar work to the table in her experience, and she loves playing and teaching guitar.

Sarah, as all of our faculty, has come to the team through a careful process of multiple interviews including a team interview with multiple TIA faculty, and an audition. Sarah is completely committed to out values and mission and comes to us highly endorsed by her peers, mentors, and colleagues. Sarah has an extensive background and passion for all kinds of music including singing in multiple foreign languages, and looks forward to sharing her heart for music with her students at TIA.

Sarah is nearly booked solid but has a few openings, contact us today for details.

Click here to enroll now for lessons with Sarah

Micaiah Sawyer, Associate Faculty, Piano, Guitar, Strings, and Ukulele

Private Lessons in Guitar or Ukulele with Micaiah (Virtual Only)

Micaiah has studied guitar, violin, and piano for about 15 years and is currently working all over the PNW as a skilled singer/songwriter. Homeschooled for most of her life by her incredible mother, she was able to devote most of her additional time to chasing her dreams and gathering as much musical knowledge as she could. She formed a few bands in high school, performed at Disney Hall through the West Valley Youth Orchestra, won a competition that awarded her studio time with a major musician, and even had a few paying gigs before she was even 16.

She moved here from Arizona in the summer of 2014 after graduating high school. During her first few years in Washington, she studied music at South Puget Sound Community College, joined an orchestra, and jammed with jazz students, all while beginning her work as a solo artist. She has taught a few private lessons in violin and guitar by request and is excited to work with Tuned In to keep it going! The mission and values that the academy holds are every bit as important to her, and its purpose is her purpose. Micaiah is our newest associate faculty member and was busy from the start! She is a true singer-songwriter guitar player and is a ton of fun to work with.

Micaiah resides in Texas and is now teaching virtually only for TIA but she would love to work with you virtually!

Click here to enroll now for lessons with Micaiah

Instructors For Olympia Guitar and Bass