The studio is closed Monday, November 23 through Friday, November 27 for the Thanksgiving holiday. The studio will also be closed the week of Christmas and the following week. The monthly tuition is based on a 46 week calendar. We are closed each year for spring break, the week of July 4, the week of Thanksgiving, the week of Christmas and the week after, and one other week during the year to be announced.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. I'm looking forward to playing a lot of Christmas music with you over the next 4 weeks. I will be playing and singing at the YMCA as well as Christmas approaches. Stop by and sing along on some of your favorite Christmas tunes.

A 7 month experiment ended in October. At the urging of some fellow teachers, I moved my studio to Sunset Plaza in April of 2009 to take advantage of a larger space so that I might teach classes. The location was perfect and generated a lot of new students. One drawback...it turned out that most of my students preferred individual lessons instead of classes. Truth be told--so do I. After some vacillating, I moved the studio back home the first full week of October.

It was a good experiment. I learned some of the benefits of the classroom setting. There really are some motivational elements that come into play in the group setting, but they weren't enough to justify staying for the long term. One can do well only what one is called to do, eh? Good experience.

The band teacher at Dickson High School my senior year had studied percussion at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. He encouraged me to try out there on the baritone horn. I tried out and received a scholarship for tuition, books and fees. I actually received 2 scholarships for tuition, books and fees...one was an academic scholarship, and the other was music. I started as an instrumental major on the baritone horn, but after taking Men's Glee Club with Mr. Casey, I changed my major to combined instrumental and vocal at his urging. I was one of two music students in my class that had a combined instrumental/vocal major. The other was Jeff Leslie(an award winning lyricist who, for a time, contributed to Star Song Records in Nashville), who at one time was my room mate and is now a songwriting partner of mine. In college I studied all aspects of music and took private vocal, baritone horn, guitar, and piano lessons. For my senior recital, I sang, played classical guitar, and played the baritone horn.

After graduating from college, I taught 2 years in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; 1 year in Hinton, Oklahoma, 1 year in Waurika, OK, and after taking a break from teaching for a few years, I taught 1 year in Dover, OK. I taught 5th-12th grade band and 5th-12th grade choir. During this time I decided that teaching in the public school system was not for me.

From 1979 until now, I have worked in several fields in addition to teaching school...radio announcer/dj, Hardee's manager, Braum's manager, home remodeling, respiratory service technician, and management support team at WalMart. One thing was constant during those years---my love for music. My involvement in music grew from singing and playing guitar to writing songs, arranging music, collaborating on songs, and leading worship (traditional and contemporary). 90% of my music experience has been church related.

In 1985 we moved to Enid--we meaning my family of 7 at the time--Karen my wife, Isaac, Daniel, David, Rebekah, and Noah. Gideon was born after we moved. in 1997, I was working for Jensen's Music (later Brook Mays Music, and now Midwest Music). I noticed the number of folks coming in asking about guitar lessons and decided to give it a try. It wasn't long before I had a full schedule of students on Monday nights. Soon every night was full, and I found a job that allowed me to get off earlier in the day so I could start lessons as soon as public school was out. Harvest School of Music---now Guitar Tuna---was born in 1997. At some points in the history of the studio, we have had over 80 students taking lessons on a weekly basis. Twice during that time I employed an additional teacher. One was my son Isaac, who died with his friends Sarah, Stevo, and Aaron in a car accident in 2006. After that, a former outstanding student, Luke Buthman, taught with me for a time.

Right now, I teach alone and have a waiting list of over 30 students.

Labels: guitar, lessons, music

My name is Dale King. This year I will be 51 and I have been playing the guitar since junior high. I have taught guitar in Enid, Oklahoma since 1997...11 years this year. I teach guitar, bass guitar, and music theory in the evenings, and during the day I am the Maintenance Director at the Denny Price Family YMCA.

I'm told by my parents that when I was a little boy I was given a toy guitar. For reasons only known to God, I called it my 'look-guitar'. No matter how many time my parents tried to get me to say 'guitar' it always came out 'look-guitar'.

Whenever we visited my Grandma's house, I noticed my uncle's guitar in his room. He was a teenager at the time. Some years later he gave that guitar to my family, but it wasn't well taken care of and was soon unusable.

In grade school I found that I loved to sing, and I loved to sing LOUD! The teacher had to ask me to sing a little softer in the class play so I wouldn't drown out my classmates. In junior high, I joined the school chorus and my love for music grew, due in no small part to a wonderful choir teacher, Mrs. Kizer. I also became more involved in the music program at the church.

Around the 8th or 9th grade, I saved my money and bought a $99 classical guitar. Mama paid for lessons for me, but they were a disappointment. I soon lost interest and the lessons stopped. The guitar was stored on a shelf in the closet for a couple of years.

Meanwhile at the church, a beautiful young lady who played guitar had moved into the community. She started playing and singing with our youth choir. By now, I had some experience in choir and had joined the newly-formed concert band at our school. I was in the 9th grade. I had also gained an understanding of music theory. As I watched the newcomer play and sing, I decided that I could do that too. My guitar came out of the closet and the new girl in church taught me quite a bit about fingerstyle playing. Now that I could read music, I bought some books and began to learn more on my own. It wasn't long before I was accompanying myself and others at church and at school.

Labels: guitar, lessons, music

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