Bainbridge Island Guitar Teachers

I like to take whatever style of music students are interested in and use that interest to foster a deeper understanding of music in general.

Chuck

Chuck Easton

Chuck Easton teaches guitar, upright bass, jazz and beginning piano, jazz flute, music theory, improvisation, and arranging.

He played in jazz, swing, and big bands in Seattle and toured throughout the West Coast during the ’70s. Chuck is a recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Composition award.

Chuck moved to Boston in the late ’70s and completed his music degree from Berklee College of Music in 1980. While there, he studied guitar and arranging. Lots of great music in the big city, but he missed the mountains, and made the decision to return to his home in the Northwest. Chuck and his wife, Autumn, eventually settled in a rural area on a ridge south of Chimacum.

Over the years, he has played many different styles of music, but bebop-influenced jazz is his favorite. A long-time faculty member of Centrum’s Jazz Pt. Townsend, Chuck teaches basic theory and coaches student ensembles during the week-long summer festival.

Chuck was on the faculty of the NW Big Band in Pt. Townsend for many years. He later took over conducting duties for six years.

For thirty years, Chuck has played bass with the Pt. Townsend Symphony Orchestra, and he’s also served as a board member. Chuck played bass for several years with the Turtle Bluff Chamber Orchestra.

Chuck performs locally in bands of various configurations- trio, quartet, quintet, and his R&B septet. He enjoys writing arrangements for his band, and plays guitar, bass, piano, flute, saxophone, and occasionally chromatic harmonica, Eb tuba, and trombone.

Randy Parris is an excellent all around music instructor. My daughters started taking guitar lessons from Randy 5 years ago at the age of 9 and 11 . Randy ' s teaching style, fun,patient and engaging. No matter if your talking about music theory, or guitar technique . Randy always breaks things down, and explains them in a simple way, that is easy to understand and implement.

Jim Hord

Randy Parris

Randy has been teaching at the Island Music Guild for the last 15 years. He got his first guitar in 1969 after seeing Jimi Hendrix on the Dick Cavett show. Over the years he picked up and learned to play the mandolin, banjo,and bass guitar. Randy studied music at Central Washington University in the early 90s, with a focus on classical guitar ,voice, the Renaissance Lute . After his college days Randy owned and ran a small music store in Ellensburg Washington. At this time he had a harp built for him and started composing his own music ..Over the next decade he traveled and performed on the harp.. In 2004 he moved to Bainbridge Island and started to teach at the Island Music Guild. Randy has found his calling in teaching music to people of all ages and skill level ‘ s he especially finds great joy and satisfaction in helping children find and develop their talents

By having students choose the songs they want to learn, we build motivation and success.

- Marcus

Marcus Kitley

Marcus Kitley has dedicated his life to teaching. He teaches 6th grade at Sakai Intermediate School by day. By night, he combines his love of teaching with his other passion; playing guitar. Marcus is a graduate of the University of Washington and has a Master’s Degree in Education. A Northwest native, he has been gigging professionally since the age of 16. Everything from big band, rock & roll, blues, jazz, and even Elvis impersonators! He brings a vast and eclectic musical repertoire to what he calls, “A student first approach.”

Marcus has an amazing rapport with students of all ages. Claiming this “Student first approach works every time!” He believes the number one way to get students playing the guitar is to get them excited about playing the guitar. This happens by teaching them something they want to learn. “Most students walk out of our first lesson playing a song they love within a half hour. This makes playing the guitar fun! When it’s fun, you practice. When you practice, you see immediate results.” Marcus works with each student to play what he or she envisions. This individualized approach is what makes his teaching technique so successful.

“By having students choose the songs they want to learn, we build motivation and success.” says Marcus. “But the actual song is only a byproduct.” He goes on to explain, “I use their songs to teach universal concepts. Each song offers a unique opportunity to explore chord shapes, scales and song structure. We work to tie these common threads together through each song we do, building skills, musical vocabulary and fingering.” Marcus’ students are enthusiastic about guitar and look forward to their lessons each week.

Lessons are available. To contact Marcus directly please call or email.

A guitar wizard

- Seattle Victory Music

Peter Spencer

Peter Spencer is Seattle’s premier fingerpicking guitarist. A founder of the Fast Folk Songwriters’ Cooperative in Greenwich Village, NYC, the recordings he made there in the ’80s are now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian. He has released six albums off original songs, a blues concert album, and an album of instrumental Christmas music for solo guitar. He teaches a wide range of styles and abilities and is accepting new students.

Classical Training with Rock and Roll Repertoire

- Bobby Ray

Bobby Ray

Bio: Bobby is a relentlessly enthusiastic and positive teacher with two decades of experience teaching everything from Led Zeppelin guitar solos to arias from Mozart Operas. Starting out on the guitar, he followed in the shredding footsteps of Jimi Hendrix and the other guitar legends of his hometown of Seattle. He fell in love with Opera while studying vocal performance at the University of Portland (‘09) and had the great pleasure of singing with the Portland Opera Chorus, as well as the Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland, Opera Theater Oregon, and Classical Revolution PDX. He combined his two passions when he formed the Electric Opera Company, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that reinvisioned classical favorites by playing them on an orchestra of Electric Guitars and Synthesizers. Bobby started teaching full time at the School of Rock in Portland where he worked with hundreds of students and directed many staged performances before forming his own independent teaching studio. In 2014 Bobby was tapped to be Vocal Coach to Oscar winning actor William Hurt as he prepared to play Greg Allman in a biopic. Bobby’s students have gone on to attend Berklee College of Music and Musician’s Institute in LA among other universities. He remains a gigging musician, but gets the most joy from sharing his love of music with his students.

Bobby teaches from an extensive background in classical training, but takes pride in meeting his students where they are, focusing on singing and playing songs that they want to sing. Whether it’s a classical standard or a top 40 hit, there’s always an opportunity for growth to be found and a deeper level of musicianship to be discovered. It’s important to him that his students are engaged and fascinated by the music they’re singing or playing. From that starting point, the pathway to achievement is easy to walk!

Scroll to Top