Philippe Merlin

During my childhood in Spain in the sixties, I listened to The Beatles and Vivaldi and started to play guitar at age 9, to then pick up violin at age 10 and come back to guitar at age 13.

I found my first rock group in France at age 16 and played several concerts during my two years studies of Medicine and then Biology.

After studying one year at the Centre d’Information Musicale (CIM) in Paris, I studied two years at Berklee College of Music in Boston (MA). Went to the USA at age 24 to learn how to write music: I discovered the musician craft.

Back to Paris in 1982, I studied computer programming and joined a ballroom orchestra for which I wrote arrangements, played guitar and sometimes bass and drums. I started giving guitar lessons.

I then embraced a career in the Information Technology sector, first in the technical field and then in the marketing and management fields. I worked for large companies in France, Spain and Morocco and developed my teaching skills in different sectors: Retail, Bank, Industry, Government. Thanks to English and Spanish languages that I often practice, I became an international consultant for software publishers and then resumed music teaching.

In 2009, I decided to teach music full time!

My method takes advantage of the student’s sensibility to feel the pleasure of listening to then play the heard melody accordingly … I am keen to show through different styles—classical, jazz, pop—how harmony and rhythm are partners of the melody in creating emotion.

When I looked for books to teach chords on guitar, I only found dictionaries; but how are you supposed to learn a dictionary?

I then decided to write and publish my own method, hopefully yours?

Music is a loyal source of joy that I offer you to share.