Over the past seven years I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy the fun and camaraderie of a really-close knit Middleway Music community. If you’re interested in learning to play guitar, it’s an experience that definitely can’t be beat! Too often we decide it’s time to give up on a dream. Lack of time. Lack of will power. Too old. You name it. A few years ago, I thought that I could never learn to play guitar beyond strumming the few tunes I could find that didn’t involve contorting my fingers into some crazy, unimaginable position. I doubted I would ever be good enough to feel like spending an afternoon at home working on a tune or have the confidence to play for my friends. I certainly never even IMAGINED getting up on a stage and performing in front of an audience. Fortunately, I walked into Manny’s studio before tossing my guitar and ideas like that aside. Manny is not only a supremely talented musician and teacher, but a great friend and truly inspirational spirit whose dreams for each of his students are probably bigger than their own. Thanks to his unique and personalized approach to teaching, a few years later I now look forward to finger-picking James Taylor tunes at home on rainy afternoons, serenade my friends at their first suggestion and have sweated in front of audiences not once but many times.