Jake’s training and experience pulls from several methodologies in the areas of composition, improvised music, narrative audio, radio, and podcast production, collaborative performance-making, and literature & text studies.

Workshops are often taught in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment alongside dancer/movement artists or actors/physical theatre performers and focus on physical and collaborative approaches to music and performance-making.

Private Lessons

Moving INTO Performance 

Impulse, Awareness, Economy

Songwriting Study

Narrative Audio & Podcast Making

Private Lessons 

Private lessons in guitar, bass, song- and lyric-writing, and theory available in person in greater Chicago area and through Zoom. 

Click here to schedule your lesson! 

 

Workshops Offered:

Moving INTO Performance

This workshop – designed for dancers, physical theatre & performance artists, and musicians – explores the link between movement and music in improvised performance. Improvisation is approached in this workshop as a method of communication and dialogue between disciplines as they create a piece of music and movement performance together.

In this practice, music and dance are viewed through the same lens of instant composition. The sound inspires movement in the dancers’ bodies, and the body creates the impulse for sound-making (and silence making) in the musicians. In this workshop, the observation of sound and movement are just as critical as the performance of them.

IMPULSE, AWARENESS, ECONOMY

A Workshop in Improvised Theatre Making with Music, Movement, and Text

An interactive exploration of improvisatory/devised movement and music for actors, physical performers, dancers, and musicians. During this two-day workshop we’ll explore the role of the actor/dancer and the musician in interdisciplinary theatre-making

 

SONGWRITING STUDY

Jake’s experience in text and music comes full circle in his songwriting experience and teaching. His 4 lyrical albums showcase his unique meld of Americana and Celtic folk with modernist and narrative lyricism. In workshops and one-on-one lessons, Jake dives deep into each writer’s unique viewpoint and addresses the lyrics and composition as separate yet infinitely entwined components of the song form.

NARRATIVE AUDIO & PODCAST MAKING

The practice of “making radio” has come full circle over the past 10 years as a once-dying medium has found new life and limitless creative possibilities in the art of narrative audio and podcast making. Jake has worked since 2006 as a producer, writer, editor, and sound designer for commercial and public radio stations, NPR’s Morning Edition, and podcasts for numerous organizations and companies.

This workshop can be undertaken in a group context or as one-on-one mentorships that explore telling stories through sound and writing for the voice.

Click HERE to inquire about a workshop in your area