Winston-Salem Guitar Lessons
by Alan Hirsh
Guitar lessons from a professional music educator in Winston Salem
Hirsh's new composition—Signs, for the US Guitar Orchestra performed in New York and Portugal, June 2025
I. Leo
II. Capricorn
III. Pisces
Learn:
Proper Positioning
Beginning, intermediate, and advanced technique
Principles of Efficient Movement
Performance Development
Music Literacy
Guitar Harmony (theory)
Writing/arranging for the guitar
Broad technical foundation to ultimately play in any musical style
Dr. Alan Hirsh
Well known as a composer/arranger/guitarist/and music educator, Dr. Alan Hirsh served for 25 years as Music Director and Fine Arts Department Chair at Bishop McGuinness High School as well as adjunct guitar instructor at Wake Forest University. Alan was also the founder of the Piedmont Guitar Orchestra and has directed festival guitar orchestras around the country, including the Appalachian Guitarfest Orchestra, the Greensboro Guitarganza Orchestra, the Long Island Guitar Festival Orchestra, VIrginia Music Educators Association, and the Shearer Summer Institute Guitar Orchestra. Alan serves as Executive Director and Vice President of Education in the Aaron Shearer Foundation. He remains active as a composer, having written and arranged extensively for orchestra, band, chorus, guitar and guitar ensemble. Alan’s many published works include Mel Bay publications of Twenty Etudes in fixed Positions and New Music for Classic Guitar, Trio Concertino, Holiday, Folk, Sacred, and Renaissance Collections for guitar ensemble.
Alan began a collaboration with world-renown pedagogue, Aaron Shearer back in the 1980’s, composing music for the ground-breaking 1988 three-volume method series: Learning the Classic Guitar published with Mel Bay. He since continued his collaboration with Aaron (until his passing in 2008) as composer and editor of the five-volume Alfred eMusic publications: The Shearer Method, a work representing Shearer’s lifetime culmination of thought on how the guitar should be taught. His newest series Classroom Guitar is now available.
Alan Hirsh interviewed by Jon Sayles
For more information on Alan Hirsh and his Bishop McGuinness High School guitar program see the NAfME article, Guitar Class in the Tar Heel State
Guitar Lessons
Available to all levels, ages 12- adult. Students need a nylon-string guitar (preferred) and seating appliance (footstool or other support).
Hirsh is co-author of the Shearer Method Series
Guitar Harmony
Guitar Harmony by Alan Hirsh is a study of music theory as it relates to the guitar—fingerboard pattern recognition, musical analysis, and ear training.
