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UIUC Music Studies Grad for Piano, Guitar, Songwriting & Production
Thaddeus A.

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About Thaddeus

Bio

Hi, I am Thaddeus, a Los Angeles music teacher, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign music studies graduate. I have played piano for 23 years, starting at age four, with classical training growing up, improvisation experience through jam bands in high school, and jazz/open music studies at UIUC. I have also played guitar for 14 years, with experience in lessons, self-directed study, jazz improvisation classes, and live performance. Across...

Hi, I am Thaddeus, a Los Angeles music teacher, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign music studies graduate. I have played piano for 23 years, starting at age four, with classical training growing up, improvisation experience through jam bands in high school, and jazz/open music studies at UIUC. I have also played guitar for 14 years, with experience in lessons, self-directed study, jazz improvisation classes, and live performance. Across piano and guitar I have performed hundreds of times, from recitals growing up to original shows and collaborative live settings.

My lessons connect musicianship with creativity. Students can work on piano, guitar, songwriting, music theory, Ableton, Logic, recording, beatmaking, arrangement, and production workflow. I help beginners, kids, adults, returning musicians, songwriters, and producers learn through songs they actually care about while also building technique, rhythm, chords, ear training, harmony, improvisation, and confidence. For production and songwriting students, I bring 10 years of experience working with hundreds of artists and clients in beatmaking sessions, recording sessions, mixes, and custom music sessions; hundreds of released songs on Spotify use my beats or production work.

In the first lesson, I listen to your goals and do a practical musical diagnostic: rhythm, ear, chords, technique, theory, creativity, and confidence. From there, we build a clear roadmap around the skills that will create the fastest real progress. My goal is not just to assign exercises, but to help students understand how music works so they can play songs they love, improvise with confidence, write stronger songs, and create finished music.

Alongside lessons, I build practical AI and creative automation systems through Preballin. For songwriting and production students, I can connect music fundamentals to modern creative-tech workflows for making, arranging, recording, and finishing real projects.

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Education

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Music Studies

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Approved Subjects

Composition (Music)

Composition (Music)

I have been songwriting and composing for over 16 years since I first discovered creating my own music about 6 years into playing piano, which is what made me fall in love with the instrument. Inspired by dramatic film scores, I started creating my own music and composing around 10 years old. Later on I initially majored in composition in college before pivoting to open music studies, seeing it as a better wider range music program for my goals. I still compose and write all the time alongside making my own songs in Ableton or composing in Musescore, and even did the film score for "Behind the Line" which was a short film that won the Chelsea Music Festival a few years ago.
Drums

Drums

I have played drums for over 10 years now since I was first thrown into the fire at worship practice one weekend in highschool, when we were short a drummer and I had played some with friends and decided I could fill in. Since then I have always had a drum kit and have always found time to practice and play with multiple bands when there wasnt a drummer around (as piano/guitar are my mains) and have become fairly skilled over the years, enough that I am actually a drum instructor as well as the piano instructor at angeles academy of music and teach regularly in person there ages 4 to senior citizen.
Ear Training

Ear Training

I have played piano my entire life, ear training being a weekly drillset I had to work through. My instructor growing up had me do exercises, games, and more on a routine basis to establish my aural understanding of harmony, melody transcription, and rhythm mimicking. Later on in college this allowed me to breeze through aural skills I-IV with good grades, having already established relative pitch firmly, having already understood chromatic solfege and knowing my way around the accompanying theory. I now jam by ear with other musicians in bands all the time and never need to look up chords when learning songs.
General Music

General Music

I have played piano my entire life, am multi instrumental since 10, and went to school for music at university of illinois where i did open music studies and took everything from jazz piano to classical arranging. I am very capable in an improv and jam context, can read sheet music and sight read, and have an enormous amount of knowledge when it comes to music theory. i can help students with just about any general music studies or questions they have with my 24 years of experience in this focus.
Guitar

Guitar

I have played guitar for 14 years, beginning with lessons and continuing through self-directed study, bands, songwriting, and live performance. As a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign music studies graduate, I also used guitar in jazz improvisation and creative music settings. I teach rock, blues, jazz, indie, math rock, punk, grunge, folk, rhythm playing, chord vocabulary, riffs, fretboard understanding, and improvisation. My goal is to help students connect technique and theory to the songs and styles they actually want to play.
Music History

Music History

Growing up i had to study western classical as a part of my piano lessons and know all the classical musical periods from baroque to impressionist very well along with their respective composers and pieces they wrote at the time. I have also spent a fair amount of time studying their lives as well just out of curiosity as i grew up and fell in love with various pieces i would learn. On top of that in college i had to take multiple semesters of music history covering everything from early Grecian scales to gregorian chant all the way to the classical era in multiple cultures (i took a music of the middle east class too, that was fun learning about classical music outside of the western context) as well as jazz history and a personal fascination with the history of rock, funk, hip hop, and other more modernist genres. I can talk to students about anything from tin pan alley era to Bach and help them prepare in whatever historical focus they're studying for.
Music Production

Music Production

I have 10 years of music production experience, beginning with Ableton Live in college and expanding into Logic, recording, beatmaking, mixing, arrangement, and custom song building. I am a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign music studies graduate, and I combine that music background with practical studio workflow. I have worked with hundreds of artists and clients in beatmaking, recording, mixing, and collaborative production sessions, and hundreds of released songs on Spotify use my beats or production work. I help students turn ideas into finished tracks while building skills in MIDI, audio recording, sound choice, structure, and creative decision-making.
Music Theory

Music Theory

I studied music theory, piano, jazz, and open music studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and use theory constantly as a pianist, guitarist, songwriter, producer, and teacher. My theory lessons focus on practical understanding: chords, scales, rhythm, harmony, melody, ear training, song analysis, improvisation, and how theory explains music students already love. I help students connect abstract concepts to the keyboard, guitar, voice, DAW, or songwriting process. The goal is for theory to become a creative tool, not just vocabulary to memorize.
Piano

Piano

I have played piano for 23 years, starting at age four, and I trained classically throughout childhood while performing in recitals and structured settings. I am a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign music studies graduate, where I studied jazz, open music studies, piano, theory, and musicianship. I have performed live hundreds of times and use that experience to help students build technique, rhythm, chords, ear training, reading, improvisation, and confidence. My piano lessons connect fundamentals with real songs so students can hear progress quickly and understand how music works.
Sight Singing

Sight Singing

I have always sang alongside my piano background, as i always found that singing the notes as i played them helped me internalize the music in a memory sense and just understand it better. But where I really had to learn to sight sing was in my music degree in college. All four semesters of Aural skills required us to sight sing melodies of increasing complexity from monophonic sheet music, requiring us to always sing in solfege as well in order to internalize it fully. This helped me master the art of sight singing as I was already fully capable of sight reading monophonic lines on the piano at the time, connecting it to my voice was simply the next step. I still sight sing regularly to this day for auditions and when i learn songs via sheet music.
Songwriting

Songwriting

I have been writing songs since I was 10 and have 17 years of experience building music from the instrumental idea through lyrics, melody, rhythm, arrangement, and finished recordings. I am a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign music studies graduate, and my background as a pianist, guitarist, producer, and performer gives students a full-picture approach to songwriting. I have worked with hundreds of artists and clients crafting songs from scratch in genres ranging from rap and pop to indie, folk, rock, and experimental music. I help students develop stronger ideas, better structure, more effective lyrics, and a creative process they can repeat.
Voice (Music)

Voice (Music)

I have always sang growing up alongside my piano studies as a lot of the songs I wanted to learn were pop songs and rock songs. This transitioned into me becoming my own performing artist and singing at worship throughout church in highschool and when i'd play open mics. In college I started my own band and was the lead singer, and then started releasing music under myself as a solo artist, where i'd be singing a lot too. What really progressed my vocals was when I met my fiance, who is a professional vocal coach and went to school for vocal performance at UIUC with me. She was required to do a one on one class with someone of her choice and chose to train me to fulfill that requirement so I also had a few years under her personal instruction which really helped me learn to exercise proper vocal technique and how to use my voice in varying contexts, as well as comfortably expanding my range. I currently teach voice students for her when she is overloaded and can't fit students into her schedule, sort of subbing for her.
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Hourly Rate: $60
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