About Ryan
Ryan Parker’s teaching studio is located in the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn New York. His studio is equipped with several guitars of various types (nylon string and steel string acoustic, solid body and hollow body electric), an 88 key weighted Yamaha electric piano, an assortment of percussion instruments, and a home recording studio.
Mr. Parker has a vast library of teaching materials in print and digital formats, as well as various computer-assisted instruction programs that help meet the needs of his students and provide a program of high standards in private instruction.
Ryan Parker also travels to students’ homes for convenient, in-home instruction in a limited area of New York City’s boroughs.
Whether you are an administrator or teacher looking for applicants to a classroom music teaching opportunity, or an individual or parent of a student interested in taking private lessons, contact me to find out more about how I bring music to the forefront of students’ minds, fingers, and ears.
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|| Music Educator
Ryan Parker is a passionate and versatile music teacher who has found himself singing Yellow Submarine with a classroom of kindergarteners, improvising rhythms over the blues with fifth graders, and conducting a contemporary classical work with a middle school string orchestra in their spring concert. He has taught lessons with elementary and secondary school bands using repertoire from Souza to Ellington and beyond, worked with a guitar ensemble on songwriting and accompaniment, and he has helped a choir prepare a spiritual for an upcoming performance. In addition to his varied experiences in teaching at public schools, Mr. Parker has also taught private lessons on guitar, voice, piano, and drum set to preschoolers, elementary school-aged children, teens and adults.
|| Versatile Performer
As a performer, Ryan Parker has played classical guitar as a soloist and in duets exploring repertoire from the Renaissance through the 21st century. He has performed standards, modern jazz classics, contemporary jazz music, and his own original compositions as a jazz guitarist and drummer. He has also played guitar, bass and drums in many rock bands of various styles. As a songwriter, Ryan has written and recorded dozens of songs in professional and independent recording studios, resulting in several commercial and non-commercial releases. He has composed and arranged instrumental music for small jazz ensembles and various chamber music configurations, including solos, duets, and quartets.
|| Trained Musician
Mr. Parker studied at the Rivers Music School in Massachusetts with Jamie Stewardson, Philippe Crettien, Jim Gutman, and Phil Grenadier. He majored in Music at Manhattanville College where he studied with Jay Azzolina, James Lorusso, Mary-Ann Joyce, and Geoffrey Kidde. He holds an Advanced Certificate in Music Education from Brooklyn College where he is currently working towards a Masters in Music Education.
|| Engaged Community Member
Outside of his music career, Ryan enjoys humor in many forms: stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, inventive television shows, cartoons, and satirical fiction. A history minor in college, his interest in reading about current events and those in the past is augmented by visiting museums and historic sites. He loves exploring New York City’s performing and visual arts scenes. He has worked as a babysitter and “Manny” and he is always working with kids in some respect. Ryan is hoping to develop his basic Spanish skills into fluent Spanish so that he can learn more about Latin American music, literature, history and culture; he hopes to use Spanish in his music teaching in the U.S. and to teach music in other countries.