Premier Music

I’ve taken lessons from other instructors in the past, but none were as structured and methodical in their approach as Mark Wein is. He’s been able to break things down to a fundamental level, and I’ve noticed marked improvement in my playing since I started working with him over Skype. I have already recommended him to several friends who are looking to improve on guitar.

Very disappointed. In the middle of lessons Mark was getting up, answering the phone, helping people come who came in. I understand a business needs to be ran, but we paid a lot for lessons. After this happened twice, we called it quits and he would not give us any kind of a refund. I paid for private lessons, not for them to be disturbed every 10 min.

Tommy is a world class musical treasure. A credit to American music, yet he is humble and patient. If you want to learn to play blues, swing, rockabilly there is no better choice in the OC.

For many years, I told people I played guitar, but I knew I wasn’t a very good player. I was mostly self-​taught in high school, with a couple classes through the years. My skills were limited, and I got bored and gave it up for a while. So a few years ago, I started looking for someplace to improve my skills, and I found Premier Music on craigslist.
I’ve been taking guitar lessons with Mark Wein for 3 years, and rock ensemble classes for two years. Mark can hone in on what it is you do well and what you need to work on. He approaches teaching guitar from a practical standpoint, which is different from a lot of standard guitar curriculum you can buy off the shelf or watch on YouTube. I’ve had conversations with other students about the dreaded clapping exercises he starts out with (to which my first thought was WTF?), but the benefits of orienting your playing around solid timing became more and more apparent as I advanced to technically harder stuff and playing in a band.
The ensemble classes are a lot of fun. A great place to start if you want to play in a band setting, but don’t know anyone else who plays or how a band works as a unit. I am now in a cover band that gigs regularly around Orange County. We work with Mark on learning how to arrange and play songs in a variety of styles. Mark has a good sense of what will work on stage from his many years of performance experience.