Paul’s teaching experience extends for over 25 years. He studied classical guitar with Eli Kassner (Liona Boyd’s teacher) and subsequently taught at the Eli Kassner Guitar Academy in Toronto.
He also studied Jazz Improvisaiton with pianist Frank Falco in Toronto.
Paul offers a free introductory lesson for new students.
“Guitar Guru Got Quirky Start“
WhatsOn Interview for Newmarket Era Newspaper
Musician and music teacher Paul Brooks got his first instrument, an accordian, at age 10. It wasn’t until getting a guitar at age 14 that his musical ability shone through. Within two years, he was teaching at a music school. – Sjoerd Witteveen
When Paul Brooks was 14, his parents gave him his first electric guitar. He promptly locked himself in his room and over three days, taught himself how to play. That was the first indication of Mr. Brooks’ natural musical talent. Unbeknownst to his parents, that electric guitar would be the start of a fruitful career as a musician and teacher.
While Mr. Brooks is now a successful classical and jazz guitarist, his first foray into music, prior to the guitar, wasn’t so exciting. At 10, his mother decided he and his brother would play an instrument. His brother, Bruce, ended up with a guitar. Mr. Brooks got an accordion. He wasn’t a fan of the instrument, so over the next four years his musical career did not exactly take off.
But when he got his own guitar, things moved in a hurry. After only two years of playing, he started to teach at the ABC Music Store, at the ripe old age of 16.
“I learned very fast,” he said of the guitar.
He was thrilled when they asked him to teach.
“I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” he said, sitting in his studio in the basement of his Richmond Hill home. “I got hooked on the guitar.”
His first music teacher inspired his interest in classical guitar. At 19, a concert featuring a world-renowned Spanish classical guitarist, Andres Segovia, firmly focused him on the classical version of the instrument. Always with a penchant for more refined music, he often listened to music different from the average teenager.
“When my friends were listening to Led Zeppelin and Motley Crue, I was listening to Benny Goodman,” Mr. Brooks said.
It was at 19 that Mr. Brooks got thrust into playing a concert with the Howard Cable Orchestra at the Royal York Hotel, at the urging of his music teacher. The second oldest of four children, Mr. Brooks hasn’t stopped teaching since that first stint at 16, now teaching jazz and classical guitar to students as young as seven. When Mr. Brooks first proposed a career in music to his parents, they were less than thrilled.
“I wasn’t encouraged. My older brother was going to be a doctor,” Mr. Brooks said, laughing.
On a more serious note, he said surviving as a musician is no easy feat.
“You have to diversify. A lot of people in my industry become teachers because they can’t make it in music,” Mr. Brooks said. “I want to be a musician. You have to stay positive.”
Over the years, he has picked up various jobs to make ends meet, including one stint as a limo driver that resulted in a brush with American jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.
“I met him at the airport. He was the nicest man,” Mr. Brooks said of the musician in town in 1993 for his last concert at Massey Hall.
When doing his other jobs, he also has to watch out for his hands — and especially his finger nails. The classical guitar requires guitarists to keep their nails a certain length. Classical guitarists pluck the strings using their nails as opposed to a plastic pick or the ends of the fingers, so guitarists wanting to play have to not only grow the nails on their right hand, but to a very specific shape, Mr. Brooks explained.
“If you break a nail it puts you out of commission for two to three months,” Mr. Brooks explained, saying it has happened to him on occasion.
His unique skills have seen him capitalize on some interesting opportunities, however. Working with an actress who was supposed to look like she knew how to play the classical guitar, Mr. Brooks was given 30 minutes to teach her how to play a few notes. By the time the commercial was shot, the actress looked as if she were an expert in classical guitar. “My mom was so proud,” Mr. Brooks said.
When he’s not teaching or practising, Mr. Brooks can be found on Saturdays between 6 and 9 p.m. playing in a jazz trio at the Black Dog Pub in the West Hill community of Scarborough. Not one to stick to a single interest, Mr. Brooks also runs his own film company, something he got into after getting an opportunity to videotape his mentor, Dr. Kenneth G. Mills.
That experience spawned an interest in photography and video. Now he does both when not performing or teaching music. Eventually, he would like to open his own restaurant and play live jazz there, he says.
For more information on Mr. Brooks, go to www.bittersuite.com
Guitarist Paul Brooks finishes our sentences
If I could have dinner with any historical figure, living or dead, it would be … Jesus.
The three things I’d like to take to a desert island are … my drummer, my bass player and my guitar.
If I wasn’t in my current position I’d be … I couldn’t imagine anything else. A composer?
The animal that best describes my spirit is … an eagle.
My favourite film is … Out of Africa.
Few people know that I am … spiritual.
My strongest characteristic is … my passion.
The thing I’d most like to do before the end of my days is … play Carnegie Hall.