James B. Ho.

I was born into a musical family and grew up in N.Y.C. My grandfather was a violin maker. My dad was a guitar teacher, composer and also band leader. My great aunts played for President Roosevelt at the White House. They specialized in Hungarian folk music played on the mandolin and zither. My dad's Aunt Lena taught him to play the guitar. Music was always in my home. Along with my dad being a guitar teacher, my sister studied voice and my mom played the mandolin and keyboard. I attended a small liberal arts college for two years. During that time I became the guitarist for the touring Stage Band. We performed in Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio. I performed in rock, pop and jazz styles. The band also performed for a number of college functions. It was also at this time that I took course work in Music Theory. After getting married and moving to Colorado, I held a number of functions for the church I attended. This included: Performing Special Worship Music (including original compositions), Director of both children's and adult choir, Church music coordinator, Worship Leader. During this time, I had the opportunity to direct a 200 member children's choir at an annual church convention. I also gave private guitar lessons during this time. I currently have a side business performing at Senior Residences and Assisted Living Centers across the Front Range area. For these performances, I layed down tracks for drums, keyboard, and bass and played live guitar accompaniment as I sang. I also helped start a worship service in the early 2000's for Church of the Brethren. More recently, I have been teaching group guitar lessons at the Commerce City Recreation Center and group and private lessons at Keptone Music in Loveland. These classes have included students as young as 7 years old all the way up to senior citizens. I am continuing to write original compositions. I really enjoy teaching as it gives me great satisfaction in watching my students learn and grow. My teaching style includes "getting the students" in a position to play their first song during the first lesson itself. I find this is much more enjoyable for the student, than me givings talks about theory.