Brad Ba.

Brad began performing music in 1985 when he was a bassist in orchestra in 7th grade. After only 2 months of playing, at his teachers recommendation, he was accepted in district orchestra going up against students that had been playing 3 or 4 years. Still searching for something else, he discovered guitar a few years later and never looked back.
Brad began attending college when he was only 16. At 17, having only played guitar for 1 1/2 years, he was awarded a music scholarship. He learned a lot about jazz guitar and improvisation at this time studying with Jack Peterson protege Mark Menza. Elaine Gardner-Morales and Brenda Dillon helped turn Brad into a music theory expert in no time. Brad also learned about classical guitar and life from Carlos Pezzimenti, a student of the great Andre Segovia.
After passing his theory proficiency exam during only his 3rd semester, Brad decided to transfer up to the University of North Texas focusing on composition, though he finished with more than 120 hours of music credits just to get in all the classes he wanted to take to satisfy his passion and curiosity.
After graduating UNT, Brad began to focus on teaching and developing his own pedagogical guitar instructional approach. During this time he performed with the Brad Barnes Trio and played for 3 months on a the Carnival Cruise ship, the Tropicale. It was on the ship where Brad played guitar and bass with Duke Daniels of The Platters and many others. He also recorded an album which he is just releasing years later under the name Kitty Warrior Princess. Involved in numerous other projects, mostly though Brad focused on teaching the likes of Josh Goode of the Josh Goode Band, 2 time emmy winner, and many other quality students.
He went on to focus on gigging for a while in the mid-2000’s doing 300 shows in two years at one point playing everything from jazz to rock to blues to funk. He played with the likes of Liz Mikels, Gino Iglehart of Erykah Badu, Quinton Perry, JB Saxx, and many, many others.
In 2009, Brad had the opportunity to put his teaching approach to the test when he wrote a 66,000 plus word script, literally in about 14 days of writing, and created what a couple of months later a TWENTY HOUR guitar instructional series including Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced sections. Brad wants to the “spill the beans” and went into as much detail as possible so that as many people as possible could have as many questions as possible answered, all from one source!
Post-production has been a nightmare with third party production companies going under and countless delays in adding animated graphics and text to this mammoth series.
FINALLY, after over 2 1/2 years, Brad Presents Beginning Guitar should be online for sale by the end of the year. The Intermediate section, which is NINE HOURS, is about 2/3 finished in terms of animated graphics and should be online early 2012. The Advanced section will be online in late 2012.
Brad continues to perform rock and jazz, particularly latin jazz, all over DFW with Melissa Medlock of the Wonders band, singer-songwriter Austin Gray, and singer-songwriting tenor Sterling Masters.
Brad has continued teaching select students through to the present.
Experience
Owner, Brad's Guitar Studio — 1997-present
Brad has taught guitar under the name of Brad's Guitar Studio in North Dallas and Addison for the last 14 years teaching all levels of guitar and music theory
Owner, KWP Empire LLC - 2009-present This is the company behind the Brad's Presents Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Guitar series.
Owner, Racer X Productions — 2005-2006
Brad operated as a DJ for a little while under the name Racer X Productions.
Freelance/Contract DJ — 2005-2006
Brad was a DJ and hosted open mics for various places around DFW including Bennigan’s and The Upper Deck.
Freelance Guitarist — 1990-present
Brad has been a freelance guitarist for WAY too many people to name for over 20 years. Currently plays fine dining venues such as Mercy Wine Bar, Kirby’s Steakhouse and Rick’s Chophouse.
Carnival Cruise Lines, Guitarist — 1999
Brad was the guitarist in the jazz/show band on the Tropicale during the summer of 1999.
Skills
Brad is well known for delighting and thrilling audiences all around DFW as well as Los Angeles, Denver, Tampa, and the Caribbean with his brand of virtuoso guitar playing which features equal doses of comping that is more reminiscent of a pianist any many ways than that of a typical guitar player, as well as both melodic and just full on blazing fast, shredding guitar solos, which are particularly exciting on his acoustic guitar!
Brad is well versed in music theory and has accumulated about 8 years of college level music training.
He has taught ages 10-adult for over 14 years. He emphasizes time feel, memorization of repertoire, skill development, and performance readiness among other aspects of guitar playing. He prefers not to use tablature with students if possible.
He enjoys teaching key signatures, functional harmony and the CAGED system to students who have the necessary desire, readiness and maturity.
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