25 years ago, Greg Lykins took me on as a guitar student. Not only was he incredibly and broadly knowledgeable about music theory, humaities, and engineering, he was also remarkably adaptive as a teacher, despite the issues with (I guess we now call it) neurodiversity that I was navigating at the time. Greg was fun, friendly, and came up with lessons that worked for me, WITH me, and catered to my (admittedly) limited musical tastes at the time (read: almost exclusively punk and grunge) while pushing me to explore new, more complex pieces and genres.
Although I ultimately became a boring-a$$ biomedical engineer, Greg helped me develop skills, discipline, and exercises that calmed my mind, gave me a creative outlet for all of my emotions. Those lessons provided a means for an awkward mixed kid in the blue collar suburbs to connect with people across all ages and identities. I'm still playing and writing to this day.
Thank you, Greg. Your patience and kindness have stayed with me for a quarter of a century. read more