Guitar Teachers Tampa - Guitar Lessons instruction

I started playing guitar at a young age - I just loved the sound of a 6 string guitar.

Well, this is me when I first started playing guitar. You see, in order to become a "Rock Star" you need to start at an early age. This picture shows me studying at the ripe age of 5 - learning Jimi Hendrix solos of course. OK, I'm lying - I actually didn't start playing until I was about 13 years old - This was way back in 1976/1977. This was the day of the 10 minute guitar solo on every song (YEAH, BABY!). I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan, but also liked bands like Yes, Steve Miller, Joe Walsh, Pink Floyd and The Allman Brothers. I also liked some of the kicked back folk stuff at the time - CSN, Neil Young, The Eagles, etc.

Both of my older brothers, Glenn & Kris as well as my older sister, Mitzi played guitar as well, so I had plenty of people around me to get started. Mitzi gave me an old Yamaha FG-160 acoustic guitar after my first year of playing and told me I could keep it if I played the darn thing. By the time I was 16, I was writing allot of folk songs and couldn't stop playing.

By the mid 80's after getting out of the U.S. Navy, I moved out to Tucson Arizona and got involved with the folk circles as well as the blues scene and eventually joining a rock band - I played harmonica and rhythm guitar and had a blast performing.

Years later and miles down the road, I wound up here in Tampa, Florida with a wife and daughter and started getting into home recording in 1993. Shortly thereafter, I felt like I had hit a brick wall with my guitar playing and decided to take lessons from local guitar hero "Todd Grubbs" - Todd was great. He gave me allot of things to start applying to my music that I was getting serious about. I spent the next 10 years literally "locked in the studio" working on all sorts of guitar music. During this 10 year journey, I had realized a new passion in music that had turned to Instrumental Guitar Rock as well as acoustic instrumental guitar music. Some of the musicians I had come to learn more about and study was:

Steve Vai
Joe Satriani
The Hellecasters

For some reason, their music just hit me in between the eyes - this music was awe-inspiring and I wanted more of it! It also inspired me to start writing more music. It's kind of funny, I know I'll never be able to get to the level of my guitar heroes, but I can still enjoy the ride and create some of my own awesome music.

During this time, I had formed the Dogtrax Band that had several people come and go through the years, but the core lineup at our end in 2005 was Bryan Radtke on drums, Timothy Smith on bass, Tom Papadakos on keys, Jay Kafkas on guitar, Leah Clark on vocals and yours truly on lead guitar. Our last show was a benefit concert for the

American Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina at Skipper's Smokehouse. We had headlined the show with a tribute to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon".

Virgil currently teaches out of his home studio in the North Tampa area. Virgil is married to his wife Lorrie and they have 2 daughters, Angel, 13 and Nicole, 3. Virgil is currently working on an Instrumental Guitar cd project at the Home Studio. You can hear some of these songs by clicking here.

On to the Lessons!