Teacher Profile: Dan Schwindt

About Dan Schwindt

Dan has been a professional guitarist for 25 years based primarily in Seattle, Dallas and Denver's music markets and has recently relocated back to his hometown after a 20 year residency in Denver, CO. He has toured extensively throughout the United States performing various genres of music including Jazz, Rock, Funk and R&B. Pre-Covid Dan was averaging over 200 gigs a year while maintaining a full teaching schedule, regular studio work, and a first call orchestra pit musician at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (CSO). As an adjunct music instructor at University of Colorado Denver, Dan taught beginning sight-reading and improvisation, commercial guitar styles, electric guitar styles, guitar ensemble, pop-rock ensemble and private lessons.

Dan is the son of a professional opera singer and voice teacher and was thrown into the world of music education at a young age. From the subconscious mind of a child hearing private lessons every night to over a decade teaching at a University, Dan has had a multitude of educational opportunities and experiences to create a successful learning environment. Dan believes learning is a very individualized process. Because individual students have different learning styles and contexts, the “one-size-fits-all” approach to teaching is convenient but ineffective. Thinking outside-the-box, maximizing the learning process and making it as individualized as possible and adaptive to the individual student will always achieve better results. Learning what creates inspiration is the key. If you can find what inspired the student to pick up the instrument in the first place, then you have found the spark to light the fire.