Teacher Profile: Melissa McQueen

About Melissa McQueen

Melissa McQueen started off reading music on her grandmother's organ at early age of 6 and also played the cello in the 3rd grade. She still very much admires and respects the cello instrument. She started to play guitar at the age of 13 because her mom realized how much she liked imitating guitar players and decided to gift her an acoustic guitar from a pawn shop with her tax return money that year. Her very own first acoustic guitar. She mostly taught herself to play guitar and played with friends and other musicians in her area for practice. She then took private guitar lessons from a wonderful instructor her last year in high school at Rockin' Robin Guitar Shop near downtown Houston. That guitar instructor taught her to learn to read music for guitar which is a skill that she can really appreciate when making music. Melissa took piano, theory, music composition, audio recording, and conducting in college.

In college Melissa enjoyed the classes on audio recording. Her class learned a lot about sound recording setup and electronics. She also really liked the conductor class she took during at that time because it was fun helping the musicians stay on track. Also, she has performed playing guitar in office party bands, with friends, and as part of an ensemble. Melissa believes that music education is important because it's a way to communicate physically with sound one can create to express the way they feel. Genres of music that inspire Melissa the most are ragtime, and fingerpicking. That is because of the theme and method behind the string plucking pattern brings out the expression of music and rhythm with lots of opportunity for melodic changes. Another beautiful instrument is the flamenco guitar. When Melissa was travelling through Spain, she was lucky enough to visit Granada, the heart of flamenco music and guitars. Upon returning home to America, she purchased an authentic flamenco guitar made in Spain for practice. Her Spanish language skills which allowed her to converse with the locals, helped to make it an enchanting instrument and musical journey. Melissa is excited to work with LIYH students and help them stay excited and curious about learning their instrument. and experience the connection between music, their instrument, and playing.

In addition to playing guitar and piano, Melissa is a mentor at the local Raisbeck Aviation High School and has her own business teaching STEM and just about everything about guitars from building to playing. She is on the board of the local Seattle Luthiers group.