Touring guitarist/composer in Burlington, VT with 20 years teaching experience offering lessons at home and online

Xander Naylor is a great teacher. He is attentive, energetic, creative, and very well studied on the guitar. I am a gigging musician in Burlington, Vermont, and the lessons I've taken with Xander over the past year and a half has helped my playing tremendously! I have refined my technique, gotten great insight into being a professional musician and playing live and with bands, been exposed to awesome new (to me) music, and been pushed out of my comfort zone regularly. He is kind, focused, engaging, interested, and will push you to go farther as a player. He a great choice to study guitar playing with.

Xander’s musical awareness for himself and his students is amazing. The ability to independently teach each one of of his students is unique… I’ve been with Xander for over a year now and our relationship is great and my abilities on my instrument has been a linear growth of getting better!!

I've taken lessons with Xander for almost two years, starting as a beginner with only a couple months of self-taught playing with the guitar. He is a talented and skilled teacher and instrumentalist, keenly assessing his students' abilities while listening to their long-term goals to steer their tutelage. On top of that, he's an empathetic and kind person who knows when to push you when you need it and understands when life gets in the way and progress slows. This level of support and encouragement alone was enough to keep me coming back to lessons week after week rather than canceling due to a self-determined stagnation in performance.

Over these two years, Xander has taught me several guitar techniques (both acoustic strumming, fingerstyle, and electric guitar) which has allowed me to build up chops to play for longer periods of time without hurting myself (this is often skipped by non-academic teachers!). We've built out a repertoire of warm-up exercises and practice pieces that have formed the foundation for learning more complicated songs enabling me to learn them faster.

Starting with basic four chord folk tunes, Xander deftly identified my interest in jazz guitar and has helped me branch into jazz standards (which is a far cry from where I started nearly two years ago!). Through these jazz pieces, I can now move up and down the guitar neck, as opposed to being stuck with just open chords. Further, we've practiced many different chord voicings and shapes which gave me options when I was learning to comp new songs. That's something that I definitely didn't expect to learn so quickly and was extremely exciting for a novice guitarist to be able to take a bit of artistic license with a song.

We've also spent a good amount of time discussing music theory, given my middling theory background as a percussionist of nearly 10 years. Admittedly, as a scientist, I really enjoy the theoretical discussions and Xander is more than happy to indulge me with his deep and wide understanding of both western and eastern music theory.

All in all, I've really enjoyed taking lessons as both a stress-reliever and an intellectually stimulating practice (it helps that Xander also plays gigs in the area to give you something to aspire to - shameless plug for his website here if you're interested to see his skillz: xandernaylor.com). I can’t recommend him enough as a teacher and as a human. 10/10, five stars.

Xander Naylor is a phenomenal guitarist and teacher. Compared to other teachers I’ve worked with over the past decade, Xander’s approach is unique. He has terrific observational skills, focusing on technique, posture, and musicality all at once. Sometimes we work from written music, other times we focus on improvisation. He often makes suggestions on when and how to practice, including when to give it a little rest. We’ve touched on multiple different styles, and Xander frequently enriches our sessions with brief, fascinating lessons about the history of music structure, ranging from “classical” to jazz. Music theory is always in the mix, typically such that I’m pushed just beyond my comfort level. Lately we've been talking about how to use different chord voicings as well as voice leading (many "ah-ha" moments). Xander is also super laid back, which is a big relief on days when I feel unprepared!

I have never played the guitar and as an adult learner was little anxious about starting. I emailed Xander through this site and I’ve been taking lessons from him for almost 9 months now. I’m no natural, but feel so much less intimated to sit down to play and to learn the guitar. We have gone through many different songs all with a goal to teach something different. Every time I ask “why” or “tell me more” I get a good, approachable music theory lesson which makes learning the songs even more enlightening. I was rusty on my note reading so we brushed up on that and also dove into tab notation. I would recommend Xander if you’re looking for a good teacher, talented musician, and friendly person.

Xander is an excellent teacher! He is very invested in your personal goals as a guitarist and musician, and seeks to help you improve your playing style while also exploring styles unfamiliar to you. Would absolutely recommend!

Xander is an extremely thorough and attentive teacher. In addition to these extremely helpful practical qualities, he is also very intuitive- which means each lesson will be perfectly curated to what you as a student need to improve. He has a strong expertise in Hindustani classical music and Black American Music, as well as many other genres which are evident in his wisdom as a musician. His range of knowledge means that you will be having lessons that challenge you and expand your ear and technique. He is extremely attentive and I love working with him!

Xander meets me where I'm at and is adaptable to figure out what's the best way for me to learn each lesson. He generously shares his learning and experience from different musical influences as well as different life practices. He knows a lot about the guitar and has tricks that have helped me continue to improve.

Xander took the time to recognize my preferred learning style and teaches in a way that makes me feel so at ease. He plays up my strengths and uses what I am good at to help me through more difficult sections. I feel like I am really advancing with his help!

Xander always provides great material and advice during our lessons. I always come out of lessons with a greater understanding of the music.