Ken Rhodes

Ken Rhodes started his musical education in 4th grade, when he joined the small band program starting up at his elementary school.  He chose the flute for his instrument because "nobody else was picking that one."  Bucking trends was already a habit for Ken, and it is a behaviour that has continued into adulthood.

 

As young boy, Ken heard a song on TV that captured his imagination and introduced him to the world of guitars.  The song was "Classical Gas" by Mason Williams, and from then on Ken was fascinated with the guitar.  Unfortunately, he had trouble finding anyone who was willing to teach him how to play.

 

In the fall of 1985, right after his 18th birthday, Ken finally found a teach-yourself-guitar program that worked for him - The Metal Method.  Ken worked hard at learning his instrument and the only teacher he had during that time was a classical guitar teacher.  Ken had read an inteview with the late Randy Rhoads about how Randy had the idea to combine classical guitar ideas with rock guitar ideas.  Unlike the "neo-classical" players that emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, who largely played violin concerto-inspired licks in a rock & roll context, Ken was more interested in the idea of Segovia, Tarrega, and Sor inspired lines played within the context of a rock composition.

 

In the spring of 1987, Ken was attending college at Southern Utah State College (SUSC), majoring in computer science and minoring in music.  It was during this time that Ken had his first experience playing guitar for an audience.  He and some friends learned about a battle of the bands that was planned for the end of the spring quarter at SUSC (now SUU).  They quickly formed a band, learned four current hit songs, and practiced three or four times during a two-week period and entered the contest.  Having only played guitar for just over a year and a half, Ken was pleasantly surprised when his first gig as a lead guitar player ended with his band winning the competition!

 

From there, Ken went on to play in local cover bands like Sceptor and C.C. Ryder, playing more than 100 shows in two years in the southern Utah and northern Arizona region.  It was during this time that Ken met and married his wife, Lisa Jane Laird.  One of his bandmates in Sceptor, Lynn Dennett, introduced them and they quickly found enough common ground to become friends.  That summer, the friendship turned romantic, and a little more than a year later they were married.

 

After his first son was born, Ken took some time off from music to focus on his family.  But music was still a passion for him and he returned to regular practicing in the fall of 2000.  In 2004 he discovered a group of online friends that helped him realize that not only did he want to teach guitar, but that he would probably be pretty good at it.  He then started to learn what he would need to know to effectively teach gutiar playing to others.

 

This same group of friends also introduced Ken to his current classical guitar teacher, Scott Kritzer.  Scott learned the guitar from such notable teachers/artists as Michael Lormier and Aaron Shearer and, although they live more than 1,000 miles apart, Ken has learned a great deal about playing, teaching, and performing from Scott's correspondence course and personal instruction at the annual event Scott hosts called Classical Guitar Immersion (CGI).

 

In the summer of 2007, Ken was attending that year's CGI and met Trevor Darmody for the first time in person.  Trevor and Ken shared many of the same musical tastes and struck a fast friendship.  Trevor introduced Ken to Tom Hess and Tom's Music Careers Mentoring Program (MCMP).  Ken was intrigued, but more interested at the time in improving his classical skills and learning more about how to teach.  That fall, when Trevor emailed Ken about a new program Tom was starting to train gutiar teachers to be better teachers and better business owners, Ken just had to get in on that kind of program.

 

Wanting to get the most out of Tom's teaching, Ken signed up for correspondence lessons in rock guitar from Tom and the next MCMP group, as well as the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle (EGTIC) program.  Ken promptly registered the name Kolob Music Instruction (KMI) for his teaching business.

 

Since then, Ken's teaching and playing careers have been steadily moving forward and he plans for his professional recording debut to come out in late 2008.

 

Ken is currently looking for new projects to work on and is forming a band that he can tour and record with.  He is writing new material both for solo guitar and for performance with a band.