Name: Silversound Guitar
Price range: $$

NEWS AND UPDATES

Silversound Family,
Poet T.S. Eliot said that “April is the cruelest month,” but here at Silversound, April might just have been the coolest month. We are finally finishing up our move-in, and all of the planning we’ve been doing is about to pay off.

In May, we’ll be offering a free group lesson for family and friends of Silversound students. Know someone who wants to play but is on the fence? Have them sign up for our group lesson on May 21. They can get some hands-on experience with an instrument, with with one our great instructors, and see if music lessons are right for them. We’ll provide the instruments, so all we need is folks, aged 13 and older to attend. We’ll do a group lesson for younger students in June. To sign up, or for more information, email info@silversoundguitar.com or ask your instructor.

In June, we’ll be debuting our first Silversound Spotlight, our speaker series where music industry professionals share their best tips and wisdom with students. On June 11, Kevin Rodela, one of Colorado Springs most sought after guitar technicians, will give a class on instrument maintenance and repair.

We’re also excited to announce plans for Summer Camp-style classes this July and August. We’ll offer a week of half-day sessions on songwriting and recording for students of all ages. Your instructors will have more information on the Silversound Summer experience as we iron out all the details.

Mark Young, Owner & Founder

Meet Jesse Klopfenstein

Jesse Klopfenstein is Silversound’s newest addition to our teaching staff. He teaches guitar, bass, drums, voice, and music production and engineering. Mark and Jesse go way back, Jesse actually helped record some Hydrogen Skyline demos a few years ago.

“I’ve taught previously at some other times in my life,” says Jesse. “I always kind of flip-flop between that other stuff — studio engineering, or that and regular nine to five jobs. Teaching is super rewarding, and it’s awesome to help other people understand music better so they can go and do awesome things with it.”

Jesse is a self-taught musician and sound engineer. He says he got into music production to help his band record music, and it blossomed from there. “I got into that in 2010 or ’11, because a band of mine had won a battle of the bands and we got some free studio time, so we went and we used it at this guy’s studio and I fell in love with the process,” he says. “After that it was like, why don’t I just do this on my own so I don’t have to pay anyone to do it? I just kinda got into doing it and a few years later other bands were asking if I could record for them and stuff too. I figured why not and jumped into running a studio space.”

Jesse says a solid understanding of the recording process can help musicians grow. “Understanding more of the recording aspect of things and the production side of stuff can really help a writer or a player tackle something the right way from the start, instead of having to work backwards,” he says. “It sets you up for more success going forward. The more prepared you are for the process of recording, and the more prepared you are for putting everything together and getting that sound or product you’re looking for, that starts from step one. In a lot of ways it starts all the way back in the writing process, which is why a lot of producers will get their hands on records and be like, ‘What if you guys did this? What if you did that?’ because they’re helping them mold it even further before it even hits recording. One of the other areas I teach is songwriting and understanding song structure.”

For those looking to get started in recording, Jesse has some common sense advice and book recommendations. “Ask a billion questions to people who know more than you,” he says. “Audio engineering is in a sense just as deep as music is, just in a different realm. There’s just so much to learn it just kinda takes diving in. There’s a lot of books and a lot of tools to help you understand studio engineering and soundscaping better. Things like The Art of Mixing is a phenomenal book, Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio, both of those are great tools for helping you understand what you have in front of you and all the stuff you have to work with.”