Teacher Bio

DEREK JENSEN

Acoustic & Electric Guitar: Many styles, including Rock, Pop, Metal, Classical, Folk, Blues, Country, and more… both sacred and secular.

I began my personal guitar journey with lessons as a teenager, followed by Classical Music studies at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC. My earliest teaching experience began as a result of friends asking me for help to improve their own guitar playing. I enjoyed helping them so much that I  began to take on private students and my teaching venture built quickly from there. I have now been teaching guitar for over 30 years. As well as teaching private lessons, I have created and instructed extra-curricular group guitar classes for elementary schools and guitar master classes at the high school level. I also taught guitar elective classes for a few years at Christ for The Nations Bible College in Langley, BC. I am thankful for how many wonderful and interesting people I have been blessed to teach so far. Many of them still play and some have even gone on to enjoy successful music careers of their own. I look forward to many more years of sharing my passion for music with others and seeing the positive impact music will have on their lives.

AD748-1Aside from being a professional guitar instructor, I was the music director and worship leader at a church, where I  chose and arranged the music, led the bands and oversaw the sound department. It was a job that further honed many of my skills as a musician and I truly enjoyed doing it. I had also previously done similar work, in a volunteer capacity, at other churches.

I am also a songwriter and have written music for different mediums, including radio commercials, website music and even a documentary film. I have played in a number of rock bands over my years of playing. I sometimes perform at weddings and other functions as a solo artist and even in a guitar/flute duet and guitar/flute/djembe trio. I have even appeared several times as a special guest performer with the New Westminster Police bagpipe band for concerts at the Massey Theatre as well  as the Coquitlam Highland Games. I have been writing and recording original Christian songs both as a solo artist and in a duet. I am always writing and an beginning the process of recording more of my work. I also continue to write instrumental pieces for finger-style guitar. One of the places I love to be is in a recording studio, creating.