Award-winning, first-class Oxford graduate teaching ABRSM, Trinity, and degree-level music theory online.

Find out more about Sam

• 1) When did you first develop a passion for music and your favourite instrument?

  I’ve been a bit of a music nut since I was young, but I first remember getting into it in Year 3 of primary school (I would have been 7 years old at that point), which was when I joined the choir and started taking instrumental lessons. Believe it or not, I actually started out on the cello, before pivoting to percussion soon afterwards. From that point on, I was hooked on any instrument that involved hitting things with sticks – glockenspiel, timpani, drum kit, Vibraslap, you name it. Because of that it’s honestly difficult to pinpoint my favourite instrument; even the drum kit counts for about seven.

• 2) Is there a particular type of music or artist that you listen to on a loop without it driving you crazy?

  Hmm. It really depends on my mood on any given day, although it’s hard for me to get driven crazy by anything – more likely is I drive everyone around crazy by pointing out ridiculous details in songs. If I had to choose, I would pick Hozier. I know his discography practically inside out, and I actually wrote my BA dissertation on him. I’m certain there is a Hozier song for every situation in life.

• 3) Explain to us the most difficult or riveting course you could personally give to a student of music.

  Some would say that difficult and riveting are the same thing; if I wanted to cover both bases at the same time, I would definitely choose fugues. Composers have learned their craft using fugues for centuries, and there is a reason for that – you need to know your rules of dissonance resolution, modulations, and species counterpoint inside out, and you also need to know how to write a good melody. I honestly don’t get the chance to teach fugues often enough.

• 4) What do you think is the most complicated instrument to master and why?

  Organ. No doubt about it. Take all the four-limb coordination of a drummer, combine it with the finger technique of a master pianist, the precise foot placement of a ballet dancer, the foot-pedal dexterity of a Formula One driver, and the command of sounds and timbres of a top composer, and you might have the skill set required to get good at the organ. I have always admired and envied my organist friends.

• 5) What are your keys to success?

  I feel like to understand how something works, you have to pick it apart and build it back up again. I do it with pens, with small home appliances, with languages and grammar, with maths, and with music. Once you know the fundamental principles of something – music, maths, English, anything – you will find that it becomes far easier to use your knowledge to make sense of unfamiliar situations. In a learning context, that means always asking why something is the way it is, since that is essentially a shortcut to getting this fundamental knowledge.

• 6) Name three musicians you dream of meeting in your favourite bar in the early hours of the morning. Explain why.

  Number one: Hozier. See above.
  Number two: John Coltrane. I’ve always wanted to get more into jazz harmony, and I can’t really think of a better-qualified teacher.
  Number three: Franz Schubert. His music is quite different from other early Romantic composers, and from that I get the sense that he would be great fun in a bar.
  If nothing else, I feel like those three would get along quite well – Hozier and Coltrane bonding over jazz history, Schubert and Hozier connecting over the wonders of nature, and Coltrane and Schubert trading chord progression ideas.

• 7) Provide a valuable anecdote related to music or your days at music school.

  I and my wife (whom I also met in our college choir) were once visiting a choir friend of ours who had recently become a father. I’m honestly not sure what sparked it, but towards the end of our visit, his wife ended up holding the baby while he, my wife and I started singing Bare Necessities from The Jungle Book in barbershop-style three-part harmony for the newborn. I wish I had filmed it, because it was one of the cutest things that has ever happened to me.

• 8) What are the little touches that make you a Superprof in music?

  I am an incorrigible music nerd, with a weird ability to get enthused by practically any sort of music. Students and parents have told me that my excitement is contagious. I am also, or so I’m told, quite good at explaining things from first principles so I can catch the exact point where a student’s understanding of a subject needs work. If you’re looking to get your child excited about music or anything else, you know where to find me!