Joe Sullivan has been teaching guitar since he was 15 years old (if you include teaching friends!), but he really started teaching at his local music shop in Illinois at age 16. He loved nothing more than going to his guitar lessons while in middle school – everything from the car ride to waiting in the hallway listening to the other musicians, and, of course, the lesson itself – and that passion passed on equally to teaching others when they hired him to teach there too.

He studied music at both Illinois State University and Florida State University with Dr. Angelo Favis and Bruce Holzman, respectively. He received his Bachelors in Music Education from FSU after completing an internship with Ed Prasse (one of the authors of the “Hands-on-Training” class guitar books). He currently teaches music at a local middle school. His background is in rock, classical, folk, fingerstyle, blues and jazz. In addition to the guitar, he has also taught the ukulele, bass, mandolin, the combination of guitar/harmonica and guitar/singing, composing and music theory.

When he’s not teaching, he’s building effect pedals for the electric guitar (which he absolutely cannot wait for a student to ask him about!), writing and recording his own music, obsessing over his current obsession and most of all, hanging with his wife and 8-month-old son Oliver!