We were lucky to catch up with Riley Anderson recently and have shared our conversation below.
Riley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Besides the fact I absolutely love teaching and coaching, my mission as both a guitar and west coast swing dance teacher is to make a positive impact and help beginners especially discover their potential.
I decided to niche my focus on beginners because I find this demographic tends to feel overwhelmed, unsupported, plateaued early on, and sadly prone to give up when things seem impossible.
This is really saddening for me to see people quit and never experience the joys of either playing guitar or dancing west coast swing, when they may have been more likely to have stayed if they received the right support and guidance.
This factor alone, has led me to be so passionate about helping beginners!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Riley Anderson, aka Riley from Raleigh (a nickname given to me since moving here in 2022 and I’ve embraced it since).
For the past 15 years, I’ve enjoyed a diverse musical career both as a guitarist and euphoniumist.
I started playing euphonium at the age of 12 in my middle school band, and I picked up the guitar the following year. Between both instruments, I’ve done over 100 performances in a variety of settings from, rock bands, solo gigs/recitals, jazz groups, wind ensembles, British style brass bands, chamber groups, to name a few.
I received my master of music degree in euphonium and electric guitar from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK in 2021 and a Bachelor of Music in euphonium and guitar from Central Michigan University in 2019.
In 2016, I discovered my love for teaching students, and began offering students private lessons.
I knew at that moment, that it was my calling to help inspire, and gift people with music, which later inspired me to start teaching independently.
In 2017, I discovered what would soon be my other love, which is dancing! I got started at Central Michigan University as part of the Swing Dance club. From there, dance became a regular part of my schedule. In 2018, I got introduced to west coast swing and ballroom, to which west coast swing quickly became my favorite.
In 2021 I started training as a ballroom dance instructor learning and teaching various American Ballroom and social dance styles. These days, I primarily focus on west coast swing, started my competing journey in 2022 and have loved it ever since.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I learned the hard way about taking on certain clients. Nowadays I know much better, but if a potential student/client is showing funny signs like they are being disingenuous, trying to test you to see if you can cut them a deal, trying to get you to dictate your studio policies (I have had that happen before), it’s best to not take them on regardless if you need the money because these types of clients will be a huge headache to deal with, and ultimate won’t be a good fit long term.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
The dream of having my own music teaching studio was on hold for a bit while I was teaching in the dance franchise. While I enjoyed certain aspects, I hated lots of the outdated aspects on how they ran the business, and eventually found myself not happy and a little depressed.
I finally made the decision to invest in guitar business training and decided it was time to move on from the dance studio as it was practically taking over my life for very low pay, lots of time with little to no reward, etc.
It was a scary thing, especially since the studio basically tried to shame and scare me saying I’m bound to fail, that they’d sue me if I was teaching dancing, etc. It was a messy and disheartening situation, but really showed their true colors and made me respect them less and allowed me to realize they were not people I wanted to associate with.
That said, shortly after I left the studio, I got my first wave of guitar students, and before I knew it I was starting to make a living from doing what I truly love for much less time. While there still continues to be challenges with it, I couldn’t be happier doing what I’m doing :)
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Image Credits
Dan Sweet and Carl Lind