Fluent French speaker with years of teaching experience! I love French and love to teach, and I can get you speaking quickly at a reasonable rate.

First and foremost, Sam is an incredible player. He is an expert in his craft. He is deeply knowledgeable in both technique and theory and is excellent at teaching both. Finally, he expects a lot from his students. He will drive you to take on things that you have not done before, and that you may not have thought possible and he expects a lot from you. And that approach will dramatically raise any player’s skill, as it did for mine. Thank you sam!!

I met Sam while he was on tour with Weedie Braimah & the Hands of Time. I was inspired to study with him given that I was diving into what would turn out to be a deep journey of playing and recording with West African musicians.
Sam’s lessons have been super helpful in opening myself up to the deep lexicon of west African guitar (and also n’goni). He is deeply steeped in the music and his lessons have been both direct transmissions of traditional song forms and also expositions of how to interpret, improvise and play with them.
I would also highly recommend him to guitarists in general as he draws on much more than west African music, being able to shed wisdom on American styles of jazz, rock, blues etc. His lessons have been direct, practical and inspiring.

I have really enjoyed the online sessions with Sam, He is a brilliant musician all round, aswell as being a great guy who is very patient, supportive and skilful. Highly recommend him if you wish to improve further on your journey as a musician, whether its theory based or technical based or even some out there African playing styles, he will really help you excel in whatever aspect of music you wish to improve on...Thanks, Sam.

Sam Dickey is a world-class teacher and performer, and any student who has the pleasure of studying with him is extremely lucky.
I first began studying guitar with Sam during the pandemic over Zoom. I had gotten interested in the music of Malian artists like Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabate, and I wanted to find a way of translating those approaches into my guitar style. There are probably 2-3 guitar players in the United States that are capable of teaching these styles, and Sam had a stellar resume, having worked with Fatoumata Diawara, Blind Boys of Alabama, and Weedie Braimah. As soon as we began working together, Sam and I developed a rapport that allowed me to feel immediately comfortable and able to explore. Sam really meets students where they are at, and has a jaw-dropping amount of genres and sounds at his disposal. I learn better by ear rather than notation, so along with our amazing lessons, Sam would send me helpful videos that not only showed me various accompaniment patterns, soloing approaches, and song forms, but that would also draw out the nuances in groove and melodic ornamentation. When I became interested in genres of Cuban, Congolese, and jazz music, Sam taught me repertoire, helped me get my chops back in gear, and swiftly adjusted the goals of our lessons to these new sets of challenges.
Sam's lessons were master classes in the "musical" elements. But they also were interspersed with folklore, anecdotes of his time working with Malian musicians, historical background, and even political theory. During my time working with Sam I have grown not only as a musician but as a person and thinker!