Blake Hurtis

Blake comes from a musical family and has been playing music for 25+ years, starting at a young age with keyboard and piano, taking private guitar lessons for several years, voice lessons, piano in college, and has competed in solo and ensemble for voice. Blake started taking courses in middle school in music theory, composition, ear training, and aural skills, and continued in college, taking several courses in music theory and piano. Blake has also picked up on learning several other instruments over the years including bass, mandolin, ukulele, balalaika, banjo, oud, 8-string guitar, fretless guitar, cello, violin, sitar, pipa, erhu, kalimba, trumpet, harmonica, accordion etc. and continues to learn more, having provided lessons on guitar, bass, ukulele, balalaika, piano, voice, cello, violin, and trumpet.

Blake thoroughly enjoys songwriting and improvisation with musical influences such as Thom York, Jonny Greenwood, Steven Wilson, Chopin, Tigran Hamasyan, Guthrie Govan, Tosin Abasi, Tim Henson, Ichika Nito, Jason Richardson, Frank Gambale, Keith L Cooper, Marcin Patrzalek, John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Thomas Giles, Between the Buried and Me, Tom Waits, Trioscapes, Pink Floyd, The Mars Volta, Intervals, Ivo Papasov, and many more. One of Blake’s pastimes is turning off the sound while watching movies, TV series, and video games and playing music to fit the scene, or improvising along with the score, and finds inspiration in others, human behavior, nature, art and poetry.
Blake enjoys sharing his passion for music through teaching, with an approach that meets people where they are in their musical journey, helping them reach their goals while still teaching the fundamentals. It is the life goal of Blake’s to continue growing as a musician, learn as many instruments as possible, better understand the cultural impact they’ve had throughout history, and develop new approaches to teaching so as to better instruct others to write their own music, express themselves, and communicate with others in profound ways.
Blake also has a passion for studying psychology and the benefits music has on cognition, memory, learning, pattern recognition, problem-solving, critical thinking, rehabilitation from physical and psychological trauma, and the processing of information and perception of the world around us. Music has made its mark on history as one of the oldest forms of storytelling and communication, and has been recognized in many cultures as a form of celebration, morning, worship, and praise set apart from all others.

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”
- Lao Tzu