Professional Musician & Educator
“My fascination has always been with music itself—how underlying relationships of sound and silence create meaning, and how they find expression through different instruments.
Throughout my life, I've explored a variety of instruments, each offering a different physical and expressive perspective on the same musical language. This has shaped both my musicianship and my approach to teaching.
Although my own musical experience spans multiple instruments, I generally encourage students to concentrate their studies on one. Developing proficiency requires considerable time and attention, and a deeper command of an instrument creates greater opportunities to explore the musical possibilities available through it.
This relationship between instrumental capability and musical understanding remains central to my work as an educator.”
Kasey Jones
Founder, HoloRhythm School of Music
Experience & Educational Foundation
My musical journey began at seventeen, when my father bought me a seven-dollar battery-powered keyboard at a yard sale. While waiting after driver’s education, I began noticing patterns I couldn’t yet name. That Christmas, my grandmother gave me my first guitar, setting me on a lifelong path of learning, writing, and exploring music.
I later immersed myself in West African percussion, studying primarily with Bill Scheidt, whose training includes Berklee College of Music and more than fifteen years with master djembefola Mamady Keïta. After completing Bill’s Drummer Instructor Training program, I began teaching professionally in 2013. Further study with African master musicians deepened my understanding of performance and musical development.
Teaching the rhythmic and ensemble complexities of West African music taught me to organize ideas clearly and adapt to how each student learns. Eventually, I returned to guitar, seeking a deeper understanding of musical language through sustained study.
At thirty-two, I began studying with guitarist and educator David Oakes. Though I had performed and taught for years, I couldn’t read notation, improvise on guitar, or confidently identify notes beyond the fifth fret. David showed me how harmony, reading, improvisation, fretboard knowledge, and theory form an interconnected system. Six years of intensive study transformed my musicianship, and our friendship and exchange of ideas continue.
When I later picked up the ukulele, I found that intervals, harmony, and fretboard knowledge transferred readily to a new instrument. That experience reinforced a central belief: instruments differ, but musical understanding carries across them.
Today, I bring together the rhythmic and ensemble foundations of West African percussion with the harmonic and melodic framework I developed through guitar study. I see musical growth as both systematic and personal: a strong foundation offers direction, while each student’s interests, abilities, and aspirations shape the journey.
Music Beyond the Lesson
Music has always offered me more than technical skill or theoretical understanding. It has helped me become more aware of myself through listening, responding, and creating with others.
Whether playing West African percussion in a traditional ensemble or improvising with fellow musicians, I've found that collaboration reveals aspects of our musicianship that individual practice cannot. We discover how our abilities serve the music, where we can grow, and how our contributions shape the collective experience.
At times, musicians become so attuned to one another that the music seems to take on a life of its own. Individual contributions matter less than the shared experience unfolding among the musicians and everyone present.
These moments of connection and collective expression are among my most meaningful experiences with music.
They continue to inform my work as both a performer and educator. Developing musicianship is an individual pursuit, but some of its greatest possibilities emerge when we bring what we've learned into the company of others.
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