Melissa Dalrymple is a multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter. Melissa grew up in central Virginia, moved to California after graduating from college and has now returned to the Northeast. She has been involved in music since the age of six and has taught private music lessons full time for more than five years.

 

Melissa is adept in many instruments, including but not exclusive to violin, guitar, piano and vocal performance. She has also taught songwriting classes and been recognized for her songwriting ability throughout the west coast. She graduated in three years from a private liberal arts school with a Bachelors degree in Music & Arts, and received a full tuition scholarship to travel and perform three weekends per month.

 

Melissa is very passionate about teaching students the art and theory of their instrument as well as giving them practical skills to be able to perform. Her exceptional passion for people spills over into her lessons in providing an attentive ear to each student’s personal goals and taking a vested interest in helping them map out a way to ­meet those goals. Her specialty is teaching multiple instruments, songwriting and arranging, improvisation and how theory is applicable in every avenue of music that we play.

 

She began performing her own songs at various coffee houses as a young teenager and has continued to perform successfully now on both the west and east coasts, embarking on short tours three to four times per year and playing many shows fronting the alternative indie band Colour. With this band she has released two albums on iTunes, been given recognition by several producers in the industry and is currently working on a third album due in the summer of 2011.

 

Melissa completed the suzuki violin program at age nineteen and, at age fourteen, became second chair in the regional youth orchestra in central Virginia and was invited to play in London and Scotland. The following year she was promoted to concertmaster at age fifteen. She has been singing from a very young age and was trained in all styles, ranging from jazz to classical to modern pop, musical theater and folk. She started playing guitar and piano by ear when she was twelve and studied privately on classical guitar and piano in college.

 

In her spare time she loves playing shows, recording, writing, reading, conversations with friends, new challenges, good coffee, good film and exploring the outdoors.