Sixes Music - About Chris

---

Chris started playing guitar sixty-four years ago at the age of seven.  As a teenager, his talents with steel-string instruments (acoustic guitar, mandolin, & banjo) were on display in frequent performances in his hometown of Hagerstown MD.  Anderson appeared on stage for the first time when he was thirteen.  While in college, a recording introduced him to the Classical Guitar and he immediately began studies of the instrument.

After graduating, he worked as a full-time musician for twelve years.  Chris taught guitar privately and through several regional institutions.  He was the first guitar teacher at Shepherd College.  During the five & a half years he taught there, he designed the academic program that was adopted for the first Guitar Performance Degree throughout the state university system of West Virginia.  

He also played the first solo Classical Guitar recital performed in Hagerstown at the local Community College in 1977.  Since his early Classical Guitar Performances, Chris has been featured in concert series in Pittsburgh PA, Richmond VA, Baltimore MD, Washington DC, Wilmington DE, Harrisburg PA, and many other cities throughout the mid-Atlantic region.  Anderson's music has also been heard during interviews on WAMU (NPR from the nation's capital), Maryland Public Television, the Public Radio Network of West Virginia, and the concert stages of many colleges including Princeton University and James Madison University.

After retiring from his day job in 2020, Anderson launched Sixes Music.  It's his online marketplace for Guitar Lessons, Recordings, and Books.  His 1993 recording "Looking Back" was re-released on CD in September of 2022.  Chris' book, "The Fundamentals of Making Music With a Guitar" will be ready for publication in 2025.

From 2019 through 2021, Chris spent 400 schooldays doing long-term homeroom teacher assignments in his local Public School system,  He served most often in third to fifth grade classrooms in Title 1 schools.  For the past four years, he has been teaching guitar privately at his home studio.  "I've taught lessons through a few commercial studios before.  Sometimes the noise and other distractions makes focusing difficult.  This is such a nice learning. environment."

Chris also occasionally performs shows at listening rooms in the Hagerstown area.  They feature songs with a Steel String Acoustic Guitar firmly rooted in the Americana genre.  They are a public return to the music that first ignited his passion for the art.   His set lists include original songs & instrumentals, southern blues, Appalachian ballads, and covers of singer songwriters Bob Dylan,  Guy Clark, and others.  

At his recent Hub City Vinyl show, he was introduced to the crowd by Phillips Saylor Wisor (a 2022 Whammi Award winner for  Best Folk Music Album) who said,  "Besides being a great player, he's a link to Greenwich Village in the 1960's.  Anderson is obviously deeply connected to this music."   

Chris is active on all the Social Media channels.  His YouTube videos (@ChrisAndersonSixesMusic) feature many of him performing masterfully in diverse genres of music on a range of guitar types with both plucking and picking right hand techniques.   His most recent video "24's 45" is notable for the heartfelt vocals and hot guitar playing  in "Wayfarin' Stranger",  and a gorgeous film setting to his powerful solo guitar rendering of "Shenandoah".     

Anderson has been and remains committed to a life of continuous learning for himself, and to helping others in that endeavor wherever they are on their path .  He's also enthusiastically pursues cooking, gardening, and many topics related to culture, geography, and history.  

Over the years, his principal music teachers include Franco Platino (guitar), Ana Vidovic (guitar), Glen Caluda (guitar), Oliver Manning (music theory), and Clair Johansen (piano).   He has also been a performing student at three dozen masterclasses from twenty four of the world's finest artists and educators in the guitar world.  Among them are, Sharon Isbin, Manuel Barrueco, Pepe Romaro, Nicholas Goluses, Martha Masters, and Raphella Smits.

Sept 2024