Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Dingledine.
Hi Matt, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a music educator, advocate for the arts, guitarist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist in Greenville, South Carolina. I am Professor of Jazz Guitar and Director of Jazz Combos at Furman University since 2019, and I am the owner of Music on Mitchell where I have been teaching lessons for guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, lap steel, and music theory since 2006.
I serve as Board President and am Co-Founder of the Greenville Jazz Collective (GJC and GVL Jazz), the only nonprofit exclusively dedicated to jazz arts in Greenville. I am a member of the Hot Club of Greenville, Contemporary Quintet, and I have played with Melissa Aldana, Georgia Heers, Christie Dashiel, Wallace Roney, Jason Marsalis, Chris Vadala, Bob Moses, Jeff Sipe, the Greenville Symphony Orchestra, Spartanburg Philharmonic, the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, and for many touring Broadway companies including MJ the Musical, The Wiz, Matilda, Back to the Future, Something Rotten, Chicago, and 9 to 5 the Musical, Anything Goes, Motown the Musical, and others.
As an advocate and volunteer for music education and jazz, I have co-led the GJC JazzEd Ensemble which has performed over 100 school visits since 2014 for hundreds of thousands of Upstate students. Since its inception in 2012, I have helped GJC raise over $500,000 for jazz, music education, and performance purposes in the Upstate. I have coordinated jazz events for many area arts and cultural organizations such as The Peace Center, the Greenville County Museum of Art, the Greenville County Library, Upstate International, The Pleasantburg Rotary Club, the Children’s Museum of the Upstate, and the Fine Arts Center.
My compositions for small group have been featured by the GJC, the Asheville Original Music Series, and the Asheville Composer’s Concert. Matt is a graduate of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, the Fine Arts Center of Greenville, and Christ Church Episcopal School.
About my lesson studio, Music on Mitchell:
Music on Mitchell, formerly Watson Wood Music, opened in June 2021, and continues a rich musical tradition that has included tens of thousands of students and families in Greenville, SC.
For 55 years from 1964-2021, Watson Wood Music (WWM), located across from Sirrine Stadium on Cleveland St., was the premier location for young and experienced students alike to study music privately with professionally active musicians. Watson Wood Music’s contribution to and impact on Greenville’s music community was remarkable and is immeasurable. Thousands of guitarists took lessons at WWM, many interested in just having fun playing classic songs and riffs. There is also a long list of guitar students who have gone on to accomplish great things after taking lessons with Charlie Wood, Steve Watson, or one of the other professional instructors on staff.
Established in its current location by acclaimed guitarist Charlie Wood as the Greenville Music Center in 1964, the lesson studio and retail shop was renamed Watson Wood Music in 1990 with the return to Greenville of one of Mr. Wood’s most successful students, L.A. studio guitarist Steve Watson. The tradition of musical education that Charlie Wood started and then passed on to Steve Watson is built on professional, dedicated, and educated musicians sharing the joy of music with their students.
Our roster of incredible teachers continues to share the same two simple goals for our students that Charlie Wood and Steve Watson had for their students: 1) Always learn, and 2) Have fun. What makes our teachers incredible is not that they are highly accomplished and in demand musicians in the area, which they are, but rather it is that they consistently help students achieve goals in a friendly and relaxed environment that focuses on a well rounded, balanced, and disciplined approach to music education.
Our reputation as the Upstate’s leader in music education is built on our teachers’ musical skills, friendliness, and professionalism. We seek to nurture students’ curiosity, music appreciation, and positive motivation by taking an interest in each student’s unique gifts and personality. We believe whole heartedly in the powerful and positive effects that studying music has on the brain, cognitive abilities, and emotional well being, effects which reverberate for each student’s lifetime.
With Charlie Wood’s passing at the age of 90 in 2014, and Steve Watson’s transition away from the studio in August 2018, the torch of tradition has passed from Charlie Wood and Steve Watson to the current owner, Matt Dingledine, himself a student of Steve Watson, and several of Greater Greenville’s finest musicians.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Professionally, things have been stable, moving steadily, for the most part, in positive directions for my career which really started in 2004 after graduating from the University of Miami.
The biggest change of direction in my career started in 2012 when two friends of mine, Shannon Hoover and Brad Jepson, and I founded a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to jazz arts: Greenville Jazz Collective, 501(c)3, GVLJAZZ.com. The organization has both given me musical opportunities that I had wished for as well as taking me more into advocacy, administration, business, fundraising, and leadership roles that have required a lot of time and personal development as I walked into those volunteer roles as a complete and bumbling noob. I really just want to play my guitar, work with some talented students, write music, get outside, and spend time with friends and family, but I recognize that, through GJC, even though it has required some sacrifice, I have an opportunity to do my small part in giving something of value to the community.
Personally, the biggest obstacles that I have dealt with include dealing with various episodes of my family’s physical injuries and mental health, the passing of my mother in 2022, and getting a stage IV colorectal cancer diagnosis in August 2023. There were times that I wondered if I am in some kind of a soap opera, but I realized it’s just what we call “life.” One thing after another. I have had to do some real adulting these past eight or nine years in addition to paying the bills and living in a world that isn’t perfect. Thanks to family, friends, community, and the daily practice of mindfulness, I have learned to accept challenging life events as enriching parts of my story.
Add to the aforementioned pillars of my strength the miracles of modern medicine and an amazing care team here in Greenville, I have been cancer free since August 2024.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Creatively, I love guitar. If there is a guitar involved, I dig it. Sloppy punk rock, 80’s glam shred, twangy Telecaster chicken-picking country, Romantic era Spanish guitar, reverb soaked shoe gaze garage rock, crystalline acoustic Celtic finger style, sparkly clean solo guitar tones on mellifluous tunes from the Great American Songbook, gritty swamp blues, avant-garde cacophony, folk tunes by the campfire; I want to hear and play it all.
Although I have extensive experience playing, writing, and recording a bunch of different music, my main inspiration and majority of my output could be called instrumental jazz or black American music. Part of what I love about instrumental, improv oriented music is that it draws from so many influences, cultures, traditions, and styles. Studying and playing jazz has given me insights into other styles and comprehensively challenged my musical abilities. As the only original art form from the US, one that has been around for over a century and so poignantly tells the story of who we are as a nation, I feel a deep connection to the stories and narratives of black American music, jazz, and blues.
What sets me apart at this point is my experience, my musical versatility, and my love of teaching and exchanging ideas with students and colleagues.
What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is the welfare of my family, my community, and humanity, and giving something back to all of them as a token of my appreciation for the love and support they have shown me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mattdingledine.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattdingledine/
- Other: https://gvljazz.com
