About me
Hi, I’m Cameron King.
My passion for music began while I was growing up in the small town of Swan, IA. I grew up listening to friends and family play at reunions, birthday parties, and anniversaries. When you heard the band fire up, you knew you weren’t going to forget all the dancing, singing, and carrying on that was about to happen. They say music is the universal language, and I truly believe it.
I began my musical journey on the saxophone, but ended up falling in love with the guitar at 14. I started learning what I could from books laying around relatives’ houses, and the early days of youtube. I got to a point where I understood how to play the guitar, but knew there was so much more I didn’t quite understand at 14.
I had a hard time intertwining all of the confusing new ideas that I was reading and felt like I wanted to be able to not only play the guitar but understand music better as a whole. I began working my first job and started taking my first lessons from an actual instructor.
After a few years of private lessons I decided I wanted to pursue music as a profession and started looking into colleges. I was accepted into Simpson College after an initial performance audition where I was also awarded a performance scholarship for the duration of my attendance. I studied music theory, piano, voice, conducting, classical guitar, pedagogy, and psychology. At Simpson I found professors who could see where I was musically and would listen to what I wanted to know, the mystery that was music, slowly began to make sense.
After three years at Simpco, I was ready to see what the difference truly was between “classic” and “contemporary” music instruction. I auditioned for a college formerly known as Music Tech, then known as McNally Smith College of Music, and was accepted in 2011.
While in Minnesota at MSCM (2013), I studied under legendary recording artists, and alongside them too! Corey Wong, Adi Yeshaya, and Atmosphere were just a few artists in residence, attending, or teaching at McNally.
Learning music as a craft in a more contemporary setting allowed me access to tools and equipment I would’ve otherwise been unable to purchase or find on my own. McNally Smith even made it part of the curriculum to be able to see what the music industry was like as a professional working in the studio, teaching lessons, gigging, rehearsing, collaborating, and directing musical productions.
Simpson taught me the value in understanding music, and McNally taught me how to help spread that joy while exposing me to new technologies. While attending college at Simpson and continuing through my education at McNally, I slowly began teaching students of my own. I discovered the only thing I liked more about music than playing it was teaching it to others.
After college I returned to Des Moines, IA in 2013, and have been slowly working towards owning my own studio for students. After ten years I was able to open my own studio and began working with my own students again.
My spouse Ashley and I live on the southside of Des Moines, IA with our two kids and our crazy pets. We like to get out of the house and go to parks around Des Moines. We hang out with friends and family whenever we get the chance. We enjoy seeing all of our friends at the many local entertainment events in town and the always exciting Adventureland.
