Welcome to the jazz guitar studio at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Music!​

Dave Corbus teaches the jazz guitar majors at the University of Colorado Boulder. This includes BM, MM and DMA students. At all levels, Corbus works with his students to develop and maintain a solid foundation for all aspects of playing jazz guitar, including technique, ear training and the achievement of a full and personalized jazz guitar sound that reflects each student's musical journey. With this work comes the development of the student’s own knowledge of jazz guitar pedagogy. Repetitive listening techniques are used to develop a jazz vocabulary that also draws on repertoire as an important part of the work done with jazz guitar students. Through a personalized repertoire of jazz tunes, work is done on all aspects of improvisation, including concepts in melody, harmony and rhythm. Emphasis is placed on developing an individual sound and diverse music styles are also incorporated including blues, world music, funk and classical repertoire according to each student’s interests. Attending as well as playing in live performances is also a key aspect of the jazz guitar studio!

Many great guitarists have visited the studio, including Ben Monder, Johnathon Kreisberg, John Scofield, Rez Abbasi, Brad Shepic and others.

Dave CorbusDave Corbus

Dave Corbus, instructor of jazz guitar, combines a background steeped in diverse music styles including blues, bebop, classical and world music. He came to the Denver area after playing 10 years on the New York jazz scene and has played with a variety of well-known national jazz musicians including Red Holloway, Lonnie Smith, David Fathead Newman, Wycliffe Gordon, Plas Johnson, Lewis Nash, Brian Lynch and Joey DeFrancesco. Corbus has also been a mainstay in the local jazz community, exploring a wide range of styles from Wes Montgomery to Frank Zappa compositions and keeping a busy performance schedule. He has two CDs out under his name, "Trios Time" (Capri) and "Sound Down" (Jazzed Media) and was co-lead on two CDs with the band Triocity and also appears on numerous other CDs. Corbus received a music composition degree from New York University as well as a master's degree. MORE