Teaching art and music is an endeavor dear to my heart. I have taught classes, workshops and given private lessons in art, music and bookbinding at a variety of schools, studios, conferences and out of my home. A number of my students have gone on to master the skills we worked on. I am considered to be an articulate, precise teacher, but one who listens to the students needs and has a great deal of patience.
Since 2006, I have offered regular group classes and private lessons, mostly from my home in Northeast Portland. Presently I am focused on instruction on guitar, oud, çümbüş and darbuka (doumbek).
Please contact me for information on classes and private lessons and check for listings on my events page.
I thoroughly enjoyed the darbuka lessons I took from Doug for about 3 years. Without the teachings of Doug Shafer (and also Souhail Kaspar) I wouldn’t have developed the foundation of darbuka skills that I was able to build on and start learning more advanced skills. Those skills also allowed me to learn to play riq and katim (frame drum). Doug also teaches you the invaluable lesson of how to play along with other musicians. Because Doug also plays oud and çümbüş you can play drum along with him on strings and learn things like volume control and how best to play along with a melody. I am still playing drums today because of the musical foundations I got from Doug.
—Brian Howard
I first met Doug Shafer about 6 years ago when he was offering a class on beginner Doumbek technique. My experience in his class was always enjoyable and I felt that the information I was seeking was always presented in an easy to understand format that kept the class informative and fun. He used challenging but manageable progressions and implemented exercises that allowed the students to push themselves as musicians and as performers. I looked forward to every class he taught and still utilize the fundamentals that were established in his classes.
In a professional capacity, collaborating with Doug Shafer on projects like Revel Me! and VERSIPELLIS was always a joy. Timely and professional, Doug always brought an enthusiastic and innovative approach to his work, I feel that he has an exceptional ability to work with the needs and visions of other artists and create very meaningful and fulfilling compositions. His two original pieces that were included in VERSIPELLIS embodied the feeling of the show in every way I asked for and he was able to make them in a very limited amount of time, which I greatly appreciated.
Doug Shafer is a very talented, dedicated artist and an attentive and engaging teacher.
He is also a super-duper nice guy and has some really great hats.
—Bevin Victoria, Hybrid BellyDance