Abraham Castañeda

Mr. Castañeda is a multi-instrumentalist teacher with experience teaching kids to adults of several skill levels.  He was Concertmaster in high school, and first violin 3rd chair in college.  When Best Buy tried to launch a Music Department, he had about 30 students teaching mostly violin, guitar, piano, and a few in songwriting: with the youngest being 5 years of age and the oldest in their late 20’s. He also has the ability to teach in Spanish.

He picked up his first instrument at the age of 9 and learned to play 12 instruments along the way.  This helped him in becoming a composer for understanding the limitations other instruments have.  In college, he studied Orchestration and Commercial Music with recording and mixing.

The projects Mr. Castañeda is most recognized for are “Dragon Ball Z: Light of Hope” and “Salsa Diaries” (originally known as “When You’re Mexican And No One Believes You”).  Having experience of being a composer with these drastic opposing styles of writing, he has experience with several genres.  This has also landed him studio sessions ranging from Pop Music all the way to Metal.

Mr. Castañeda’s focus and passion is about connecting the heart to music and hopes to make that connection to other learning musicians and songwriters.  He says, “You have to be able to give yourself the chills, make yourself laugh, or bring yourself to tears, or else how can you make others feel it?”  And when it comes to genres, “Every song has its own soul, you just have to be true to it.”  And lastly, “Where words and speech can’t reach, music is the soul’s own speech.”