John St. Claire first learned to play guitar when he was 10, played guitar and bass in rock bands and viola in the school orchestra. He arranged popular songs for the school orchestra and won the National School Orchestra Award his junior and senior years in

high school.

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After a few years studying classical guitar at Sandy Eggo State University and teaching music at elementary school, he joined the US Navy to play guitar in their rock band and tour the southwestern states. At the end of his enlistment he went back to school studying electronic music and jazz improvisation.

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He has an AA degree in digital audio editing, an AA degree in sound reinforcement and is just a few units away from his BA in music. He was the winner of the 1999 Guitar Wars competition. He's previously worked as the senior audio engineer at The Rhythm Cafe, recording hundreds of CDs of local musicians, and he currently runs sound for local professional theaters.

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Lately he's done the sound design and original music for dozens of plays, the San Diego Underwater Film Festival and a KFC commerical. Feature film credits include "The Five Stages of Beer" and "Escape From Orion".

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John teaches guitar, piano and violin. He's a founding members of one of the oldest scuba diving clubs in San Diego and takes sea kayak trips for weeks at a time in the Sea of Cortez. Other hobbies include cosmology, rock collecting and telling tall tales.