Hi, I’m Raul

He/they. sunny*r is pronounced “sunnier.”

I’ve been a musician my entire life. There are home videos of me crawling on the floor with socks on my hands, singing Christmas carols with my brother before I could form full words. According to my parents, the only public tantrum I ever threw was at age two, over a First Act guitar on a shelf at Target.

I started guitar lessons at 10, wanting to play Green Day. My teacher, a pretentious guy who saw himself as the next great classical guitarist, wasn’t interested in teaching anything but classical. He double-parked his car every time, and he once told me to tell my mom to stop giving him ties for Christmas. He wasn’t the only one, either: I’ve had more bad music teachers than good ones.

The good ones made up for it. My next guitar teacher was honestly more interested in being a rock star, but he would listen to any song I brought in, figure it out by ear, and write out a tab for me. I thought that was so cool that I learned to do it myself. In middle and high school, my favorite teachers were my choir teachers. Choir was my escape from the stress of school, and they let me play the classroom piano, since I didn’t have one at home. Later, another guitar teacher listened to me play “Little Wing” and told me, “That’s correct, but it doesn’t feel like music.”

In college, I joined On the Rocks, an a cappella group at the University of Oregon, and became its music director. The first time I stood in front of a room of mostly older guys to teach a song, I was terrified, and getting 12 to 16 singers on the same page was a lot like herding cats. I arranged our version of “Move Me” and helped produce the vocals on our album In the Groove. I also sang in a wedding band during those years, which is how I came to sing “Wobble” off a lyric sheet, in a suit, to someone’s grandmother.

I didn’t find out I’m autistic and have ADHD until I was an adult. As a kid I just knew I’d begged for these lessons, and I still walked into them ashamed because I hadn’t done the homework. I don’t want to be that kind of teacher. If you forget last week’s work, that’s fine. What I care about is whether you’re learning, and how you learn best.

Today I do audio and software engineering at a podcast studio, tutor computer science, and make my own music as sunny*r. Teaching music lessons and mixing for other artists are the newest parts. You can hear some of it here.