Instructor of the Week: Eric Sinclair

By AVEEN BURNEY, HANNAH PARK, ELAINE QIAO

As the sun pours warm light over the snow covered Academy campus, Music Instructor Eric Sinclair sits on a stool in his cozy office, humming a tune while preparing for his first guitar lesson of the day. 

An Exeter native, Sinclair grew up knowing about the Academy. Before Exeter, he was an elementary school music teacher and a performing solo singer/guitarist. Now, he is a guitar instructor at the Academy— having taught for 43 years and counting, Sinclair is among the greats of the Academy’s educators.

Sinclair’s love for music began when he was around 10 years old on Feb. 9, 1964. It was sparked by the Beatles’ “first appearance in the United States,’’ appearing on TV in The Ed Sullivan Show. “To use a cliche, it really struck a chord,” Sinclair joked. 

His interest in music flourished in middle and high school, starting as a drummer after being inspired by his favorite Beatle, Ringo. However, he ditched the drums towards the end of his highschool career as he “wanted to write songs, and doing it with the drums didn’t work.”

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in music education at the University of New Hampshire, Sinclair came back to Exeter and worked at Lincoln Street elementary school for his first teaching job as a general music teacher, and soon after, a private music teacher. One day, during one of his solo Saturday performances downtown, he had a fateful encounter with a group of Academy regulars who asked him to perform at their assembly. 

He agreed and performed at assembly, then at a coffeehouse event later on. “I started wondering, gee, I wonder if the Academy has a guitar teacher,” he said. That same time, Sinclair was teaching guitar to the daughter of Music Instructor Charlie Forbes. “I thought, well, I’ll ask Charlie to see if they have a guitar teacher and he goes, ‘Yeah, we do, but the person we have only teaches classical guitar. They don’t teach folk music, rock, or anything else.’” After an interview over the phone, and a performance at the now-closed Loaf and Ladle, Sinclair was invited to become a guitar instructor the next fall. 

At Exeter, Sinclair and three other musicians—  Andy Inzenga and Music Instructors Robert Squires and Les Harris—  formed Merseyside, a Beatles cover band. He was the rhythm guitarist and a vocalist in the band, and for three and a half years, they played in a variety of places all over New England.

“One of the more memorable gigs was in Portsmouth in the summer,” Sinclair said, reflecting on his favorite moments with Merseyside. “They have a summer street festival called Market Square Day where they close off all downtown Portsmouth to car traffic… we were on this stage at the end of a street, and I can still remember standing on that stage and looking up at this crowd of people,” he continued. “There were people looking out the windows, and everybody was getting into it. People were dancing and it was a beautiful day. So that was a pretty special time.”

Harris recounted his own favorite moments with the band. “One of the many great memories I have was performing together at a Beatles convention in the Catskills opening up for British Invasion star Billy J. Kramer and backing up Tony Sheridan,” he continued, adding that the “Beatles themselves had backed up [Tony Sheridan] at one of their first recording sessions!”

He continued, explaining that his conversations with Sinclair aren’t just about “Beatles and music…Mr. Sinclair is also an avid sports fan, so our discussions often include the latest Patriots or Red Sox game,” he said.

Sinclair is also a self-produced soloist, having released There Are (Songs to be Sung), a full scale album in 1995 which included the songs “Jerry Mulligan,” “Winter of ‘92” and a campus favorite, “Pothole Blues.” Though he had help from his bandmates, this album was largely a doing of his own. “I arranged for creating the graphics, for the packaging, having everything printed, and put together and then the tapes and CDs reproduced,” he said. “The album…. it’s a bit of an antique now,” Sinclair said.

He continued, reflecting on his busy performing days where he would often go out to perform after a full day of teaching at the Academy. “I would teach all day here on a Friday, then go to a club somewhere, play for three hours. Sometimes even on a Thursday night,” he said. “It was kind of crazy, but it was for the most part, fun.” Though Sinclair does not perform as much as he did before, he continues to make music on his own, using his “little home recording set up” and sharing his creations with his family.  

Though his weary days of performing are largely over, Exonians have watched Sinclair in his musical assemblies throughout his years at the academy. Sinclair’s holiday Assemblies, a thing of the pre-COVID past, are ingrained in Exeter history. For Sinclair, they remain one of his “real highlights…For probably 12, 15 years, I would go into assembly with my guitar and lead the student body in holiday singalongs. We’d sing Jingle Bells, with all the verses!” he said. “Those were just a moment every year that I’ve had to look forward to. And that was always just a lot of fun. And it was so much fun to see the students out there for 20 minutes, relaxing and singing, you know, ‘oh, you better watch out, you better not cry!’” 

Though his holiday assemblies are a relic of the past, students can still watch Sinclair in the faculty chamber music concerts. “We had one in the fall, and basically it’s, you know, any of us who have a piece of music that we would like to play,” Sinclair explained. What makes them so special though? Sinclair explained “when you go to these concerts, you hear this continuous array of different styles of music and different performers… I have many fond memories of playing in these, but also hearing my colleagues play as well,” he said.

From his assemblies to the work he does with his students Sinclair’s impact on the community is undeniable. His colleague, Orchestra Director Rohan Smith, reflected, “Without Mr. Sinclair, the music department would not be what it is,” he said. “He and the people who joined the music department at the same time, there’s a whole generation of them…they were trying to make the Exeter music department a really high-level music department that would offer students of every kind of music interest outlets in music, a good musical training.”

“Besides being one of the best people that I know, Mr. Sinclair is also one of the best teachers out there,” Harris said. “My daughter loved having him as a teacher and learned a lot from him. She is currently in [Los Angeles] making a living as a professional musician, so I thank him for his great teaching and the role that he played in my daughters musical development and success.”

One thing everyone seemingly appreciates about Sinclair is his wisdom. Smith commented, “I’ve often gone to Mr. Sinclair and said, ‘Tell me about R&B [Rhythm and Blues]. Tell me about bluegrass artists, about popular music, and tell me about early guitarists and a certain style of singing’ and he’s got absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of populous singing and guitar styles in this country,” he said. “He knows the history. The history of blues, the history of folk music, the first history of r&b, the history of the Pete Seeger tradition, Bob Dylan tradition, he’s got it all.”

Senior Emily Lyons agreed. “I had a couple of guitars in my basement left by a family member, and showed them to Mr. Sinclair, wanting to learn more about them, as well as how to set them up with the amplifier, since I had only ever played an acoustic before,” she recounted. “He knew exactly when the electric one had been made just by looking at it, and was able to tell me the whole history of the collaboration between the artist and company who designed it. It was a great experience to learn that history, and I felt like I gained a little bit of insight into the person who left the guitars to me.”

Lyons continued on, touching on her lessons with Sinclair. “Mr. Sinclair has definitely impacted my experience at Exeter for the better. Guitar is something that I added to my schedule purely because I thought it would be fun, and I love having the chance to learn something without having to worry about a grade. He’s never made lessons stressful, so they’re always a welcome break in the day,” Lyons said. 

Sinclair has a flexible and student-centered teaching style that has been admired by students and faculty alike. “He’s always been available to let me guide the direction of the skills we’d work on, while also recommending pieces and techniques to keep me on track to being a well rounded player,” Senior Malcolm John said.

Lower Gigi Lannon added, “Whenever I want to learn a new song, he listens to it a few times and then he can just play it and teach me. It is so cool. He is so passionate about guitar and music and it makes me excited to learn.”

English Instructor and former student of Sinclair, Brooks Moriarty, described his relationship with Sinclair perfectly, saying,“He’s in my world, you know, everybody has their own kind of mythology in their lives and stories and important characters. And he is one of those for me as a great teacher, and then to be fortunate enough to come back and see him regularly, chat with him and check in, to have him teach my son, and then to perform with him. I mean those people that give coherence and stability and joy to your lives. He’s one of those for me.”