For 38 years of his life, music professor Karl Haas, 63, has been teaching guitar classes at both Bakersfield College and at Front Porch Music.

At BC, there are three guitar classes taught by Haas, including two beginning classes, one intermediate class and one advanced class. Since 1990, he has been teaching private guitar lessons at Front Porch Music.

Haas has worked in a guitar factory and said that it’s one of the reasons why he likes big classes. “After getting 200 guitarists ready in a short period of time, teaching a class of 130 people how to play guitar is easy,” he added with a laugh.

Haas was born in Long Beach but moved to Bakersfield at the age of seven. It wasn’t until the age of 13, however, that he became intrigued by the guitar and decided to pursue it. “I started off with a Mickey Mouse plastic guitar until I wore it out and eventually got a real one,” he said.

He credits his inspiration to the fact that during the year 1960, guitar became a big thing. “The Ventures song ‘Walk, Don’t Run’ and Dwayne Eddy’s song ‘Rebel Rouser’ really inspired me,” Haas said.

“When I started I wanted to become a recording artist, as many people do, but when I got offered the job to teach, I needed a job and they needed a teacher,” added Haas.

“I like teaching almost more than playing because I like to hear the students play,” Haas said.

When signing up for a class, one always wants to know what to expect from that certain class. Regarding that, Haas said, “I want people to expect to learn how to read music because reading the music is the biggest part.”

“The biggest thing that stands out in my mind is that students don’t know what they want and they expect teachers to tell them what they want,” said Haas, speaking on how he feels students react to his classes. “Some students want to learn how to play heavy metal or rock and roll but soon find that they enjoy the songs we play in class more.”

When describing how he considers his class different from others he shared a story about one of his students.

“Guitar class is … well, I’ll tell you that there was a guy who once got a speeding ticket on his way to school and I asked why. He said that he didn’t want to be late and I said he could’ve been a few minutes late. He responded and said ‘but this is my favorite class,” said Haas with a smile on his face as he reminisced on this incident. “True story,” he added.