When The First Academy alumna Caitlin Caggiano was 5 years old, she received from her parents perhaps the most important Christmas gift of her life \u2014 a Spanish silent guitar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt some spiritual calling at 5 years old that I had to do this,\u201d she said. \u201cOr else I wasn\u2019t going to unlock all the other doors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, something happened to her guitar just a few days after she received it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI found the guitar completely smashed in my closet,\u201d she said. \u201cTo this day, I have no idea how it happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Six years after that, she received another guitar for Christmas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would play that guitar until my fingers bled,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just a passion; it was an obsession.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And although she was taking guitar lessons, she didn\u2019t have opportunities to perform in front of an audience. At the time, TFA didn\u2019t offer music classes besides band and choir.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until she entered high school that she auditioned for the school\u2019s chapel band. She played \u201cStandard Lines\u201d by Dashboard Confessional, an \u201cintense acoustic guitar intro where you\u2019re all across the neck of the guitar,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI played the song, and they said, \u2018You realize you\u2019re a really advanced level; we can\u2019t even play that song,\u2019\u201d she said of her audition. \u201cThat\u2019s the first time I felt validation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
God\u2019s calling was loud and clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She hasn\u2019t put the guitar down since.<\/p>\n
Today, through her online guitar school, she shares her passion with more than 350 students across the world. She also performs at the Guitar Shred Experience at Disney Springs, a guitar-led concert experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From student to teacher\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caggiano attended TFA from the third grade until graduation in 2009.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her experiences at TFA were nothing short of amazing, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lessons she learned and the relationship she created with God was like no other. She credits that to Dr. Scott Toenges, her apologetics teacher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a remarkable man, and he solidified so many things in my faith before I went to college,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t just teach how to further your walk with the Lord, but he helped you solidify it and understand how to defend it. It was remarkable, and I hope they still have that class.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In chapel band, she recalls the culture of excellence that was created.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were five or six core players there, and because we were giving an offering and sacrifice to the Lord, we wanted it to be excellent,\u201d she said. \u201cTFA was the first time I was exposed to playing music with other musicians, and I thought it was the coolest thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She adored playing live with other musicians, and from then on, she knew this is exactly what she needed to be doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her experiences at TFA were instrumental to her success today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While TFA focused on academics and athletics more than music when she was a student; it ignited curiosity in her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly think I wouldn\u2019t be the musician I am today if I had (TFA\u2019s current music department),\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have any actual music theory knowledge, but I was so hungry for it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she graduated from TFA , she went to the University of Central Florida for business. She quickly realized that wasn\u2019t what she wanted to do and moved to Nashville with her twin sister to attend Belmont University.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They only attended one semester before making the decision to leave the school because of its cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caggiano\u2019s sister then came back to Florida, but she stayed in Nashville and played with bands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty quickly, I realized I don\u2019t want to be a mom in my 50s and still playing in clubs until 2 a.m.,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really living the life I want my kids to see me living.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
So she moved back home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Discouraged from music, she decided to go to school for mathematics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her father refused.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo you\u2019re not,\u201d he said to her. \u201cYou\u2019re going to school to study the guitar. \u2026 You\u2019re going to do this because this is the passion and inspiration God has put inside you. This is the gift that God has given you. You have to invest in it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those words were enough to inspire her to go to school for music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She attended UCF and graduated in 2017 with a degree in classical guitar \u2014 the first female to graduate from the university with that degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no life,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was four-and-a-half years of completely sacrificing everything else to understand the instrument, and it was the most beautiful thing. It was eight to 10 hours a day of being locked in a room where it\u2019s nothing but you, the guitar and God. I quickly realized when I do that, I\u2019m not the artist and the guitar is not the instrument. God is the artist, I\u2019m the instrument, and the guitar is just an extension of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she graduated, she began instructing guitar courses in person, but then, COVID-19 hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI moved everything online, and it just completely blew up,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s truly amazing. I\u2019m very grateful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She started teaching through Zoom, and in three months, she was teaching 60 hours per week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She has students from England, France, Haiti, Australia and other parts of the world. And although she had no idea this is what she would do for the rest of her life, she is grateful for the path on which God put her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More important, she also teaches TFA students, some of whom are in chapel band now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To her, that is a true full-circle moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a cool thing,\u201d Caggiano said. \u201cIt freaks me out sometimes, because I didn\u2019t realize how much time had passed since I went to TFA, but it\u2019s the coolest thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Playing for God\u00a0<\/p>\n
At TFA, she learned to play for God.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she teaches Christian students, she makes sure to instill that mentaility into them \u2014 ensuring they become fluent in guitar so the Holy Spirit can come through.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your fingers and your ears are completely fluent with the guitar fretboard and the Holy Spirit wants to say something, then you can allow Him to say something, because you know exactly where things need to go,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caggiano said she\u2019s had multiple people come up to her during her performances over the last 15 years and say they physically saw Jesus next to her when she played.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery note needs to be purposeful when I\u2019m on stage, and it all started at TFA,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she\u2019s teaching non-Christian students, her style of teaching remains the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She teaches students how to play with excellence \u2014 no matter who it\u2019s for, because that is what everyone should strive for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to do anything in the arts, you can have no ego with it,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you truly want to be successful where you actually understand you\u2019re fulfilling your purpose, you have to run toward God, and you have to pursue Him with everything that you are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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