Nick Dozer grew up a metal rocker and a buckeye in the rolling hills of southern Ohio.

Dozer considers himself part of Buckeye Nation, as in Ohio State University football lore, but these days he finds himself in the Rio Grande Valley. He met a Valley girl while living in Nashville where both he and Dina Obrego were what he called “musicnaries.” It was ministry through music as Dozer and his future wife went on tours through the southern United States as part of a larger Christian-themed group.

After marriage and with two young children, Dozer moved with his family to Dina’s hometown of Mercedes. It is from there that Dozer started his South Texas Academy of Music. The school is oriented toward teaching guitar with hopes of adding more instruments and instructors as Dozer grows his business.

Operating for now out of the Rio Life Community Church, he is already looking forward to having his own facility, with an eye toward opening a school of music in downtown Mercedes. He grew up in a small town – Chillicothe, Ohio – and sees some parallels to the South Texas community where he now lives. Dozer sees the timing as being right to live and work in his wife’s hometown.

“My wife and I are dreamers,” he said. “I see Mercedes as being a good location in the middle of the Valley. Mercedes has a lot of hope to grow and improve.”

Bringing Nashville To RGV

Dozer grew up a band kid in his high school, drumming away in his marching band.

Playing drums was a sidelight to his real musical passion of playing guitar. Classic rockers like AC/DC, Metallica and Van Halen were the musical heroes of his youth. He has found that the youth of today still gravitate toward these groups of the 1970s and 1980s, asking Dozer to teach them the guitar licks of those enduring rockers.

“You can’t beat the classics,” he said.

Dozer relishes teaching youngsters coming of age and using music to help them find their identities in navigating through the teenage years.

“They are on the cusp of figuring out who they are,” Dozer said of his young students. “It’s very fulfilling to help them develop an outlet for their gifts. We also help them to learn how to socialize with others and work together in teams to develop social skills.”

He has taken a bit of Nashville and put it into his RGV music school. He learned the Nashville Number System from studio musicians in a city widely regarded as the country music capital of the world. The Nashville system is a way of writing the chords of songs in a universal or neutral key instead of chord names. Understanding the number system provides an easier path for students to play an instrument and learn the well-known songs that inspired them to become musicians.

“We take an asymmetrical approach, not a linear one,” Dozer said of his method of teaching music. “You don’t have to go from A to B. We teach multiple techniques.”

Helping Students On Their Journeys

Dozer’s business is off to a good start.

The Facebook page for the South Texas Academy features photos of Dozer’s students beaming with big smiles while holding guitars in their hands.

Most of his students are teens, but as the Facebook page demonstrates, there are some over 50-year-old-students just as happy to be learning or fine tuning their guitar playing skills. Dozer’s faith continues to play a significant role in his life and that of his family. 

“We’re Christians who operate a business,” he said, noting his wife helps him with the planning aspects of the music school. “We want to serve as many people as we can on their musical journey.”

A lifelong musician, Dozer is bringing to South Texas what he started doing in his native state. 

“We did the same thing in Ohio,” he said of his previous work there before relocating to the Valley. “We want to do the same here and serve our community.”