Stand at the corner of Boylston Street and Mass. Ave. in Boston and just breathe for a minute. Look around the intersection. Some of the best guitar players in the world have stood in this same spot, waiting to cross. Here's where Mike Stern and John Scofield and Emily Remler dashed off to their private lessons in the 1140 Boylston Street building at Berklee, or to a class in the 150 Mass. Ave. building. These days, you could run into any of the close to 1,000 Berklee guitar students from all over the world. There goes Mick Goodrick, John McGann, Kevin Barry, Sheryl Bailey, Jon Damian, Garrison Fewell, violinist and music historian Matt Glaser, bassist Fernando Huergo, and drummer Kenwood Dennard.

It's a rich and varied faculty mingling with Red Sox fans migrating toward the big Citgo sign near Fenway Park. My next student and I have a few minutes to duck into Starbucks before our lesson starts. The real lessons are ongoing, following us as we take the short-cut on Hemenway Street toward my office. We are wide open, like the way you feel after a serious workout. We are talking about our latest arranging projects or the puzzle we are trying to solve compositionally or the enigma of the harmonic major scale fingerings we are working on. Our brains and fingers and ears are all working together. We listen to each other's stories. There's no place to park; the Yankees are in town. We walk and walk and communicate in guitar language that is safe and understood in that neighborhood no matter what part of the planet you're from.

The Berklee Performance Center is there on the left. In addition to hosting student and faculty concerts, the BPC is a venue for nationally touring musicians such as Patty Larkin and La Guitara (who passed through recently and did a clinic in the afternoon before the show) and the likes of Bruce Cockburn or Wayne Shorter. Tommy Emmanuel and John Oates each did a clinic in the David Friend Recital Hall this past year. Past clinicians in other Berklee recital halls have included Janis Ian, Kenny Rankin, Susan Werner, Gene Bertoncini, and Bela Fleck.

Start walking toward Fenway and you'll find Boston Conservatory. Take a left and find Symphony Hall and The New England Conservatory. All of these historic institutions provide plenty of opportunities to take in free or reduced-ticket recitals.

When we think of the Boston music scene, we must include Cambridge, across the Charles River. Club Passim is tucked away below street level in an alley and has been home to the country's most treasured singer-songwriters, including Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, and Bill Morrissey. You might still catch the dazzling fingerstyle guitarist Guy Van Duser there from time to time with his longtime musical partner, clarinetist, saxophonist, and yes, penny whistler Billy Novick. Harvard Square is also home to Sanders Theater, a beautiful and acoustically wonderful auditorium where you can catch live music ranging from contemporary classical ensembles to solo singer-songwriters. Further up the road toward Porter Square is the Lizard Lounge, an intimate night spot with rock bands most nights, but come early to catch solo or small band sets by the likes of Catharine David or Jennifer Kimball with Duke Levine.

Nationally touring jazz artists have long been making stops at Scullers, at the Double Tree Guest Suites in Boston, and the Regattabar, at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. More recently, the Real Deal Jazz Club and Café was added to the scene at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. All of these spots include Boston area artists on their calendars as well. More consistently featuring Boston talent is Ryles Jazz Club in Inman Square, Cambridge.

Musicians around here are continually cutting their own new paths in search of gigging opportunities. Many churches in Boston become spaces for live acoustic music, jazz or classical, on various nights of the week. The Zeitgeist Gallery at Space 186 in Cambridge presents live jazz periodically. There are libraries all around the area that have concert series, very often free to the public. I recently played with the MCM Trio (joining with Cercie Miller-saxophone and David Clark- bass) in nearby Boylston at the Tower Hill Botanical Gardens, which hosts a music series on its beautiful grounds.

Still in easy range but just outside of the city is The Acton Jazz Café, a cozy and friendly place steadfastly providing great live music and food thanks to the dedication of Gwenn Vivian, proprietor. The Amazing Things Art Center in Framingham draws creative musicians in concert. Likewise the Center for the Arts in Natick, which offers folk, jazz and open mics.

Rock clubs abound, but for the guitarists seeking out special opportunities that go beyond the more obvious club and concert hall scene, check out the Thursday calendar section of the Boston Globe. Weekly arts and entertainment paper the Boston Phoenix is full of listings and ideas, too. We're blessed with great radio: WGBH-FM (an NPR station), WERS-FM (from Emerson College), WUMB-FM (Umass-Boston), and WICN-FM in Worcester keep us musically fed and informed. If you're heading west on the Mass Pike, when you lose Boston you can pick up WFCR-FM (five-college radio) heading into the Berkshires.

Back Bay may be full of gig bags full of guitars on the backs of great players bobbing their way up and down Newbury Street, but where are we all gigging? Calendar fillers can come in the form of the occasional corporate function date or hotel booking; there are plenty of rooms around town with unbelievable players on the job. Restaurants around the Faneuil Hall area often do a jazz brunch. But wheels are essential equipment, as in a reliable ride. Cape Cod, the coasts of New Hampshire and southern Maine, and the hills of central and western Massachusetts are all within a reasonable drive for a one-nighter.

In 1994, when I joined the faculty, Berklee Guitar Department chair Larry Baione told me, "Things have really opened up here now." Fingerstyle is welcome, classical players are establishing more of a presence, and bluegrass is coming on strong with mandolin and banjo being added to the curriculum. Acoustic music thrives. Whether in the form of live jazz, traditional or contemporary folk, whether at festivals or in restaurants, Boston too is wide open and healthy.

Berklee College of Music 1140 Boylston St. Boston (617) 266-1400 http://www.berklee.edu

New England Conservatory 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston (617) 585-1122 http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu

Sanders Theater 45 Quincy Street Cambridge (617) 482-6661 http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~memhall/sanders.html

Regattabar Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street, Cambridge (617) 661-5000 http://www.regattabarjazz.com

Scullers Double Tree Guest Suites Storrow Drive and Mass. Turnpike (617) 562-4111 http://www.scullersjazz.com

Real Deal Jazz Club Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, 41 Second Street, Cambridge (617) 876-7777 http://www.concertix.com

Ryles Jazz Club 212 Hampshire Street, Inman Square, Cambridge (617) 876-9330 http://www.rylesjazz.com

Club Passim 47 Palmer Street, Cambridge (617) 492-7679 http://www.clubpassim.org

Lizard Lounge 1667 Mass. Ave. Cambridge (617) 547-0759 http://www.lizardloungeclub.com

Lily Pad 1353 Cambridge Street, Inman Square, Cambridge (617) 388-1168
http://lily-pad.net

Zeitgeist Gallery at Space 186, 186 Hampshire Street, Cambridge (617) 876-6060
http://www.zeitgeist-gallery.org

Acton Jazz Café 472 Great Road, Acton (978) 263-6161 http://www.actonjazzcafe.com

Tower Hill Botanical Gardens, Boylston http://www.towerhillbg.org

Amazing Thing Arts Center 55 Nicholas Road, Saxonville, Framingham (508) 405-2787 http://www.amazingthings.org

Center for the Arts in Natick 14 Summer Street, Natick (508) 647-0097 http://www.natickarts.org

Depot Square Gallery 1837 Mass. Ave. Lexington (978) 263-3418 http://www.depotsquaregallery.com

The Lowell Folk Festival (July 28-30) (978) 970-5000 http://www.lowellfolkfestival.org

Boston Folk Festival (Sept.16-17) (617) 287-6911 http://www.bostonfolkfestival.org

Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (July 20-23) Hillsdale, NY (860) 364-0366 http://www.falconridgefolk.com

Newport Folk Festival (Aug. 4-6) (401) 847-3700 Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI http://www.newportfolk.com

Marblehead Summer Jazz 2006 (781) 631-1528 http://www.marbleheadjazz.org

JVC Jazz Festival, Newport,RI (Aug. 11-13) (866) 468-7619 http://www.festivalproductions.net

The Boston Globe Calendar PO Box 55819 Boston 02205-581 (617) 929-2793 http://www.boston.com/calendar

The Boston Phoenix http://www.thephoenix.com

WGBH-FM 89.7
WERS-FM 88.9
WUMB-FM 91.9
WICN-FM 90.5
WFCR-FM 88.5

With roots in both jazz and folk worlds, Jane Miller is an active guitarist, composer and arranger. In addition to leading her own jazz quartet, she is in a working chamber jazz trio with saxophonist Cercie Miller and bassist David Clark, for which she contributes many compositions.

Jane became a frequent guitarist with the internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter SONiA, of the group Disappear Fear and has performed with the versatile bassist Tony Markellis of Trey Annastassio's band. An Assistant Professor in the Guitar Department at Boston's Berklee College of Music, Jane recently completed 10 new arrangements for solo guitar which she performed in recital at Berklee in September, 2005, and which are now on file in the Guitar Department library. She lives in central Massachusetts with Betty, her yellow Labrador retriever.

http://www.janemillergroup.com