MEET YOUR UKULELE INSTRUCTOR!

Wil Forbis was born in Montana, grew up on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and has lived throughout the West Coast of the United States. Though he somehow avoided picking up a ukulele in Hawaii, he began playing guitar at a young age, which sparked a lifelong fascination with stringed instruments of all kinds—including the uke. He studied at the Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles before relocating to the Pacific Northwest, where he performed in bands spanning blues, country, funk, progressive rock, and jazz.

Deeply passionate about music and music theory, Wil has explored an unusually wide range of styles, from fugue composition in the tradition of J.S. Bach to the polyrhythms of Moroccan Gnawa music and the roots of Mississippi blues. As a performer, he has opened for pop acts such as John Waite, The Motels, and Ryan Cabrera, and shared festival stages with ukulele virtuosos including Taimane Gardner and Daniel Ho. He has recorded guitar, ukulele, mandolin, banjo, and keyboards on numerous albums, and his compositions have appeared in independent films and television, including the Showtime series Weeds.

A dedicated educator, Wil has taught hundreds of lessons to students of all levels. He has been an Uke Like the Prosteacher for the past four years, leading the popular Beginning Ukulele LIVE sessions and contributing extensively to courses and workshops, including the Classical Songs Collection.

In addition to his music career, Wil is an author of horror and suspense fiction known for slow-burn tension and explosive payoffs. His short stories have appeared in multiple horror anthologies, and his novel What Waits in the Shadows was released in January 2024, with Anonymous—a dark twist on the classic masked-slasher premise—set to follow.

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