Tenam Studio

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About

Tenam Studio is a women-owned rehearsal and teaching space on Adams Avenue in San Diego's Normal Heights neighborhood at 3214 Adams Ave in the 92116 ZIP. Owner Lexi Pulido, a vocalist, composer, and performance artist with a B.A. in Music focusing on Jazz and the African Diaspora, opened the studio as a community hub for local musicians, teaching artists, and bands needing hourly rehearsal access. The space comes equipped with piano, acoustic and electric guitar, electric bass, a full drum kit, guitar and bass amplifiers, a PA system, and basic recording gear, and rents from $35 per hour with capacity for 15 people. The Adams Avenue teaching corridor runs through Normal Heights and into Kensington, and Tenam sits within walking distance of complementary movement-based instruction at Clan Rince School of Irish Dance on the Kensington end of Adams. Instruction covers a range of instruments and styles through a team that includes Elliot Ramsey on upright and electric bass, clarinet, ukulele, guitar, keyboard, and saxophone, and Max Turner Oestreicher on drums, with specialties ranging from jazz ensemble work to surf-punk percussion. Community programming includes Circle Singing sessions on the first and third Sundays of each month — a free, drop-in improvisational vocal workshop for teens and adults that requires no prior experience. Tenam Garage Bands groups students into ensemble formations, building performance-ready sets through collaborative rehearsal rather than isolated private lessons. The studio's community-programming model connects to neighborhood development efforts led by organizations such as the University Heights Community Development Corporation, which supports creative small businesses along the Adams Avenue and Park Blvd corridors. Pulido's own performance work spans jazz vocabulary, classical technique, Brazilian rhythms, and experimental improvisation, and she brings that range into the studio's curriculum through workshops that treat music-making as a practice of noticing rather than a rigid technical exercise.