Information on this year's Worlds Biggest Band event. www.guitarsonthebeach.com
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On the 12th April I will be taking part in National Learn an Instrument Day's called Play it Today, hosted by Soundpad in Barnstaple. The idea is to inspire people to take up a musical instrument. I have been invited, as one of the leading local music teachers to be instore to talk to people, and to show them some basics on guitar and ukulele. Often, people do not know where to go for advice when learning an instrument. Play it Today is a great opportunity for people to try a new instrument and get all the advice they need to start playing. If you are interested in taking up music, even if it is not guitar or ukulele, pop along and say hello. Soundpad http://www.soundpad.co.uk/ Facebook event https://m.facebook.com/events/487665374671182 This post will be updated when more information is available, so please check back. YouTube guitar lessons are free. They are worth less than that. Let me explain that comment. I spend an awful lot of my time as a guitar and ukulele teacher correcting students who come to me having tried (some cases for years) this method of learning. They learn bad habits and incorrect information from YouTube. Consequently, time and money is wasted as I put things right again. Students find it harder to relearn than starting from scratch. When I started to learn in the Stone Age, YouTube didn't exist. I'm not saying YouTube is all bad, but sorting the good from the chaff is really difficult as a beginner. Let me give you an example, I searched in YouTube 'how to play G on guitar'. The first 'lesson' I saw was this. The smart ones amongst you will notice it's F. I don't think this would have tripped too many of you up. So let's look at the next video. This time Justin explains how to play a G chord. He rabbits on a bit, has nice graphics. Further on down and you get this. This guy teaches G completely differently. Which one is correct? Very confusing if you're a beginner. If you hit the wrong version first, you could learn the chord the incorrect way, screwing up your guitar playing career before you have really got going. Let me give you a clue, Justin has lovely graphics, but his guitar playing is not so lovely. It's the 2nd video on YouTube. Don't forget, F was the first one. Hopefully you get my point. Here is another. This guy has got hundreds of lessons on his YouTube channel. He does not even know the basics. He does not know what the strings are called, constantly mixing up the top and bottom strings. Please don't waste your time and money trying to learn on YouTube. Get professional advice from someone in the know. I give guitar and ukulele lessons around North Devon homes and schools, Petroc and anywhere else in the world by Skype, FaceTime and Google Hangouts. We are coming to the end of another school year, they just seem to fly by! This year I have been teaching guitar and ukulele at Ilfracombe Junior School, Ilfracombe Infant School, Berrynarbor School, Filleigh School, Chittlehampton School, and new to this year Chulmleigh School. Due to many children moving up to their senior schools and colleges, I will have space for new students in all the above schools. Places will be limited, but I can take your booking now by calling 07866 650015. If you already have lessons with me and intend to carry on, there is no need to contact me. If your school is not on the above list, you could ask your school to contact me, to arrange for me to teach in your school, or you could simply have lessons after school in you own home. Hope you all have a great summer holiday, let's hope for some sun this year. I caught the bus a 8:45 and got picked up on the way to Paul's house by Paul. We had to go to his dads house so he could alter the bridge on his Kala arch top ukulele. Once that was done we got back to Paul's house to check the ukulele and found that Paul's Amp was broken. After that we went to Ilfracombe infants school for a couple of lessons. During which Paul mainly taught some new chords and then used songs to help them get learned. Then we went to Berrynarbor School and Paul taught someone Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. After that we had a lesson in Northam during which Paul was teaching scale modes and fancy chords using music theory that I had no clue about.
By Jake Cole
I arrived Paul's house at about 9:30 and there I learned some songs with him for his birthday party and he helped me plan for the lesson that I would be teaching later at Ilfracombe Infant School. After that we went to the school and I helped Paul with a guitar lesson. During it I helped the student learn the G and C chords. Then Paul taught him a song, using the chords the student had learned..
Once that was over we went back to Paul's house for a bit. After that we had a lesson just outside Barnstaple in which Paul was teaching some songs from the grade 5 rockschool book. After that lesson Paul had one at Arlington during which he taught Picking and sweeping on the guitar, and House of the Rising Sun by The Animals.
By Jake Cole
My first electric guitar was a Harmony Les Paul Junior copy. It's the guitar I started to learn seriously on. I bought it from a shop on the outskirts of Walsall. I can't remember the name of the shop, but I'd seen the guitar in the shop window every morning on my way to work. I saved up, then went back one Saturday, parted with £50 (about 2 weeks wages). This guitar took me from knowing next to nothing, to bar F. I bought it purely on the fact that it was the cheapest electric guitar in the shop. This of course is not the way to buy a guitar (See my blog on how to buy a guitar. I've put a link at the end of this blog). It turned out to be not too bad a guitar, I've certainly seen far far worse guitars since.It was at the bar F point, I realised I needed a better guitar. With a little advice decided on a Fender Stratocaster.
By Christmas 1983 I'd saved enough. I sold my Sherpa mini bus to a karate club to raise the remainder, to much dismay from my parents. 'How are you going to get to work with no transport'? 'But you can't even play'! Were just a couple of their kinder comments they suggested to me. I had a dream, or an ambition, and they were dream stealers. Anyway, I knew I wouldn't be able to get the best deal that side of Christmas, so I waited until the January sales. By the time I was ready to buy my second electric guitar, I knew all the guitar shops in the area, I took my friend with me and went guitar shopping. I was looking at all the Strats in all the shops. I ended up in a shop in Walsall on the ring road. Again, it's name escapes me, but not the same shop I'd bought the Les Paul Junior copy from. I asked the guy who worked there if I could try a Fender Strat that had caught my eye. In other words, the cheapest I could find. It was about £300, and I was having it. 'Before you buy that, try this' suggested the guitar shop assistant. He handed me a Tokai Strat. It's a copy I thought to myself, I don't want a copy, I want the real thing. I tried it. It looked, felt, and played just like the fender, but was only £210. 'Before you make your mind up try this'. This time he handed me a Gordon Smith. It was £250. I liked it, but not as much as the Strats. Insistently, I do own a Gordon Smith now, I've had it about 20 years. I ended up purchasing the Tokai on that occasion. I have used it almost every day since, and I am still using it today. If you see a picture of me with a red Strat, that's the guitar. Buying that guitar turned out to be the best investment I could have done. It propelled my learning. The guitar was easier to play, sounded far nicer, and made me feel amazing. Without a decent instrument, it is really difficult to develop as a musician. Without taking that risk of selling my transport to work, parting with what seemed an unjust amount of money for me at that time, would I have managed to learn the guitar to the level I did? I suspect not, therefore what career would I now have? Who knows? But I love that guitar and the business it has given me! It has paid for itself countless times. How to buy a guitar blog http://paulclews888.weebly.com/1/post/2013/02/how-to-buy-a-guitar.html
Information on my guitar lessons http://paulclews888.weebly.com/guitar--ukulele-lessons.html Tokai Guitars http://www.tokaijapan.com/ Fender Guitars http://www.fender.com/en-GB/#/american-standard-stratLH Click on this link if you would like to become sexier. http://paulclews888.weebly.com/guitar--ukulele-lessons.html
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