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A good way to think about music is to look at it as if it were a tree. Looking at it and trying to learn it from the outside in is a long and painful process, there are millions of songs and 90% of them are the same. Working from the outside in, it will take you years to finally realise that two twigs are connected to the same branch. Starting from the inside and working out, makes more sense because connections are obvious. There are only 12 notes in music so how hard can it be?

If you decide to take some beginner guitar lessons, we will have to spend some time learning the dreary theory unfortunately, I have minimised the amount and it will probably fit on 3 sides of A4 if written small. It is essential to be totally familiar with this body of information because it is the language of music, you wouldn't have many friends if you had to look up every word you wanted to say in a dictionary before speaking.

The study of cliché is very important. We will study the main styles such as blues, funk, metal, rock, folk etc. I don't teach classical, and I try to avoid teaching jazz whenever possible (Sorry I just can't bear it! Jazz World, where every chord sounds the same!) But if you ask nicely I might reconsider. Being able to deal with the clichés is vital, you will look foolish if you can't.

Initially, if we are doing beginner guitar lessons, we must look at an essential area of musical study: Practice. I've come to the conclusion that most students don't do much of it, they think they do however, so something is amiss here. The key aspect is practice efficiency. I would guess that most novice players would say that if they have a guitar in their hands and they are using it to make a noise than it must be practice. Hopefully you can see where this is going, practice is a very scarce and tightly defined commodity. We will look at how to make sure your practice is aggressive, focussed and efficient.

I record the entire lesson so you can relive the horror later, I will email the mp3 to you.. At the end of each lesson you will recieve a pdf file or printout that tells you what we did, and what you should be trying to achieve with your practice in the week following. To see an example of this, click here. I always keep comprehensive records of what was done during each lesson, this enables me to test your knowledge regularly. I never just teach and forget. I do consider it partly my responsibility to make sure you know the required information thoroughly. If you would like to read more, look at the syllabus section.

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and cats".

-Albert Schweitzer.