Check out the incredible video

Gav’s Music Night March 2016

-My 10th year running mic nights-

click the picture for the video

Gav and Ben

Comments:

I’ve LOVED tonight.”                                            Kim

“Thanks for a fantastic night you even got simon tapping the table to the rythm well done to all your students, done a great job.”                                 Denise

“I can’t WAIT to perform on the next one!”    Tom 

“Just brilliant.”                                                            Phil

“The Irish song was OUTSTANDING, wow.”     Craig

“It has helped him loads to have an interest. We all enjoyed it.”       Anon.

“I loved it.  Very bluesy.”          Cormac.

“Wow……………. LOVE the riffs and soloooooing and celtic / thin lizzy stuff.”       David

 

“You sent be back to my childhood with ‘Rocky Road’.”  Dennis

Source: Gav and Emelye

Gravity Defying Plectrum

It took me a few minutes to realise that he hadn’t dropped the pick for a few practice sessions now,  something quite common with strumming patterns when learning pop songs from Oasis to The Jam.

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Notice anything unusual?

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The best advice to pass on today from my student is that in order to reduce the amount of times the plectrum falls into the sound hole and keep a good grip in general,  use reversible sticky tape.   Recommended for playing strong rhythmic songs.

Thanks Keith!

What a workout! (Blog 6)

BassMy student gets a huge kick from working the notes out himself.    Read about the common things that can happen during practice, a few things I see students experience during the week.  
Unusually I had a couple of hours free this Saturday afternoon and took the bass for an unexpected workout…and what a workout! In my sun lounge, which was very sunny for once and with both neighbours out for the afternoon, I worked on and rehearsed Kevin
Kendle’s “Dance of Electra”, Ozric Tentacles “Lost in the sky” and the new attempt at their song, “Papyrus”. Whilst the left hand was generally accurate, the right was far too trigger-happy again but calmed with tenacity and some self-restraint. The thrill of
getting it right (the accompaniments) was difficult to contain so I sought out two additional pieces that would have some additional energy, namely Simple Minds  “Themes for great cities” and then a surprise encounter….

Simon bass picking_Snapseed With Amazon Music on my smartphone, I stumbled upon a very energetic old favourite and, within sixty seconds, unbelievably, worked out the D# and F theme with its D#, C, B, A coda.
For years I’d imagined it to be very complex and at some  sweat-inducing pace. Not so. In the end, I’d discovered and played, with real gusto, the introduction to “Baila mi hermana (Dance, sister, dance)” from the Moonflower album by Santana. It was a serotonin and adrenalin hit simultaneously! I worked it out. I had done it…and with no one to hear me…performing with all the potency and rhyming hyper-salsa of this 70s Classic…to my thudding hearts content. AS

 

 

Bass Journal Part 5

Bass Journal Part 4

Bass Journal Part 3

Bass Journal Part 2

Bass Journal Part 1

My feet left the ground!! (Blog 6)

 

BassAt the start of my learning, my apprenticeship, today, my coordination was inexplicably erratic. I couldn’t work at the required pace without some obvious incompetence. Yet, never the judge, Gav reminds me that this is MY learning time and
that through challenge will arise achievement (I paraphrased what he really meant to
say!). I remind myself too that time is space; right now, time isn’t holding the reins. I am!

However, as self confidence re-emerged and competence returned, experience, learning
and enthusiasm slowly began to increase. Acquired sound sequences and patterns rose
to the surface again, like a wave-breaking Nautilus; timing and rhythms we’re
beginning to conjoin, all elements coalescing, with both purpose and tension, towards the tonal stairway to the final climactic C sharp! My feet left the ground!!

Meta-euphorically(C), they have yet to land…!

AS

Bass Journal Part 4

Bass Journal Part 3

Bass Journal Part 2

Bass Journal Part 1