Beginners

Overview

The over-arching aims are to:

• get everyone playing together
• learn a few tunes to take away and finesse
• have some fun!

We’ll literally start at the beginning with the basics:

• getting a good set-up
• reading chord boxes, TAB, song sheets and basic rhythm
• forming essential open chords (and a few other cool ones!)
• creating a solid strumming groove
• learning how to change between the chords accurately and cleanly
• maybe touching on some very useful and practical theory aspects to help put things into context
• looking at how to practise
• arming you with a wad of great songs to work on

And if we get time:

• looking at options for playing barre chords but without the barre
• introducing you to fingerstyle and trying some fingerpicking patterns over familiar chords with rhythms you’ve already looked at
• delving into the Blues: chords, shuffle, 12 bar form, basic intro/turnaround, etc.

The course generally has a smaller class size compared to our others in order to  allow more one-on-one time and we take things at  whatever pace suits the group.

The course will set you off on the right path but the main work is done at home. We provide a comprehensive set of lesson materials to help this process. Beginners gets you ready for Strugglers which is our entry-level course for players who have a few years under their musical belt.

Course suitability

You can check out our course suitability guide in FAQs but it’s suitable for all beginner levels of acoustic, electric and bass guitarists e.g.

• just starting on the journey
• been playing for a year or so but hitting major road blocks
• played for years but don’t really feel that you’ve got a map or your engine is stuttering or you’re just stuck in a musical rut – you need an MOT or bump start. You might be at the low intermediate level (this is where our Strugglers course comes into its own — check it out)

Materials

A comprehensive set of course notes is handed out over the weekend. After the course we’ll make available: all photos of the group and flip charts, any audio or video recordings made along with any supplementary PDFs.

Prep Sheets are available on request.

Call for a chat

If you’re at all unsure contact us by email or call for a chat and we go through the course content, where you’re at with the guitar and how our weekends work. The courses are structured to cover the subject matter but they’re also paced to suit the group and fexible enough to go off-piste when needed.

Important

As with all our courses this course is designed to be a sociable event with other guitar hobbyists; having some fun is as important as learning and playing.