Guitar Workshops at The Alehouse Clitheroe

The list of people wanting to join the Guitar Workshops in Clitheroe is growing but, although I want to keep the groups fairly intimate, there is room for more. If necessary we’ll start a second group to deal with the numbers so first of all please e mail mikegkneafsey@gmail.com if you want to be put on a mailing list and kept up to date with everything.

The first Clitheroe Guitar Group will meet on Tuesday November the 3rd from 8pm (to start at 9pm) upstairs at The Alehouse, which is an independent micro pub on 12-14 Market Place https://www.facebook.com/The-A%C5%82e-House-Clitheroe-1535941033345720/. I would recommend parking on Lowergate car park opposite the Key Street bar (the one with the green guitars embellishing its front) because it’s free after 6pm and you can walk round the corner to the bar http://carparkmaps.co.uk/carparks/view/18671

The most important thing to emphasize is that these workshops are not open to the public and not free, though the public can listen in, be warned. Five workshops cost £40 with no refunds for absentees and I need everyone to sign up on the first or second weeks. So please have your cheque books ready and I will provide a receipt. I am registered with the Inland Revenue and CRB checked, by the way.

I hope you appreciate that I have to do this as I earn my living as a full time professional musician and guitar teacher on a daily basis. I happen to think it will work much better and we’ll improve together if we’re more focused and committed. Though it’s essential we have fun!

I also recommend getting a lift or walk if you live locally so that you get chance to sample some of the excellent craft beers and real ales on rotation at the bar. But that comes with a warning…they are really nice.

So which songs are we going to do…?

I got as much feedback as I could from my students, checked out all the YouTube guitar teaching celebrities, contemplated the introduction of frightening B minor, strumming patterns, fingerstyle, tab,  awkward F shapes, bar chords, all of it,  but after eight years of tutoring (and longer in teaching) I’ve turned to a good old fashioned book – The Step by Step Guitar Book by Tom Fleming – which I think I bought cheaply at The Works in a shopping centre in Blackburn. I’m going to adapt the first songs from that for us because  i think Mr Tom Fleming has got it bang on for progressing from easy to hard, step by step as his book title suggests. That is no easy thing to do – so well done Tom!

Don’t buy the book though I’ll sort out chords and lyric sheets for us and the 4/4 guide pattern…and post them to you online before we even start…

My reasoning is this – to get to know each other – we need to start as simply and effectively as we can to sound effective as a group before we find out who gets the complex lead guitar parts and who likes to sing, if ever, and who hates or loves The Eagles (for example). So if you can keep a 4/4 time and swap between the D, A and G we’re off. We can belt out Bad Moon Rising by Credence Clearwater. https://youtu.be/w6iRNVwslM4 If you want to sing it and find that John Fogerty has one of those high rockin out rock n roll voices that’s too high for your liking we can always transpose it to a different key and swap between A, E and D.

BUT DON’T WORRY about the way they play it. You can do four down strums for D, then two down strums for A and two down strums for G. The repeat…in the verses. It works. And you can get more complicated if you want to.

After that “Stand By Me” and “Killing Me Softly” are songs with very simple chord patterns and chords which work their way through simple progressions. I will send you the chords and lyrics. Once we’re up and running we can judge which songs we can do as a group, though I have plenty in mind.

Trust me – it’s simple but effective which works best for a group. To begin with. Famous songs we are all likely to know, which are tried and tested, will also work better.

You may need a capo, having your own tuner helps and definitely plectrums for these first songs…

Very much looking forward to meeting you all.

Mike Kneafsey

PS Feedback very welcome

Can I also mention that I will be playing a series of December gigs with ace guitarist Oliver Day at the Derby Arms on the Chipping Road, Longridge. We will be playing songs you know but also a handful from our forthcoming album “Colourful Language.” On Friday December the 4th, Friday December the 11th and Friday December the 18th at 9pm until closing.

The Derby Arms is a Gastro Pub with a good reputation for excellent food and I know it has great beer. But you don’t have to be a diner to come along and see us play.