| I am an experienced musician and music teacher of stringed instruments, with many years experience of live performance. My range is wide, but I have a particular fondness for bluegrass, slide guitar, and Arabic music. I love to meet new people and talk to them about music, find out their interests and encourage their talent. I believe everyone has the potential to be a musician if they put their mind to it One of my early childhood memories is of my father playing the mandolin and fiddle. He was self taught and liked to play traditional Scottish music. We lived in New Zealand for a while when I was small and it probably reminded him of home. Unfortunately after a serious illness, he rarely played again and the mantle was passed to me and my brother. We used to take the mandolins out of their cases and bash away on them, as kids do. My parents gave me piano lessons but it was the guitar that I really got hooked on. I badgered my parents to buy me one when I was 12. I’d been written off at school as not possessing any great musical talent but I played it for hours each day until I had mastered it. This taught me something very valuable and it is an insight I share with all my students It’s about application, not talent If you practice every day, with an active mind and a good plan of learning, you will progress, no matter how untalented you might feel or be told that you are. Studies have shown that the best players are not the ones with the most innate ‘talent’, they are the ones that have simply practiced the most. This is the basis of my teaching strategy – positive encouragement and daily practice will always bring out the best in people.
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