Hi Malcolm

Many thanks again to you and your wife for the wonderful hospitality I enjoyed last weekend and to Lin for the excellent guidance and motivation I received.

It was great to meet you all and the return journey was much smoother than feared.

I hope that you are all well and I look forward to coming up again. But first I will try to find suitable tutors down here to help me progress with my playing. Needless to say any advise would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Hi Malcolm

How are things?  Firstly, many thanks for a great weekend.  It was a fantastic experience and I learnt a huge amount.  Yourself and Rod are really good teachers and it's fair to say that I learnt more in three days than with the chap I have been having lessons with for the past three and a half years.  I spent probably two hours last night playing along to the backing tracks on the CD that you gave us and I also spent some time on the slide guitar workshop at the end of the CD.  I would really like to be able to get hold of the next lot of slide lessons that this chap does.  Are they on an audio CD that I could buy online or from a music shop?  I was working hard at mastering the walking blues exercise at the end of his workshop and now I want more cos I've got the blues man!

Hi Malcolm, hope you're well...... sorry for replying late, but just wanted to
say that i had a really fantastic time there last weekend....the hospitality,
tuition and mix of people was absolutely wonderful, and for a while there it was
akin to being lost in a fairytale.....power to you, and hope for a repeat
soon.... warm regards, Max   Strugglers Feb 08

Dear Malcolm,

Just a few words to say how much I enjoyed the Blues 1Weekend!

The beautiful tranquil venue, the warm welcome, the excellent accommodation food and  hospitality,  the stimulating company,  and  perhaps most importantly the nature and quality of the teaching all made for an extremely enjoyable and stimulating experience which I look forward to repeating  when you have a date for the next Blues 2 weekend!

Many thanks to all concerned.

Cheers,

Hi Lin

Just a very quick and slightly belated note to thank you for everything last weekend. I didn’t do much typing after the weekend ( sore fingers!). Mind you , would have been even harder to explain away to my wife if I had had sore wrists ! Two words to sum it up. Thanks ( of which more later) and Motivation.

Motivation first.

I really had a great time and found your style and the experience truly motivational. Years ago I was a training manager and designed and delivered training , which makes me doubly appreciative for good training. Like you I used to enjoy helping people to learn through laughing at themselves and felt your balance was spot on. You’ll have seen I was struggling with chord changes ( the weekend highlighted just how much I have to do on this – it’s one thing to play a chord , another to move to another and against the infernal beat of the metronome!). You knew I was struggling with them , I knew it too and I think you got the balance of how far to push it just right. Your suggestion that I play harmonics in the group “Riders on the storm” was a sensitive and helpful way to bring me in.

I found the theory really helpful and some of the very basic tips just underlines the role of technique. I’ve found myself gravitating towards an old deeadnought guitar at home and just enjoying the feeling of hearing it resonate against my body. I’ve even started to “make it talk”. At the moment it is saying “F**k off you talentless fool” , but I will make it change its tune J.  So , that brings me to

Thanks

Just for everything. I loved it , have a renewed zest for just practicing and getting to know the guitar and my desire to play more is rekindled. I’ve kept away from blues ( although it remains my first love) and using your strumming pattern , having a lot of fun with fingerpicking stuff. Maybe some new stuff to tease the eardrums was what is needed.

 Bought a metronome and now find myself increasingly  “listening” to music rather than having it wash over me.

Next steps? Well , I shall have to book another course. I think I am still some way off the Blues weekend ( but one day hopefully....). I’d be interested in your thoughts on the next one. Another Strugglers to consolidate? Strugglers 2 ? And if so , how far off am I ?

Anyway , that’s all for now. I’m off to do some chord changes – did I say I now have a metronome?

Cheers

Hi Malcolm, 

Thanks for all your help and the great hospitality last weekend. The food was great and I appreciate the trouble taken to cater for the vegetarian in the group. I did manage to get back in time, but ended up in church listening to my youngest daughter reading a poem for Mother’s Day!

I think with me never previously having someone to point out where I was going wrong, it might be a question of one step back then two steps forward for some of my playing. I will persevere and can already see progress being made in using the correct fingering for the chords.

I would like to come back for the Strugglers 2 weekend in November of this year so if you can send me a form I will fill it in and send it back with my deposit. I will need to make sure that my thumb stays hidden and my blues finish after 12.

Till then, thanks again.

Hi LIn,

Thank you very much for your kind words & particularly your patience & guidance during the classes, I got my first guitar 48 years ago & as you know due to the problems with my hands & 4 operations, have only just got back to playing, There were many thing I had forgotten & many things I just did not know, Your weekend has sorted those out for me & I found playing again in jamming sessions was so much fun, in my young days I played in various bands but my understanding was so limited that I tended to play parrot fashion which was enough to get by on.

I have already been working hard on the information you provided & along with a local tutor am coming on leaps & bounds, not only that I am having so much fun learning,  My older brother was so impressed that he at now 64 has gone back to playing & brings his guitar to my house once a week. 

I have also made enquiries about going on the waiting list for WEEKEND WARRIORS which I heard about recently, this also sounds like good fun if they get the numbers they require,

Thanks again & we look forward to seeing you in November at Strugglers 2

Hi Malcolm,

Thank you for a fab weekend, I found the Strugglers course perfect as it has filled up many of the gaps either forgotten or never known in my last 48 years of struggling to play. I have been working hard already on the homework & tips given by Lin & yourself & look forward to Strugglers 2 in November.

Julie & I would also like to again thank you & your wife,& the girls for they way we were looked after, the  bedroom was very comfortable allowing Julie to relax & read whilst I played, The food was excellent tempting Julie & I to both break our diets & really enjoy it all the more.

We thought the company of everybody there & there ability to play was just right, we both look forward to seeing you in all again November