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Strugglers weekends
Hi
Malcolm,
Just a few lines
to say how much Ann and I enjoyed the Struggler's
weekend at Beckfoot House. The weekend was Ann's idea
and was part of my 60th birthday celebrations; I
couldn't have wanted any better. The accommodation and
food were first class but the weekend was made by all of
the people on the course and the quality of the tuition
by yourself and Lin.
I felt quite
inadequate when I first heard the others play but the
letter that you left in the room put me at ease and I
suppose over the full weekend it evens itself out. The
weekend reinforced my enthusiasm and love for the guitar
and gave me many pointers on how to improve and to enjoy
different types of music.
I hasten to add
that yesterday morning I swam 2 miles to the tune
"Always look on the bright side of life".
Attached is the group photo that you took, it's
already printed off and is going on my study wall.
Dave and Karen Estplea
have been in touch by email and I am sure that we will
keep in touch.
See you
again and THANKS
Kind
Regards
Alan and
Ann Walker Strugglers Apr 2008
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 advice would be much appreciated.
Kind regards
PS
Many thanks for your good
wishes. Lin has already responded with some very useful
tips which should help me to keep up the momentum. Last
night I played the finger picking pattern I learned to
my daughter and she got so excited that she now wants to
learn it herself (and decided to take her guitar to
boarding school - for the first time - to practice),
which made me feel very pleased and excited - just to
confirm your point about the benefits and pleasure to be
gained from helping others to play.
I look forward to coming back.
Kind regards and best
wishes,
Georg Strugglers Feb 2008
Dear both, thank you for a great
weekend. Your good humour, patience and hospitality
brought smiles to my face, blisters to my fingers and
inches to my waist in equal measure!
It really was great fun, and I feel that I achieved some
progress as a result – the weekend really is testimony
to the importance of repetition and practice (I just
hope I can maintain that diligence when not under your
watchful eyes and ears). I’m sending two booking forms
through – one to repeat Strugglers 2 in November 2009,
and the other for the Blues w/e in April 2009 (hopefully
I can make some progress there too).
I have resolved to learn to read music as a result of
the w/e as I am starting to realise the limitations of
Tab – Lin, it would be a great help if you could email
me a few of the songs we did, as I scribbled all the
notes on my copies, which means that I will simply look
at my scribbled notation rather than the proper music. I
meet fortnightly with a pal to play guitar, and I want
to move on from the predictable strumming of 12 bar
blues with minor pentatonics on top (not that that’s not
good fun) to really working out the music, like we did
on Saturday night.
Peter Strugglers Two Nov 08
Lin \
Malcolm
Many
thanks, to both of you.
I don’t
know if I will be ready for Strugglers II next year, but
that wont stop me trying.
I did
feel that the weekend was not only great learning and
inspiration, but it confirmed to me that I had picked up
some stuff from my previous blues weekend.
I might
be slow to learn and pick things up but enthused by Lin,
I will have a damn good try at getting to the next level
of playing.
Many
thanks
Ian
Hello
Malcolm, David, Lin, Lesley and the crew
Just to say thank
you all from both of us for a great weekend. Mel has
already passed on details of the place to a couple of
(non-guitar playing) colleagues at work, and we greatly
enjoyed our all-too-brief look at a part of the country
that neither of us had previously spent any time in
As you say Lin, I
learnt a great deal over the two days. While the
discipline of playing with others was very valuable, the
most important thing I got out of the time was a chance
to assess my position in relation to the reams of (often
dubious) material published relating to guitar
learning. So I'm off now to concentrate on my rhythm
playing and to try and get to grips with some blues.
Best wishes to
you all and see you at Strugglers II!
Andrew
July 2008
Malcolm,
Just a brief note to
say thanks again for such a great weekend, and I do
believe that everyone left suitably inspired by Lin and,
of course, yourself. Hopefully everyone will carry on
with determination to greater things and maybe even a
few more courses. I look forward to seeing new friends
again and making more in the future.
Plus an extra special
thanks to Lesley and her team for the vital behind the
scenes work, and looking after one and all in such a
wonderful way.
Fondest regards to all
at Beckfoot,
Chris Hemsworth.
July 2008
Hi Lin and Malcom
Only a small amount of practice to report so far -
however I will be home Thursday night this week so
Friday evening and Saturday afternoon after swimming is
looking more than just possible. I am set with a
drum/metronome ready so I will be going for the burn on
C to Manly G to D chord changes to try to play all four
beats in the bar. That is my next goal along with those
several hundred F shape chords G#m7 etc.
I thoroughly enjoyed it all especially meeting everyone and being
inspired and spurred on to practice in a structured way.
I would love to come back next year if you'll have me on condition
of having really practiced.
Just about to take off so will sign off now. Good luck to all and
remember those thumbs!
Best regards,
Ian, Strugglers April 08
Hi
Malcolm and Lin
Just a
quick email to say a very big “thank you” for such a
brilliant weekend.
As
always the tuition was nothing short of revelatory –
lots of new things to try out and explore.
A great
bunch of fellow strugglers, too! I’ll be getting in
touch with Pete – he doesn’t live too far away to see if
we can meet up to learn a tune together.
The
combination of shyness and fear of playing in front of
others is not a good one. Both of these I find very
difficult to overcome, but I feel with each weekend that
things are getting better… It’s weird, but giving a
presentation to two or three hundred people at a
national or international scientific conference doesn’t
faze me at all, but put me in a room with seven other
people and some unfamiliar material and it’s a different
story altogether!
Attached is a tune wot I wrote. As you will hear, my
technical ability can’t quite keep up with what I was
trying to do, but it’s a start.
Thanks
once again.
Cheers
Kevin
Strugglers Two Nov 2008
P.S.
Malcolm, I’ll find out tomorrow whether I can make the
April Blues Weekend – that is if there is still a place
going.
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
Hi Lin.....thanks for your nice email....just wanted to
say that i had a
fantastic time up there, and that you (and Malcolm) were
great.....believe it or
not, I’ve done a smidge of practicing since I’ve been
back, and probably for
the first time ever actually believe that I’ll be able
to eventually progress
to competent finger-picking....I must say that after
spending time in the room
with everyone else I now feel oddly self-conscious when
playing - maybe I’m less
inhibited than I originally thought - anyway, thanks
again for a truly great
experience, and I look forward to the next meeting on
our journey.....all the
best mate.... warm regards, max
Strugglers Feb 08
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 underline the role of technique. I’ve found
myself gravitating towards an old dreadnought 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 finger
picking stuff. Maybe some new stuff to tease the
eardrums was what I 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
Gary
Feb 2008
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