What a pleasure it is to be part of Mitchell's Plain Music Academy. I started with the Academy in 2014 doing theory of music and classical guitar. Before that I was playing guitar by ear only in church. I really enjoy playing guitar as there is a level of difficulty to it but there are some very basic and easy chords you could learn in one lesson. Acoustic and lead guitar and can be played in almost all genres of music, my personal favourites are Gospel, Jazz and Classical.
After completing my practical and theory music grades at the academy I was offered the position of music theory teacher teaching grades 1 – 3 and later beginners classical guitar and piano. I really enjoy the outcome as once being a student learning to read music and now being able to teach others how to read and understand what music theory is all about.
It isn't always easy; however, I have realised that with hard work and dedication achieving your goals and dreams are not that difficult. Even today I am still learning so much about music and even other instruments experimenting new genres and styles of playing to better equip myself.
It is all possible as Mitchell's Plain Music Academy gives us the opportunity to develop a skill and gain the necessary experience for employment in the industry. There is so much talent in our communities and our vision at the academy is to empower students with the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding of the music industry, through music tuition ,live performances and creating opportunities for employment.
Some personal guitar tips! when it comes to rhythm guitar always start a song by practicing your strumming patterns. Try a comping technique and just play over the chord changes. Once you have a good feel for the song approach the song in sections, (ex. intro, verse, chorus, etc). For most songs you will have two or more strum patterns and the guitar sound is unique for that purpose.
Some guitar tips! when playing lead guitar, this depends on the genre and there are so many different tones/sounds which can be created. For instance, if you playing Rock your lead guitar will mostly likely have a distorted tone/sound and I usually try to find that tone by playing around with my amp settings or pedal settings to create that type of tone. It is therefore helpful to listen to different styles and genres of music and identify what tone best identifies or suites that style or genre.
