22/04/2023
I’m Stephen Leathley and I’ve been playing guitar since I was 15 years old. As I write this I am one third of the way through my 71st circumnavigation of the sun - which I think equates to around 55 years of playing. Surprisingly, I still have the same enthusiasm for playing and learning I had back in the halcyon days of my youth.
I’ve played rock, blues, classical, country, and jazz as well as studying music theory in a formal setting.
Returning from 10 years living and working in the United States recently, I had to re-evaluate how I was going to continue playing in a meaningful way into my 70’s, bearing in mind I don’t want to tour or travel anymore. Well, this is it. My big idea – The Riverside Guitar Workshop.
One-to-one lessons are great of course, but I think music-making should be a social activity. As musicians we practice long lonely hours and then test our skills at a gig in front of an audience. I think we all learn more quickly when hanging out and playing with other people regularly. At RGW we would get to try things out, learn from other people and make friends, perhaps forming musical collaborations outside of the workshop.
We’ll work through a structured format that will be determined by the tastes and skill levels of the people who want to attend, making sure we put what we learn is put to good use immediately by making music with it. There will be theory involved from time to time, but we’ll try to treat this on a “need to know” basis and move as quickly as we can through the material, so you’ll need to do some homework!
If rock and blues are the preferred genres (think that will appeal to the most people) we’ll work through (among others):
Minor Pentatonics
The Blues Scale
Major Pentatonics
Modes
Arpeggios
Music Theory and Harmony
Most importantly, we’ll learn where we can use these different scales, in which progressions, and in what styles. Please note that we won’t be learning party-pieces, and you won’t leave here knowing how to play “Sultans of Swing” or “Stairway to Heaven” note-for-note. What you will learn is how to develop your own style of playing using the musical tools you have learned.
The goal is that after a few weeks or months we will enhance our studies by securing a local venue to go out and play a gig, maybe once a month.
I think it sounds like fun, and something I would have liked to have attended when I was young, but hey, I’m an old guy now and things have changed. You young players have choices we didn’t have back then, hitting up YouTube, or Patreon, or any number of websites offering guitar tuition. So, these are just my ideas and I’ll be happy to try to incorporate as many of yours as I can if they mean it will make the project work better.
There will be a cost element of course, but it will be significantly less than one-to-one lessons. I’m anticipating having between 5 and 10 people at the session. Everyone will get a chance to play, and everyone is welcome: every age, every skill level, and every gender. The workshop hasn’t started yet, so if you are interested and want to get in on the ground floor, ping me a message with any questions you might have, I'll add your name to the list of interested people. We'll get the ball rolling from there as soon as we can.
