All is quiet. It is eight o’clock on Sunday morning. Through the frosty
windows of the Barnett Hill hotel and conference centre, in Guildford,
Surrey, the countryside looks like a Christmas card. Suddenly, the
tranquillity is shattered as a hail of guitar notes is forced at breakneck
speed through some kind of distortion effect.
The man providing this startling reveille is called Michael, and he comes from
Aberdeen. He has flown here to attend one of the increasingly popular Guitar
Break weekends and is limbering up in his room for the day ahead. By 10am,
he is sitting in one of the conference rooms with 22 other men - obviously -
who have come here from all over the country for a two-day immersion in the
art and technique of playing blues-rock guitar.
It isn’t quite School of Rock, but Jack Black would know exactly where this
bunch are coming from. Spanning a wide variety of ages and backgrounds, they
are not the role-playing would-be rock stars who pay a small fortune to go
to rock’n’roll “fantasy camps” and “play along” with their famous heroes (à
la Homer Simpson). This is a more serious breed of part-time musicians who
have come to get reacquainted with their pentatonic blues scales and pick up
some practical tips on soloing. They are here to brush up on their music
theory and improve basic techniques such as hammering on and pulling off, or
to contemplate the more advanced concepts of hybrid picking, fret-tapping
and shredding.
Some are youngsters who want to become rock stars and are here to get to grips
with the nitty-gritty of music theory. Others are professional people of a
certain age who used to play seriously, gave up when families and careers
kicked in, and want to rekindle their love affair with the instrument. They
are all guitar addicts. And I am one of them.
Rather like the 12-step programme, the weekend begins with everyone
introducing themselves, stating their influences and explaining why they are
there. “My name is Edward, and I have been playing since time began, but I
know nothing about the guitar whatsoever,” says Edward, whose e-mail name,
it later transpires, is axewarrior.
“I’ve been playing the same solo for 30 years,” says another grey-haired chap.
“I’d like to get some fresh ideas.”
Like many of those attending, I have come along in the hope of finally
learning a bit of theory after years of wilful ignorance, and of improving
my soloing technique, which still feels a bit hit-and-miss, no matter how
many gigs I play or hours I spend rehearsing with my trio. I have come to
the right place.
Facing the class are three men who will steer us through a maze of
information. Neville Marten and Jason Sidwell are both editors of Guitar
Techniques magazine and the creators of the Guitar Break brand. Sidwell is
the man with all the theory. He writes up endless fretboard diagrams on a
board, explains where to apply a minor third blues curl and makes nonchalant
references to Aeolian and Phrygian tonal modes. Marten takes a more
practical, passionate approach. “It’s a cliché because it’s so beautiful,”
he yells as he cranks up his amp and demonstrates a bunch of classic blues
licks in the style of Eric Clapton.
Both Marten and Sidwell are excellent guitarists, but sitting between them is
a man who makes even excellent guitarists sound ordinary. The star tutor for
this weekend, Guthrie Govan, is an impish figure with lots of hair and
beard, who is often described (by other guitarists) as simply “the best
guitarist in the world”. Watching him at close quarters, it is difficult to
take issue with that description, and certainly not from a technical point
of view.
A guitar addict since the age of three, Govan is 37 and, rather surprisingly,
entirely self-taught. There is apparently no piece of music in any genre
that he is not capable of performing, brilliantly. Rock, jazz, classical,
flamenco, country, reggae, techno - you name it and he can reel off the
definitive lick in that style. He is an inspirational presence in the room,
and it soon becomes clear that some of the students are here primarily to
worship at his feet.
During the first day, everyone is invited to step up and improvise over a
blues sequence in A minor, with the three experts immediately providing a
critique of the performance. First to go is Andy, who sets off at a brisk
canter that soon turns into a formidable gallop. Fingers whizzing up and
down the fretboard in a blur, he turns in a superlative performance that has
us all agog and cheering wildly at the end. It turns out he is a guitar
teacher himself, and by far the best player in the group, but, even so, how
the hell do you follow that? When my turn comes around, Govan accompanies me
at a mercifully slow tempo as I crank out a few of my standard blues licks.
It has to be the most frightening audience I’ve faced in my entire life.
“You got a nice question-and-answer sequence going in there,” Sidwell says
sympathetically. “But you need to let the rhythm guitar take more of the
weight while you venture further up the fretboard. Are you a fan of the
Rolling Stones by any chance?” Hmm. I wonder how he knew that.
Dinner in the evening provides a chance to get to know some of the other
students. Michael and Joe are 25-year-old twins, both chemical engineers,
who flew over from Ireland for the class. Tony and Richard, company
directors in their early fifties, first played in a group together when they
met as teenagers in Hong Kong, and currently play in the band Typhoon Rose.
Joe, 21, works in the guitar department of Bonners Music in East-bourne,
East Sussex, and plays in a grunge/metal group called Koda-Bactum. His
second name is Walsh - and, yes, his parents named him after the guitarist
in the Eagles.
While everyone is impressed and motivated by the tutors, reservations are
expressed about the high ratio of students to teachers and the structure, or
lack of it, in the course. Some people would like to hear more of Govan and
less of the other students.
For Govan, however, the point is not for him to impose an agenda, as he does
when he teaches a formal guitar course at the Brighton Institute of Modern
Music and elsewhere. “I find it’s better to leave the direction of the
weekend to some extent in the hands of the people who have paid to come,” he
says. “This is more to do with people coming together to celebrate a common
love of the guitar. You can’t shout at someone for not understanding
something. It’s more about trying to light a spark and give people something
to take away and think about. You can’t transform everyone’s playing in two
days. You just try to sow some seeds and hope everyone had a good time and
was stimulated mentally and musically.”
The next day, the group divides into two. The more advanced players and
Govan-worshippers get deep into some technical issues, while the rest of us
take off to a different room, where bass and drums are set up, and all have
a go at working up a number called Thrilling Blues. It’s a neat chord
sequence, and I get a job as rhythm guitarist, which suits me just fine.
Meanwhile, the standard of soloing from the more committed axe heroes has
improved dramatically from the day before. It’s an inspiring way to finish.
“For me, it’s all about seeing the light-bulb moments, and there are always
several on these weekends,” Marten says as the gear is packed away and the
students disappear, several of them to Gatwick airport for the long journey
home.
A few days after the event, I get a message from axewarrior. “Wow! The whole
fretboard has opened up,” he tells me. “The fear is gone. I have a renewed
interest in this beautiful instrument.”
www.guitarbreak.com ; www.myspace.com/davidsinclair
