Simon Faulks Music Tutor

The temptation to just throw in the towel and give up practicing the guitar actually comes to us all. Believe it or not, some people who are out in gig land playing regular live gigs are people who are guilty of “not practicing”. How can this possibly be? You may well ask! In actual fact, once the learning of a specific set of songs is done, and you have it all “down pat”, there is a strong human inclination to “rest on your laurels”, or “take it easy on yourself”, and develop a sense of (sometimes unwitting) musical complacency.

How do you combat this tendency? Well, in my humble opinion, the only way to do that, is to stay interested. How is this done? Well, I guess you could say it’s all in the mind!! That is to say, the heart attitude that you bring to whatever you do in life. If the spark has gone, and sometimes it can, and does, then the only thing left is either to dig in deeper, or to have a break from playing. This may seem sacrilegious to some, but I have known people who have openly confessed to having a “lay off” from playing their instrument. This can sometimes be owing to family commitments, or other seismic life events that put a very different complexion on things. People’s priorities can and do change. This is a fact of life that is unavoidable.

How much is music woven into the very fabric of your being? This to me seems to be a very elastic question, with very elastic answers! One person’s occasional hobby is another one’s passion, and raison d’etre. I know many people who obsess about sport, whereas to me personally, it could just vanish and my life wouldn’t look very different from how it is now. Other people find the very idea of living without it an anathema.

The above discussion leads me onto the conclusion that your success or failure in what you choose to do depends in no insignificant part on how much it means to you.

I do hope that this hasn’t put anyone off!!! It may cause people to “soul search” a little bit in order to find out about themselves, and how their feelings about music, and more specifically, the guitar affect their daily lives. In my experience, this is a question that is always best put to oneself.

Relax you body and mind with Calm Space…the new album now available on itunes: Calm Space on itunes

As a guitarist, tutor, songwriter, composer, performer, and all round music enthusiast, I must say that my enthusiasm for the whole process of doing music is undiminished.

There’s always more to learn. That’s what keeps me going. You’re never done. That’s not a threat or a weakness, it’s actually a source of inspiration.

There’s always someone who appears to be better, or seems to know more than I do. Does this mean that my contribution is any less valid? I think not. Everyone has a unique story to tell in life, and of course, in music.

Every time a new student approaches the guitar, they will bring to it their own unique touch, musical taste, and set of sensibilities. This is why the story is old, and yet ever new.

What’s my next project going to be? Well, I have always got stuff waiting for my attention, that has been on the ‘back-burner’ as it were.

So far this year, it has been unusually productive. I have released an album under the “Guano” banner. Guano being the outlet for my more blues-infused outings. The third album came out in January this year. For those who are interested, the link to it is below:

Guano – Open For Business – The third album release, here on amazon

The instrumental album that has just come out is called “Calm Space” and features 23 pieces of instrumental guitar music of a range of musical styles, predominantly acoustic guitar with a peppering of electric in there for taste. This is the culmination of several years’ worth of noodling around on guitar, and recording as I go along.

I am very pleased to have this out, and available for public consumption. It offers good ‘bang for bucks’ as it clocks in at just under an hour and 20 minutes!!

Simon Faulks – Calm Space – instrumental chillout album – here on amazon

 

 

I am pretty excited at the moment as I have just released an album of 23 original guitar instrumentals. The album is called “Calm Space”, and it’s been a long time coming. Over the years, I have written and recorded lots of acoustic music, and the overall vibe is definitely on the chilled out side of life. So, it brings me great pleasure to present to you this collection of instrumental music. Enjoy!!

Calm Space at amazon

Calm Space on Deezer

Calm Space on google play

Calm Space on Saavn

Calm Space on Tidal

 

I get asked this question a lot. I think, as usual, that the answer to this depends on the individual.

If, like me, you find yourself uncontrollably in the grip of the guitar, and find it difficult to put it down once you’ve picked it up, then I’d say you need to be measured and deliberate in how you spend your practice time. It’s actually possible to be playing the guitar without actually moving yourself forward in any particular direction (other than perhaps warming up the fingers). What I mean by that is, unless you’re pushing forward, and attempting to play something that is currently beyond your ability, then you are probably regurgitating. Playing something over and over again that you can already do has limited value, but I’m not suggesting it has none.

It’s actually possible to be quite organised in your practice. I think that having a series of time oriented goals is a good thing. If you’re just starting out with playing chord shapes, then it might be a good idea to learn how to swap a simple E to A Major chord once every four beats with a metronome set to 60 beats per minute (BPM). The following day, you could step up the BPM to 65 or 70.

These tasks that you set for yourself, (or your tutor sets for you), will of course change as you progress.

People who need more guidance

If you are the parent of a child who is having guitar lessons, if they are young enough to accept your suggestions and follow them, then I would insist on a bare minimum of 10 to 15 minutes every single day. Little and often is better than doing it all on the night before the lesson, (or just before you come to the lesson).

Progress is guaranteed if the work that has been set by your tutor has been done.

So, if you’ve been to the gallery and looked in wonderment at all those lovely pictures of me, you may have noticed something’s not quite right about them?

No, I didn’t display the images the wrong way round! Yes, I am left handed!!

The being left handed, or “southpaw” as some people call it, isn’t in my experience an impediment to teaching guitar, (or other fretted instruments for that matter). In fact, it’s often an advantage. Most right handed folk that have lessons from a tutor will no doubt be observing their instructor’s guitar neck pointing in the opposite direction to their own. If you are fortunate enough to have a left handed guitar tutor, the guitar necks as you look across at each other, will be pointing in the same direction, giving a “mirror image” effect to the proceedings. This will, (once you’ve become accustomed to it), make life considerably easier as you try to imitate the tutor’s finger positions and movements.

At a later stage, I shall be uploading some video clips that will demonstrate this effect.

There’s no simple answer to this question. The simplest answer I can come up with is: “It depends”.

Well, “what does it depend on?” you may ask. That’s a reasonable question, and it’s one that deserves an answer.

I have met many players who have learned via internet tutorials, particularly on youtube. This is a great way to get going with learning guitar, and I am in many ways happy that this is an option.

Some people are brilliant at managing their own learning, and develop very quickly using the online resources that are so readily available to them. Equally, I have met many people who have made some progress in this way, and then they “hit a wall” with their learning. Progress can sometimes hit a standstill, and this invariably leads to frustration.

The single biggest asset to learning from another human being, is the fact that there is an interaction between the student, and the tutor. An experienced tutor will guide the student upon seeing and hearing them play, and offer useful “tweaks to technique”, or offer alternative ways of doing something that will allow a greater flexibility to the learning process.

Learning on your own time, and at your own pace, in your own way is fine, but in my experience, this can be a very long and drawn out process. If a student has a natural aptitude for learning a musical instrument, then going to a tutor can accelerate the pace of learning.

I have met guitarists who have achieved a staggering amount of facility on the instrument in a very short space of time, just through finding the right teacher for them.

Going to a tutor will not necessarily make you a clone of that teacher. There is a concern expressed by some people that if they go to the same tutor for too long, they may end up sounding too much like their mentor. This is a concern that I fully understand, and appreciate. My main point to make here, is that even if a person were to teach themselves from youtube tutorials, the same thing may happen, and they get trapped into doing things a certain way, and end up sounding like their online mentors.

Equally, there is a danger that listening to, and aspiring to play as close to the style of your musical heroes as possible, may have the same effect.

The encouraging thing about this issue, is that the guitar is such a unique instrument, that no two people approach it in exactly the same way. So much of the indiviual player comes through the instrument, even if they are playing the same piece of music as the next guitarist, it usually can’t help but sound in some way different.

It’s certainly on my agenda to not only allow individualism, but to actively encourage it.

Each person is unique, and no two people’s handwriting is exactly the same, and this is certainly true of guitar playing.