I have some free time on Wednesday 25th before 6.30 for guitar lessons.

Also, I’ll be in Southport doing a guitar workshop on the 4th Feb. I’m free for lessons after that too.

If you want to book one, send me an email: mike@mikeoutram.com
£40 for 1hr, or £70 for a two hour lesson.

Cheerio,

Mike

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Happy New Year! I hope you’re rested from a suitably debauched holiday and are now ready to pick up the axe and get down to business :) With that in mind, here are my free teaching times for Jan 2012. These are probably the only times I’ll be free in January in London.

If you’d like to book a lesson, e-mail me: mike@mikeoutram.com

Lessons are in Ealing, London, and I charge £40 for an hour, or £70 for a two hour lesson.

Also, I can come anywhere in the UK if we can arrange for a number of lessons to happen. If you know five or more people who would be interested in a lesson in your area, then get in touch :)

Mike.

January:
02 – anytime
03 – anytime
04 – anytime
11 – 6.30pm til 11pm
12 – 8am til 11am, 4.30pm til 11pm
19 – 8am til 11am, 4.30pm til 11pm

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Back when I left school, I happened to go to a little tertiary college in Leigh. Fortunately for me, there were some fantastic teachers, one of whom was Steve Berry. He used to run a workshop that was great. I could recount many experiences that opened my mind and ears, but they generally involved being challenged in one way or another. Tormented, as I saw it :) Here’s an example:

At the time if I had to solo over that, it would probably have felt like someone doing one of those fairground electric buzzer games after drinking ten espressos, but it would have nevertheless given Steve a pretty good workout, as I’m sure my note-choices would’ve offered him a few harmonic avenues to ponder that he would never have thought of before ;) Or I might’ve provided him a good core-strength workout from stifling laughter. Either way, I sounded awful. Unless your idea of good is ‘random wrong notes, played with an ever-increasing sense of wrong’.

Use your ears, Luke.

Steve’s unerring mantra was ‘use your ears’, which is a good leveller for wherever you are. If you’re a beginner: play what you hear. If you’re melting faces: play what you hear. And if you’re listening to each other then you can make music. So with that in mind I figured I’d like to be able to hear that chord progression. And here’s where you can have a go with some of the things I tried on this in order to get it my ear:

• Sing the bass line.
• Play the bass line on your instrument, try to hear the chords. Play the chord to check if you hear it right.
• Sing some kind of descriptive arpeggio: You can’t really sing 1357 on this stuff as the harmony is more complex. Find little arpeggio-ettes that connect the chords.
• Sing scales, or bits of scales and alter the notes to fit the chords. Make up melodies with these partial scales.
• Ask Steve.
• Realise it’s actually impossible.
• Ask why anyone would even want to do this anyway?
• Go and play video games.
• Realise that if you can get really good at video games by playing on them all day long, you can get good at music too by, coincidentally, doing it all day long.
• Do some practice.
• Ask Steve.
• Look at this progression once every 5 years and think ‘*&^($$! if only I’d practised this more, I’d be able to raz all over this kind of stuff by now’.
• Do a bit more practice.
• Find some other distraction such as learning HTML, or Facebook, whatever.
• Think, ‘AAAAAAAAA**&^*$($U&@£! What the ^$(efjn^(£(!’.
• Give it to a 12 yr old guitar player who proceeds to nail every change, by ear.
• Think, ‘Yeah. And?’.
• Have a sense of frustration at your own laziness that increases every year.

Hope that helps ;)

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Hello all. A few things to tell you about…

Some new recordings in the pipeline.
A quartet album for Kevin Figes with the amazing Daisy Palmer on Drums and the fantastic Dan Moore on Fender Rhodes. The album is being mastered right now and there’s talk of a tour next year. Check the gigs page for more details as they come.

I recorded Chris Higginbottom’s new album too. It’s with Rob Mullarkey and Tom Cawley. We managed to get in a couple of sessions before Tom left for Peter Gabriel’s tour. Chris wrote all the music and it’s been utterly fantastic playing with these chaps. Album will be out next year sometime. Check out some rough mixes here: http://soundcloud.com/chrishigginbottom/sets/new-album-roughs/

Also, I’ve been playing in a new trio with Martin Speake and Jeff Williams on sax and drums. There’s no bass, so I’m enjoying reacting to that: sometimes being the bass, sometimes not. Anyway, it makes me play differently, so it’s good.

I have a few London gigs left this December. Here they are, but check on the gigs page for the addresses.

6th – Qtet @ Lord Rookwood with Rob Townsend, Geoff Gascoyne and Clive Fenner.

11th – Martin Speake and Jeff Williams, North London Tavern.

18th – Boaters with Simon Carter, Rob Mullarkey and drummer. The last time I did this gig with Ian Thomas on drums (which you can hear bit of here) I came home, put the TV on and there was Ian playing with Eric Clapton and Derek Trucks.  This gig is always a blast, so come down for an end of year pint or two! Here’s a free download of some bits from the last time we did Boaters. http://mikeoutrambootlegs.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-pubs

20th – Jocelyn Brown, The Arts Club, Dover Street.

Also, if you’re interested in having a guitar lesson, I have a few free times left for 2011. If you’d like to book a lesson, e-mail me: mike@mikeoutram.com

Here they are:
December:

05 – 6pm – 10pm (not 7-8)
07 – 8pm – 10pm
08 – 5pm – 10pm
09 – 3.30pm – 10pm
12 – 9pm – 10pm
13 – 7pm – 10pm
14 – 7.30pm – 10pm
15 – 6.30pm – 10pm
16 – 5pm – 10pm
17 – 5pm – 10pm (not 6-7)

Also, I host my free times now on Dropbox, so I can always update the times as they get booked. So if you want to know if/when I’m free then bookmark this link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1030958/teaching.txt

Also, I’m going to be doing more Jewel Box stuff soon. Check the website for when that starts happening.

Cheers!

Mike

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Haven’t got much time this Nov YEAR for teaching so here’s what’s available – all evenings. If you’d like to book a slot then grab one fast as they’re going.
e-mail me at mike@mikeoutram.com

**Update** – I’ve made this new little file which I host on Dropbox, and it has all my free times on it. It just means that I can immediately update my free times from wherever I am in the universe. Handy, eh? So click the link below and you’ll see them all. If you bookmark it, then you’ll have a handy little way of seeing if there’s a free time that suits you.

Click here for my free times.

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Hive Mind,

I need to know more about valves. Having just spent £100 on some valves, I’m thinking they’re ok and everything, but they’re not blowing my mind. So, question is: what do you consider when you choose what you get?

Clean all the way? Break up early? What makes the most difference: pre-amp or main valves? If you’ve got 4 pre-amp valves, are they all the same? Is one for the reverb? What do you know about valves. Tell me everything you know. Starting now.

Come on. Let’s have it then…

I’m waiting…

We’ll do capacitors next week…

Anyhow, get writing…

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