Four Months On It’s crazy to think it’s already been 4 and a half months since I drove up to the north west from Southampton docks. It’s been a hugely positive experience for me, and has essentially been my first taste of the adult world. The truth is that, I have always lived with the idea, that when presented with options, I should always seek the most challenging route. See, at least in my experience, it’s usually the hardest path that has the most benefits available. In this case I was looking at three different options. The first was staying in London; while this had many obvious benefits it would have involved staying in comfort, I had a great spot playing for an incredibly talented si

Is it harder to be a successful musician nowadays? Since the age of 13, I have been educated by some incredibly talented musicians, each with their own ideologies on this very question. Throughout my musical education and adolescent years, I was often told by adults, from all walks of life, about the so-called ‘Wreck’ that is the modern day music industry. This often made the idea of making music for a living seem very daunting. Well, I’m writing this blog today to tell you that this simply isn’t true. In fact, I would argue that it’s quite the Opposite. But first, in order to give you some context here, let’s go back to the so called ‘Golden Age’ of music, the 1960’s. Back then, in a world

Bob Dylan’s influence on my song writing Throughout my teenage years, my understanding of signwriting came from mostly songwriters born after 1960. A group of uber-successful musicians who had written some of the best pop and rock songs of all time. However, despite this wealth of success that I had chosen to engage myself with, there were certain things that this collection struggled to teach me. See, it has long been understood that all successful people in this world are essentially standing on the shoulders of greats who came before them. Each time a remarkable human being comes along, they test the boundaries of their profession and actively move that boundary further into the beyond. D

The Isle of Wight Festival Over the last twenty or so years, the UK has seen a huge rise in the number of music festivals. A trend that has seen millions of people gather in fields across the country to witness their favourite artists. However, even with the likes of Glastonbury, the music festivals of today are still very different from the originals. It’s easy to forget that during the last few years of the 1960’s the world’s two largest music festivals, America’s Woodstock and Britain’s Isle of Wight Festival held almost half a million people for a weekend of incredible music. The events were so big that there was even a shortage of food and water for many attendees. With a population of

The Fender Telecaster Whether I’m teaching guitar in Sale or touring around mainland Europe, the Telecaster is by far my favourite guitar model. With a wide variety of adaptations and modifications, telecasters are used by a wide variety of guitar players. From singer songwriters like Bruce Springsteen to the likes of Slipknot’s Jim Root. One of the reasons why I have always played a Telecaster is simply because I’ve never had to. Whether I was playing in my hard alternative rock band or as a pop trio It never failed to suit the genre of music I was playing. The second reason I’m so in favour of everyone buying one of these guitars is their absolute reliability. Telecasters are known by many

Blog #2 ‘Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything’. Plato Music has a huge grip on our brain chemistry, it has the power to manipulate emotion and even the meaning behind a visual (like in film for instance). It has brought enormous groups of people together, and has even been used to shape the society in which we live today. There is no doubt that making and listening to music can have some powerful therapeutic effects on the human body and mind, and can help many people going through difficult and emotional times in their lives. This is why I feel that It is important for teenagers and