Diary of a Guitar Teacher

I'm back from the Ullapool Guitar Festival and pondering my life choices, how it feels like every moment and decision have been leading me right to where I am now. I ackowledge that I'll never be a full-time pro with playing music, but somehow I've managed to pull my two passions in life -- guitar and photography -- into a career. Can I pull it off? Time will tell, but I'm sure as hell going to give it my best shot?  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

My thoughts on the Ullapool Guitar Festival as I drive home via Tarbert because the linkspan at Ardossan is out of action.  --- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

A quick check-in from the Ullapool Guitar Festival.  Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

My thoughts as I drive home from the Acoustic Soundboard UK annual guitar bash in Halifax.  --  Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

I was driving to the 10th annual Acoustic Soundboard UK gathering in  Halifax with my Kim Walker in the car and thought I would pore over my  thoughts about whether to sell it or not. Here are my thoughts. If you missed part 1, check back in my feed. It was the episode directly before this one.  --  Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

I was driving to the 10th annual Acoustic Soundboard UK gathering in Halifax with my Kim Walker in the car and thought I would pore over my thoughts about whether to sell it or not. Here are my thoughts, with part 2 to follow very shortly.  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

One of my pupils has asked to learn sight-reading so I'm going to pick up my Fred Noad Solo Guitar Playing book again and work through that with her. It's exciting!  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

I had a new pupil start today, an 11 year old girl. It was really exciting and went well. I'm super pleased that my teaching is taking off. Just got to keep growing in all areas of my freelance work in order to survive when the Post Office goes at the end of October.  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

Getting ready to play - a chat as I head into Brodick to pick up my gear from the Wineport and then head to Crofters' for another show. With a guest appearance from Innis Thorborn.  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

Talking about my planning for a lesson at home then an afternoon teaching Rock School.  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

That's me filling in for Steve at the Arran Youth Foundations charity Rock School lessons and it's great to be back!  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

I have a new pupil coming today. Before preparing for that, I worked on publishing my latest podcast episode on my Acoustic Guitar IO channel, an interview with Clive Carroll and looked into Facebook advertising. I ended up boosting my Clive Carroll post.  -- Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.

Now the Post Office is sold, it's time properly to start planning my future as a musician, guitar teacher and content producer. It's so exciting! 

I had my first pupil today who found me through Facebook and booked using the booking widget on my Facebook page, which is awesome! Support me on Patreon and help me to invest in my content business and bring more valuable content on my Acoustic Guitar IO and Diary of a Guitar Teacher channels.  Thank you.

I was buzzing after teaching a pupil at home and wanted to get some thoughts down before the buzz wore off.  Support me at Patreon. 

Making video content means that hard drives fill up FAST. I had to come up with a solution and that meant spending money. Ugh. It had to be done though, so today I took delivery of two 4TB HDDs for my Drobo NAS in the attic, a second 500GB SDD for my Ninja V recorder and a Drobo 5D3 to hook up to my main PC. Now I can add storage to my PC simply and have drive redundancy, and can back up to the NAS in the attic which also has drive redundancy. Job done. Phew.  Enough tech talk though! I got a new pupil this week and a new enquiry, both through my Facebook page. I'm not sure how they're finding me, but I'm super pleased that it's working. Not only that, but the new pupil used my Facebook appointment widget to book the lesson! I'm so excited! 

I've been thinking of getting a lavalier mic for a while now and the Tascam DR10-L looks like a really handy little unit for recording interviews in noisy environments. I'm testing it out here and am not sure about the results. You'll hear the audio switching in some parts of the recording. I'm talking into the Line6 V75 headset mic for the beginning, so when you hear it change, that's the Tascam mic. Then I switch back and forth a few times, before settling back down onto the Line6. I'd love to hear from you with lav mic recommendations and thoughts. 

I had a complete beginner start lessons with me today and it was really fun! I’m using the Anchor.fm app on my phone to record this one and see if it works with my mixer output and how it sounds. Fingers crossed!

A catch up episode where I talk about my filming studio and what my plans are moving forward for this podcast. Shout out to Gerald Undone for his awesome video tutorials and gear reviews on his YouTube channel. 

Today I'm talking about my Avermedia Livegamer HD2 HDMI capture card for livestreaming. 

A bit of chat about the opening of the 25th Arran Folk Festival. 

Today I talk about preparing to teach my new pupil. 

   I'm thinking about my strategy and how to reach goals with my content. I  spent too long doing things that aren't bringing value and need to  learn how to work smart and ensure that everything I do has value and  helps me to grow as an artist, as a content creator, as a publisher, as a  musician. I talk about some of that in this video and could do with  some engagement and and encouragement from my audience, small though it  may be.    ▶Links to Artists Mentioned◀   Mike Dawes - http://mikedawes.co.uk/  Clive Carroll - https://www.clivecarroll.co.uk/  Paul Davids - https://pauldavidsguitar.com/  Acoustic Soundboard Forum - http://acousticsoundboard.co.uk/  Video of this episode is on my YouTube channel - Video Link

 Today I'm looking at my PA setup in the living room, showing off my new  business cards and talking about a couple of content creators whose  channels I love, Mary Spender and Paul Davids.    https://www.youtube.com/user/maryspender  https://www.youtube.com/user/Luapper 

I talk about my LR Baggs Anthem, my Dreizehnter guitar, self-taught guitarists, future plans and the excitement of going to see Jenn Butterworth again and catch her for an interview at the Arran Folk Festival.  

Today I'm comparing scale patterns from the CAGED system and from Bryan Sutton's School of Bluegrass Guitar. The marketing section is based on what I learned from this This Week in Photo episode here: Mind Your Own Business Site mentioned: Lessons with Marcel

In today's episode I'm getting ready for my lessons and talk about my Evernote set up and how I get ready. I'm also thinking about marketing and was lucky enough to grab an episode of This Week in Photo called Mind your Own Businesses. I normally delete it as I can't keep up with my podcast list, but I was washing dishes and my hands were wet, so I just let it play. It turned out to be a fantastic interview with  Easton Reynolds and Nate Grahek of The Art of Six Figures and Sticky Marketing Tools respectively. The result of that is that I'm looking at how to market properly on social media and on my website.  Video for this episode is on my YouTube Channel here: Episode 3

 I'm doing a bit of lesson prep here, talking about the apps that I use to keep notes and share content with pupils, then I look at some notation apps I'm trying and then some CAGED chords on the top 3 strings, something I learned from Bryan Sutton's ArtistWorks course.  Video for this lesson is on my YouTube channel here: Episode 2 Video

 This is the introduction to my new podcast, Diary of a Guitar Teacher. I've been playing for 30 years, but teaching for only a few, and professionally for just a few months. This is a new video and audio podcast to share what it's like to be learning so much as I become a better teacher and a better player. I'll also be looking at what I'm learning and how that works its way into what I'm teaching.  Come and join me on the journey and engage with me. I'd love to have your company!  This podcast is available in video format here: Episode 1 Cams