Christmas Carols for Lute

Non-purist arrangements suitable for six- or seven-course lute with some (minimally punctuated) text & some embroidered offerings for lute playing convenience & pleasure - £3.50. Visit the website to download at www.alnray.co.uk

Christmas Carols & Songs

Just in time for the festive season - AlnRay present a publication crammed full of your favourite tunes in TAB and Notation. Jingle Bells, Good King Wenceslas and Away in a Manger are amongst the many - 35 pages in total for just £3.90. To get your copy via download now >>>>> click here

More Diary Dates and News

For friends and past Dillington students (and those who want to find out about the Dillington experience) we'll be at their Open Day on Sunday 2nd September.  If you're interested in having a chat with us about things stringed (and hearing some good music) it's a great place to visit, set in glorious countryside near Ilminster.Visit the Dillington website We'd love to see you all!


The following Sunday we've been asked back to hold seminars at the Register of Guitar Tutors Conference in London.  Subjects are "Using Creativity in lessons" and "A Teachers Life".  Always enjoyable and a pleasure for us to meet and exchange ideas with other tutors at this International event.

13th and 14th September. Our popular guitar improvers evening classes start in Warminster.  Two areas to choose from this time;  Fingerpicking, using the earlier songs of Paul Simon as examples and Riffing for Acoustic Rock Guitarists.  Booking Now!  Contact us for details.

Tenor Guitar Download

Following Al's review of an excellent Ozark tenor guitar in Music Teacher magazine, a need for tenor guitar sheet music and tablature was identified. Ray and Al explored their archive of successful material and produced a music book for tenor guitar in both standard notation and tenor guitar tab.

You can download this publication from the alnray website for just £4.00 at http://www.alnray.co.uk 

This is a book of tunes, studies and musical exercises, arranged and gathered by two tutors over several years. By working through them you will learn good practice and how to improve as a player.

Mandolin Day

As regular readers will know by now, we don't just teach guitar!  By popular request we're scheduling several workshops over the Summer in Warminster and firstly, for those who play mandolin, is a day devoted to that instrument on Saturday August 25th between 10.00am and 4.00pm.  We'll be looking at playing techniques and several different musical genres.  Designed for those who play a little already, this is a chance to share skills with like-minded people in a sociable atmosphere.  Cost is £80 which includes refreshments and lunch in a local restaurant,  Let us know if you're interested!

Our latest contribution is the very popular 'Chords That Matter' publication. By the end of this booklet, you will be able to find a major or minor triad and a 7th or 9th chord ANYWHERE on the guitar.Go to the website to download at just 90 pence.

We have looked at re-publishing some 'now-out-of-print' material and will present some interesting publications over the next few weeks on the website. To start the ball rolling, we are republishing The Capo-Users' & Chordbusters' Handbook which has all the ingredients for major, minor, 7th, minor 7th & major 7th chords. Its just 90 pence to download. from the link at AlnRay Website

Simple Chords

Hi everyone - today we are presenting you with a new video tutorial with Al showing you some very simple 3,  4 and 5 string chords to get you playing.

SIMPLE CHORDS

Open Day and things to come.....

We're having an Open Day at the office, 8A Chinns Court,Warminster, on Saturday 12th May from 10.30am until about 4pm.

There will be a chance to chat with a cup of coffee or tea and some biscuits etc, as well as some bargains to be had [guitars, cases, gig bags, stands, sheet music and other useful bits and pieces] and we hope many of you will bring an instrument along for a chance of a friendly informal jam.

Do drop in please - if possible register your interest with us beforehand so we have some idea of how many to cater for…we'd hate to run out of biscuits!

There are some downloads available on a new web site:

www.alnray.co.uk

We are also working on an update of our old web site. This is likely to be a constant 'work-in-progress' so a good space to watch for news of what's on offer:

www.gandamusic.co.uk

Finally for now, Dillington courses for the next year:

'No Boundaries' acoustic band weekend - 18th May 2012. Nearly sold out but there are still a couple of places left. 

Another Acoustic Improvers course. 23-25 November 2012.

A day or half day beginners guitar course (with instrument supplied as part of the fee) Saturday 5 January 2013. 

 

Another acoustic band weekend. 18-20 January 2013.

 

Another Slide Guitar Course. 1-3 March 2013.

Acoustic Instruments ['no boundaries' band] 4-day course from Sunday 27th October 2013.

That's as it stands today. The final brochure is the confirmation.

And we aim to be at Dillington's special Open Day again this year - September 2nd.

Hope to see you!

Al & Ray

On The Slide

Our "On The Slide" guitar book is now available as a download from our website at alnray.co.uk for just £8.00. Here is a review from Amazon

An excellent book for those beginning slide guitar.Most slide tutors seem, in my experience, to instruct the reader in various slide riffs without explaining WHEN they will be of use.This is the best of many slide books I have bought in that it assumes no knowledge of slide playing.A great introduction: buy the other books afterwards, when the basics have been mastered using this publication.

Guitar Beginners and Improvers - Book

Happy Easter everyone - as a special Easter treat we have decided to release the download of the entire book, Guitar Beginners and Improvers Music Book, with a saving of £3.00 at amazing value of just £12.00. Go to the website downloads page or click on this link here

Beginner Repertoire - Terms 4 & 5

Hi everyone - the final two terms (4 & 5) of the Beginners Repertoire are now available on the website. You can download each of these for just £3.00.

Go to the website and download from here

Beginner Repertoire - Terms 2 & 3

Hi everyone - the next two terms (2 & 3) of the Beginners Repertoire are now available on the website. You can download each of these for just £3.00.

Go to the website and download from here

Acoustic Dillington

Last weekend's Dillington House Acoustic guitar Improvers course was another winner. We were privileged to work with a great group of people who quickly established a really supportive atmosphere.

So on to the next project; the Creative Music weekend (18th-20th May). This is filling up quickly!

There's also a chance, courtesy of Acoustic magazine to win a place on this course. Details in the current issue.

Beginner Repertoire - Term 1

We are presenting a new book in five parts over the coming weeks. This book, written by Al Summers and Ray Bradfield, is a great lesson planner for teachers and students and contains tunes from basic to baroque and blues. This first part looks at "Old Joe Clarke", "London's Burning" and "What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor" amongst others. You can download Term 1 now by clicking the link below for just £3.00. Once you complete the transaction you will receive an email containing a link to download it.

Beginner Repertoire     £3.00    18 pages (incl TAB)

Blue Cannonball - Download

Hi everyone - this week we are launching our new downloads section starting with this offer of a copy of Blue Cannonball. Something to whet your appetite in drop D tuning. There will be free video tutorials along soon to help you play it but for now click here to download the sheet music. Much as we would love to give it to you for free, we have to earn a living just like everyone else so we are charging a small fee of 60 pence for the download. Payment is via PayPal, or use your card as a PayPal guest. Your comments would be very appreciated as we are looking to provide you with more downloads over the coming weeks.



Blue Cannonball   Buy It Now   60 pence   Sheet Music (incl TAB)   Drop D Tuning

Tension Pain

This week Al and Ray talk about pain - tension pain - worth watching - good advice.

Kindle

Al's book "So you want to be a full-time Guitar Tutor" is now available as a Kindle download on Amazon.

Get it here

Arching the Fingers and Dot Markers

Hi everyone, Ray takes the front seat this week to talk about arching your fingers on the fretboard and dot markers. We hope you find this useful - please leave us your comments and feedback.

Acoustic beginners

Really enjoyable evening on Friday with our new acoustic beginners evening class. It's good to be using our new book to teach from as although it's material we've used before, every time we go back to it, new pupils find different perspectives. The video posts will also show how it works in practice!

So you have chosen your guitar

A two part tutorial this week to demonstrate correct posture and centre of balance - with Ray Bradfield and Al Summers.

Don't forget to leave your comments. for ease set the profile to 'Anonymous' - they are important to us.

Lute!

Al's just taken delivery of a lute! This was always his first love and he's been saying for ages that he wouldn't mind getting back to his roots. I haven't been able to get much sense out of him since it arrived so it's obviously pretty serious! Just don't mention tights or codpieces please.

The improvers acoustic evening class has started noisily with a full house of enthusiasts. The amount of sound generated is always a good indicator of how confident people feel and we've been really pleased with results so far. Acoustic versions of classics like "All along the watchtower" (complete with Hendrix opening riff) and "Gimme all your lovin'" (featuring Al on beard) have shaken the walls at Chinn's Court studios in Warminster.

Beginners acoustic guitar starts tonight with friends old and new!

New - video tutorials

Here is the first batch of video tutorials we promised you earlier this week - starting with - Choosing the right guitar for you.

Choosing a guitar - part 1

Choosing a guitar - part 2

Choosing a guitar - part 3

Don't forget to give us your comments please - your feedback is very important to us in taking this new idea forward - thank you Al 'n' Ray

Websites up again

Thanks everyone for your patience. The ganda and Al n Ray websites are now up and running again!

New Book

Our latest publication, "Guitar Beginners and Improvers music book" is now available from Amazon. It's the result of several years' material that we've tested and tried with many individual students,and our evening class and residential weekend pupils. Have a look if you're needing "Tunes from basics to baroque and blues" (as we sub-title it). Guitar Teachers have already given it good reviews; watch out for more. We'll keep you posted!

Click here to go to Amazon

Video Tutorials

Hi everyone, we are about to look at some new fresh ideas for the blog.

Starting today, and for the next few weeks, we will be presenting video clips for you to view and send us your much needed comments and feedback

Your feedback is very important to us in helping us to understand your needs and what you would like us to do in the future. So, to whet your appetite, we are soon to present our first round of video tutorials covering how to choose a guitar.

If you would like to see other tutorials in this series please visit our website which we are currently developing at alnray.co.uk

Please, please send us your comments (good, bad and indifferent) it will help us to create a better blog suited to your needs.

Wonderful Dillington

We had a brilliant weekend at Dillington. The "No Boundaries Crew," as I named them, were so enthusiastic and keen to learn new skills and tunes that we very rapidly had them all playing as a band. Such a great group of people too. It was really special, so thanks Chris and Cecil, Beryl (Bella), Tony and Linda. I believe we may well be seeing you at one or other of the next courses.....???

Speaking of which, next up is our popular Improvers Acoustic Guitar weekend in March. Bookings are coming in already so contact Dillington if you want to ensure your space. dillington @somerset.gov.uk

We follow this with a Creative Music Weekend in May.

Al & Ray: Latest News

Al & Ray: Latest News: Firstly apologies to anyone who's been trying to contact us via the ganda or alnray.co.uk websites. We have a problem with hosting at the m...

Latest News

Firstly apologies to anyone who's been trying to contact us via the ganda or alnray.co.uk websites. We have a problem with hosting at the moment which will hopefully be sorted soon. In the meantime, please use the Facebook message facility.

We're both back in the swing of things after Christmas with a hectic few weeks ahead!

First up is our No Boundaries Acoustic Band Weekend at Dillington, near Ilminster, Somerset, starting this coming Friday 20th January. This is designed for any acoustic instrument player who wants to break out of his or her solo isolation and join with others learning the tips and tricks of playing in a band. Apart from our tuition services, and meeting like-minded people, Dillington is a fabulous place to spend a weekend. Most of us go home a stone or two heavier and the standard of accommodation is excellent. Details from dillington@somerset.gov.uk, website address www.dillington.com

Our successful series of acoustic guitar improvers evening classes in Warminster starts Thursday 26th January. Sorry if you're interested, but we're fully booked! Contact us to register an interest and get further details of the next one. However, we still have places available on our beginners evening class, again in Warminster. This one starts on Friday 27th January. Come and learn to play in a sociable atmosphere!

Published late last year was our new , "Guitar beginners and improvers music book". It's proving very popular with teachers. A gently progressive collection of material specifically arranged for starter guitarists, tried, tested and used by a large number of our students. Available from Amazon.

If you're disappointed or just can't wait for the next acoustic guitar improvers evening class, then we're back at Dillington from 2nd-4th March for a whole weekend. Or you might want to try something completely different; May 18th-20th is our Creative Music weekend. Writing melodies, songs and just generally being, as its name implies, creative with music is our aim. All welcome!

Al and I have had a number of what a friend of mine calls "Gollum" moments over Christmas. He's got a new Tenor Guitar and I have a guitar-bodied Bouzouki and a new F5 mandolin.......so many instruments, so little time.........