About me
About Me
For me it all started back in 1991. I was 15 and about to go on a school camp when I suddenly came down with the Chicken Pox. A friend of mine was nice enough to lend me his guitar while I was unwell. With so much idle time I soon found myself picking out different TV ads and learning them by ear. I could hear something and then teach myself how to play it and that is where my passion for the guitar started.
Not long after that I bought myself a bass guitar. Why a bass guitar you might ask?? Well I already had friends that played guitar and drums so bass guitar was the most logical way to rock and roll stardom. Or so we thought at the time.
I then went on to start bass guitar lessons with local music identity Nick Howe and progressed very quickly to play in a number of high school bands. While I really enjoyed playing bass I'll be honest in saying that I was a show off. I wanted to be a frontman! So at age 17 I convinced enough family members to chip in and help me buy my first decent 6 string electric guitar.
Soon after that , I joined a local cover band called Toejam (what can I say, it seemed like a good name at the time) and together went on to play hundreds of live shows in just about every live venue in town. We were all so young and had so much free time on our hands to dedicate to the band. You could hear a new song on the radio during the week and that weekend you'd hear Toejam playing it at the pub. It was nothing to be playing two or three nights a week.
At the age of 27 my health took a sudden change for the worst. I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and was no longer well enough to play live shows. I eventually went on to have multiple surgeries and once again my down time was dedicated to playing more guitar than ever.
My recovery was very slow and to make ends meet I started teaching a couple of family friends guitar from the sunroom in my house. This eventually snowballed and by word of mouth I ended up with half a dozen students coming to me each week for lessons. I really enjoyed seeing them come in each week and found the progress they were making to be very rewarding.
As I continued to recover a local music shop asked if I'd like to teach guitar and bass at their shop. And that was where South West School Of Rock (later to become Warrnambool Guitar Lessons) was born.
So here I am some 15 years later still teaching guitar. I still find it as enjoyable as I did way back when I first started. I have met some wonderful people along the way and made some great friends too.