GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop: Arrival and Guitar Raffle

I've decided to post a day-by-day description of what we did because it was a week long and I think that will be the easiest way to get my head around it.

Sunday, I drove out to Atlanta from Oxford, MS right after Sunday morning services. On the way, I had to stop and change a fan belt that went out. I just happened to pull into a gas station across from an O'Reilley's Auto Parts store. After 45 minutes I was back on my way. The rest of the trip went smoothly.

In Atlanta I was set up in a nice suite at Clayton State University's new dorm. Very nice and $35.00/night. I had a whole suite to myself which I didn't really like because I like to go to things like this to meet people. When I went back to the room later, I found that I had acquired a new suite-mate. He is a monster guitar player and plays jazz really well so I got a lot of jam time with him during the week.

Day 1
Our class was to start at 8:30 and I arrived a few minutes early to check out the "stuff". I had heard that there was going to be a lot of material for us and that the guitars would be given out in a raffle. So I kind of scoped out what I wanted so I'd be ready when they called my number.

There was a wide variety of guitars from different manufacturers. Off the top of my head here's what I remember being available: There were 2 baby Taylors and two 2 baby Martins. All 4 had nice gig bags. There were three silver Fender acoustic-electrics with strat-style headstocks. I think these may have come with gig bags as well. There were entry-level Breedlove and Tacamine acoustic-electrics; one each, with a nice hard-shell case. There were 3 Aria steel-strings with nice hardshell cases, a yamaha nylon-string with hard case, an Ibanez electric with practice amp and a Hohner steel-string acoustic. I think the Hohner was the only one that didn't have any kind of case, but besides the babys (and maybe the Breedlove) it was the only one with a solid top.

A lot of very nice choices. My number came up late in the raffle. There was still a baby Martin and a couple of the Arias left but I decided to go with the electric because I've been borrowing my son's nappy old one for to long.

We met our instructors for the week, Suzanne Shull and Jim Yancy. (Sorry, Jim. I feel like I probably called you Tim a couple of times.) I thought it was interesting that both of them come from a choral background. It gave them a great perspective to teach from with an "anyone can learn to teach this" mentality. Jim was kind of interning and Suzanne has tought with the workshops pretty much from the beginning. Suzanne has taught guitar in the middle school setting for many years and now volunteers at a local school. Jim has built a successful program out in Phoenix that has outgrown his choirs, and has had a group perform at a national convention.

More to come...