London Marathon music and other live dates

Live gigs coming up, firstly at the London Marathon with Gordon Webber's Road Runners, and several other dates with the fab Green Chain Quartet/Quintet and friends.

- 27th June - TCS London Marathon 2025 (10am - 12.30pm) (this year we are playing on Creek Road again but just west of the Deptford Road Bridge. Right by The Coffee Studio - Union Wharf, Creek Road SE8 3GT. 

Expect all the road and running tunes to keep the crowd dancing and the runners motivated: (Long Train Running, These Boots are Made fer Walkin', Keep On Running, Dancing in The Street, Roadrunner etc, etc). 

The band features vocalists Gordon Webber and Chess Payne, with brass section drawn from the great and the good of the industry, including Phil Veacock on tenor sax (Jools Holland, Paul Weller etc). The weather's looking great... It'll be a blast! Give us a wave as you glide by! 

https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=51.481046993&mlon=-0.01705867#map=16/51.48100/-0.01710


Plus... early May 2025 dates with the GCQ:

- 1st May - The Daylight Inn (from 8pm), Station Square, Petts Wood, Orpington BR5 1LZ with special guest duo After Hours! Featuring the wonderful Sue Connery on vocals and ace bassist Steve Dunning on bass and guitars.

https://www.thedaylightinn.co.uk/#/


- 3rd May Hither Green Taproom (Afternoon: live 3-5pm), Brockley Brewery, Unit 28 Chiltonian Industrial Estate, Manor Lane SE12 0TX

https://www.brockleybrewery.co.uk/hither-green-taproom


- 3rd May - (Evening: 8-10pm), Crofton Park Tavern, 330-332 Brockley Rd, Brockley SE4 2BT

https://croftonparktavern.co.uk/  


- 5th May Pistachios in the Park (Afternoon: 2-4pm) Manor Park Gardens, Lee, Featuring Chess Payne on vocals and.... don't miss... Don's amazing BBQ!

https://www.facebook.com/pistachiosmanorhousegardens/?locale=en_GB


January & February Gigs

Catch me at some early New Year gigs with the Green Chain Quartet/Quintet (+ guests!)  coming up!



- 2nd January - The Daylight Inn, Petts Wood, Bromley - from 8pm 

- 3rd January  - Crofton Park Tavern 330-332 Brockley Road, London SE4 2BT 

                        - from 7.30pm

- 25th January - Brockley Brewery 31 Harcourt Road, London SE4 2AJ - from 7pm 

                          (Celebrate Burns Night with us!)



- 6th February - The Daylight Inn, Petts Wood, Bromley - from 8pm

- 7th February - Riverhouse Barn, Manor Road, Walton-on-Thames KT12 2PF

                          (info/booking at: - Riverhouse Barn Arts Centre - starts 8pm)



Wishing you all the best for Christmas and New Year

Thanks to all my students who I've had the pleasure of teaching this year - online and in-person.


Thanks also to the people, venues and musicians that I worked with from spring to winter, inside, outside and all points in between! 

(Click the image above for an Xmas Jib Jab cartoon from me & Dot)


Wishing you all the best for Christmas and New Year and, as last year, and the year before, and the year before that... hoping it's better and more peaceful one for all of us than 2024

Dave (& Dot!)




https://www.jibjab.com/view/make/beginning_to_look_like_christmas/95d6abb2-621e-4f77-b110-2481a8916b30?utm_source=cordial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tx_recipient_notification

Want to learn to play jazz?

Well, enough space in my diary has been freed up for this popular guitar programme once again. Details below. It follows a similar programme that I've been running for learning to play blues guitar too.

'Want play jazz?'

If you've been playing guitar for a year or so already and have built up the basics of playing the instrument playing blues, rock, classical or country it's not as hard as you might think. In fact a lot of what you already know can easily be adapted to play jazz on the guitar.


'Learn to play jazz by learning tunes and their chords'


Together we'll sit down and tailor-make a 12 week course for you, to move you from where you are in your playing now, to where you'd like to be in 3 months time.

The 12 week course will contain between 6 and 8 tunes to learn, each one negotiated between us to work out which tunes will suit you best to develop your playing style. Each week you'll study your tunes, work through the chord changes, the melody, the rhythm and your approaches for improvisation for best results. Some will be simple, others more challenging, all of them fun to play!

The tunes selected will include those played regularly at jam sessions, i.e. jazz standards, blues, ballads, latin, bebop heads etc. At the end of the 12 weeks you'll know the 'heads' and the 'changes' to your chosen tunes, along with different 'comping' styles, and a range of strategies for improvising on them.

The pathway include a free 1 hour introductory lesson to evaluate your starting points including technique, aural and musical understanding, so we can hit the ground running the day you start your first proper lesson.

'Includes a free 1 hour introductory lesson'


Introductory Lesson - includes an assessment of your current technique, level of understanding and preferred learning styles. Discussions on what targets we set, likely practice regime and noting useful text books/reference sources to support your progress.

The course will typically fall into 3 broad areas:

Foundations - Weeks 1 - 4: typically this will include: getting your ears in gear and fingers moving efficiently around the fretboard, so you play what you want to, not what your fingers are limited to. Chords and progressions, triads, scales and modes, arpeggios, double string studies, fingerings, note names, aural studies, and rhythmic and timing foundations, that apply to the tunes you have selected to work on. In short, building the musical scaffold that makes improvising possible. This stage also includes visualisation and memory techniques.

'Tap into your inner musical ear'

 


Moving on Weeks 5 - 8: Putting all the above information and resources into your playing. Phrasing, fretboard mapping; getting a clear and simple understanding of how things really work everywhere on your fretboard. How to find the notes you want to hear in your playing and how to apply these to different jazz situations. Exercises and drills that are fun and you can put instantly into your playing. Building on your rhythm and timing skills. Hearing exercises - tap into the 'musical ear you didn't know you had' to make huge leaps in your playing. All of this while working on your next set of tunes.

Consolidating - Weeks 9 - 12: Building vocabulary. Turning scales, triads and arpeggios into licks and phrases. Common licks used with different chord changes, how to adapt licks to fit lots of playing situations. Filling out between phrases as part of your comping style. More on rhythm - swing, bebop, hard bop, cool, funk and latin styles. Get in the groove with other time signatures - 3/4, 6/8, 6/4, 12/8, 5/4. Apply all of this to your final set of chosen tunes.

Your commitment - Does that sound like a lot to cover in 12 weeks? Well it is! You will need to be sure you have a reasonable amount of practice time available each week to cover everything as we go through the course.

'Get a clear, simple understanding of how music really works'


To book your free introductory lesson, use the contact form to the right of this page, or email me at dave@davebold.com. Fees for the course are the same as my standard rates; info on the Lessons page.