What does Alsion’s guitar club look like?

By: Matthew Manseau

Alsion’s guitar club is led by Mr Brad who is also the math teacher, guitar club is every Friday, and lasts for around an hour. Mr Brad teaches the basics, such as exercises, tips, advice, encouragement, and by letting the students enjoy it. The pace of the class is individual to the students who are learning. Some people have over a year of experience and others have only days, and yet they both are able to succeed with their goals. I decided to interview some of the club members to find out what they enjoy about the club and what they’ve learned. The questions I asked each student were,

“What got you into playing guitar?”

“What do you think of Mr Brad’s guitar club?”

“How much do you think you have improved?”

Rika said, “It’s pretty fun, although different from last year with Mr Brad being more busy and the amount of members being significantly less. Overall, I know more about guitar-ing now and spend my time just relaxing before electives”.

Rika finds the club enjoyable and sees her growth since she first started playing.

Sanaya said, “I like this club and it’s pretty relaxing. It also taught me cool warm ups that help my playing now. I got into playing guitar from my dad and videos in the internet”.

Sanaya also finds the club to be relaxing and got help from Mr Brad by teaching her warmups.

Liv told me, “I think that I’ve improved a lot since starting(I didn’t know how to play the guitar originally, so of course I’ve improved). His class is good, and I appreciate that he lets us learn our own songs while still having us collectively do stuff”.

Liv enjoys the freedom of the club and agrees that Mr Brad does well with teaching each student.

Alister said, “tbh I’ve always wanted to learn, but I only started because the other clubs I wanted to join didn’t have enough members.I love it! Mr Brad is an amazing teacher, and we mostly get to do our own thing. I mean before I didn’t even know the basics, so I’d say I improved a bunch.”

Alister has also recognized all of her growth throughout her time playing the guitar, and furthermore enjoys the aspect of it being student based, so she gets to learn any song.

Usually throughout Mr Brad’s guitar lessons he recommends many different sources and guides so that when the students are not at the club—since they don’t get a lot of time to practice—they can work and continue improving. Mr Brad also encourages students to play for at least 5 minutes a day to maintain what they have learned.

(Image credit: https://breakthroughguitar.com/)