Welcome. We are an enthusiastic and happy bunch of players and singers who meet (usually twice a month) to sing and play guitar accompaniment to a range of pop and folk tunes. Members need an acoustic guitar (either a steel-strung acoustic or a nylon-strung classical type) and a two-hole ring binder for music. We also recommend that you have an electronic tuner. A desk-top music stand, chord book, guitar stand and capo are also useful.

We have built a growing library of popular songs and guitar tuition pages available to all group members to download and print from a Dropbox. These should be printed and filed in your 2 ring binder.

We expect members to be familiar with fingering ‘open’ chords (E, A, D, C, B7, G) and be able to change between them (but we practice that). It is highly desirable that members enjoy singing. There are opportunities for learning finger-style arrangements of songs as well as traditional strumming and plectrum work. In addition we cover some basic music theory to help develop understanding (but nothing too technical).

Group experience is that though we take things gently, it can be challenging for raw novices to keep up. For them, practice between formal sessions is absolutely vital. For improvers, it's a highly desirable optional.

Group activities can be summarised as:

• Learning/refreshing members’ knowledge of basic chords and practicing changing between them.
• Learning variations of ‘open’ chords and acquiring knowledge of ‘closed’ chords.
• Learning rhythms, strumming and picking patterns.
• Learning to read chord symbols such as ‘Em’, ‘B7’ etc. (note – not musical notation).
• Singing a mixture of folk and standard tunes and pop songs whilst accompanying with chords on the guitar.
• There is scope for more advanced players to also learn and practice guitar tabulation and playing solo pieces.
• We can also take a look at elements of song structure and the techniques adopted in song creation.
• Group members are encouraged to select new pieces, which the leader will then arrange for the group to sing and play.