Guitar Encounters is a rock and pop-based course. Perfectly suited to any aspiring guitarist from the age of 8 upwards, lessons are taught on electric and electro-acoustic instruments. Classes contain typically 6 to 8 students so there will always be a chance to play as a group to complement solo work. Not only does the course material cover skills and techniques that would make other guitarists green with envy, it also fully supports music in the National Curriculum so you can learn while having fun playing!

Guitar Encounters is a great course for anyone aspiring to become a rock legend! The course material provides a highly structured approach to learning and teaches all the skills and techniques you'll need to become a professional player.

Each lesson consists of six or seven different activities, covering a wide range of techniques. You'll get the opportunity to play solo and with the rest of the class. Exercises in the course books ensure that there's plenty to practice during the week in preparation for the next lesson and a CD provided with each book contains great backing tracks to make practice fun.

The skills taught include performance, theory-based, technical and aural. Both left hand (chord playing, melody playing, slides, bends, muting, hammer-on) and right hand (plectrum, fingerstyle, slap, dynamic control) performance techniques are covered. This is complemented by a thorough training in music and guitar-specific theory. You will become familiar with both staff notation and tablature. You'll gain an understanding of different musical keys, chords, scales and modes, and their relationship to each other. As you progress in Guitar Encounters you will learn how to provide chords to accompany a melody and vice versa. Eventually you'll be able to listen to and transcribe music, and even arrange a song in different musical styles.

Guitar Encounters also provides a wealth of technical training. You'll become familiar with tuning and maintenance techniques, and how factors such as strings, tone controls, amplifier settings and guitar type affect the sound.

In Guitar Encounters each book level equates to an examination grade, from 1 to 8, with classes typically taking from 12 to 18 months to complete each level.