Steve Atkins Guitar and Bass Tuition

I am a guitarist, singer and bass player. I have a teaching qualification and I spent a number of years studying classical guitar with a tutor in Cardiff. This enabled me to pass a grade V with the Trinity International Examinations Board. I spent another two years on grade six and I also spent some time studying theory of music. In 2003 I completed stage II of my PGCE and I came out with an Adult and Further Education Teacher's Certificate. My main area of interest has been traditional music and I also play a number of other instruments. These include the five-string banjo, the Melodeon and the diatonic folk/blues harmonica.

At the age of 21, I took part in Camp America. I spent eight weeks living and working on a summer camp for children and young people with learning difficulties in North Eastern Pensylvannia. This was a very formative period in my life. I assisted with the running of the music programme and ran classes on a daily basis for voice and acoustic guitar. It was at this point that I became very much interested in traditional music and this experience laid the foundation for my involvement in this field of music today. I can remember learning basic finger picking techniques and strumming simple chord progressions. I recall singing 'This Land is Your Land', 'House of the Rising Sun' and 'the Gambler' by Kenny Rogers. I became interested in the music of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Mississipi John Hurt, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and Norman Blake. I started to go to folk festivals and in the last couple of years I have done stewarding duties at two different folk festivals: Priddy in Somerset and more recently Bromyard in Herefordshire. These days I go to the Lyceum Folk Club of Newport which is a separate entity from Newport Folk Club of which I was once a member. At the age of twenty six I went to Newton Park College in Bath (now Bath Spa University) where I did a Degree in Combined Studies and I came out with an Upper Second Division.

Personal Profile- Steven J Atkins Guitar and Bass Tuition