The group focuses on Jacob Gold as he positions his hand to strike the first note.
Before he moves his pick the classroom of people call out song titles.
“Kashmir.” “Comfortably Numb.”
The participants in the Guitar Workshop Plus class are re-training their brains to notice specific notes, Canadian fusion guitarist Dave Martone says. Using only the visual queue of a hand’s placement on a guitar and the first note, the musicians will guess the song.
“We’re training our ears,” he says.
As the Squamish Valley Music Festival wound down, things at Quest University were heating up. Since Sunday, Aug. 10, 70 musicians from across Canada and south of the border visited Squamish to take part in one of Canada’s top-ranked summer music programs.
“We’ve been doing this for six years,” Guitar Workshop Plus founder Brian Murray says.
A few years ago, Quest’s small campus feel lured the Toronto-based initiative away from the University of British Columbia to the Sea to Sky Corridor. Today the spectacular scenery matches an explosive lineup of professionals who’ve agreed to teach in an intimate setting, Murray notes.
“We literally have all different styles from rock to blues,” he says. “There’s something for everybody.”
With his home in Issaquah, Wash., guitar enthusiast Dan Conley drove up to Squamish for the third year in a row to take part in the week-long workshops. This year’s highlight was learning alongside American instrumental progressive metal band Animals As Leaders’s guitarist Tosin Abasi.
Conley swapped his clarinet for a guitar in middle school. The annual workshop feels like getting “fire hosed” with information. But it’s good, Conley says. Heading south, he’ll have a year’s worth of material to work through.
“You also meet a lot of the same people every year,” he says, noting he’s gained close friends from the program.
The courses are designed for musicians of all ages, from adult hobbyists to students pursuing music careers. Next year, Murray says he hopes to see more Squamish residents sign up for the workshops.
“We have lots of people from all over Canada, the United States, South America, but we really don’t get a huge draw from Squamish,” he says.
For more information visit www.guitarworkshopplus.com.
