Acoustic guitar and flexible training design

Paul kicked off Music Week with his reflections on an encounter with a studio engineer that led him to conclusions about the benefits of turning the volume down when playing music in the training room.

In todays post, Ally shares a remarkable acoustic guitar performance that inspired insights into training design and delivery.

---

I can’t remember how I first came across Andy McKee performing “Drifting” on You Tube, but I do remember being mesmerised. Although I’d been playing acoustic guitar for over 28years, I’d never seen anything like it.

… and it sounded fantastic!

I couldn’t believe it was just him making this sound – it sounded like there were 3 guitars and a percussionist.

• his unconventional string tuning
• the way he slaps the guitar body like a drum
• the way his left hand hangs over the top of the guitar neck rather then underneath

It’s all unconventional and yet sounds awesome!

The more I reflected on this unusual performance, the more I made connections with creative trainers I’d worked with and I began to draw some lessons in training design.

Here’s the video that inspired me:

Here are three things Andy McKee taught me about training design:

Practices from one industry are transferable to another

Previously, if you wanted some percussion, you got a drummer or a bongo player to accompany you. Andy McKee is his own percussion section, producing various sounds by banging different parts of the guitar body. He takes one instrument (hand drum) and applies the playing techniques to his instrument (acoustic guitar).

We tend to compartmentalise our training subjects – what would happen if we took techniques and ideas from one industry or sector and applied them to another? Rather than noticing the differences in subjects, what would happen if you looked for similarities and apply techniques from one area and applied them to another?

Who would have thought percussion techniques would be so effective on an acoustic guitar?

Apply techniques from one style to another

Much of what Andy does with his right-hand is borrowed from ’speed metal’ – a completely different style of guitar playing. In normal acoustic guitar playing, the right hand stays over the sound hole and either strums or picks the strings. In “Drifting”, his right hand spends most of it’s time half way up the guitar neck tapping or sliding up an down the strings.

What can we do to cross-fertilise ideas and practices?

• What can classroom training learn from online training?
• What can sales learn from health and safety?
• What can business trainers learn from high school teachers?

Who’s have thought the techniques developed by the hairy, shouty, fast and furious speed metal merchants could be reproduced with melody and grace on an acoustic guitar?

Do not be limited by the way things have been done previously

Almost all guitarits play with the strings tuned in a particular, standard way. In “Drifting”, Andy retunes the half the strings. In effect, he takes the way a standard guitar has been tuned for the last 200 years and changes it. This change (geek alert: from E-A-D-G-B-E to D-A-D-G-A-D) frees his fingers to do new things – he is no longer tied to the established ways of doing things. It also introduces fresh limitations but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks in this particular performance.

What would happen if we challenged established conventions?

• Who says you have to have training in a training room?
• Who says you have to use a projector?
• Who says yo have to turn your phones off in the training room?

Who’d have thought that changing something as fundemental as the way the strings are tuned could create such a remarkably beautiful sound?

So what inspires you?

On a personal note, writing this post has been very interesting for me. I love my acoustic guitars. Where Paul plugs himself into an effects pedal and an amplifier, I love the natural sound of the acoustic. The Andy McKee video touched a passion outside of the training room and gave insights into training design.

• What passions do you have?
• What connections are there between your passions outside the training room and your passion for what happens inside it?
• How can one inform the other?

Do let us know…

hairy guitarist image by Eggybird
acoustic guitar image by Greg Zenitsky

Hi thanks for coming back to our site. Paul and Ally will be running the morning session of the Brain Friendly Learning Group (Southern) in February. To find out more (and see what Ally looks like!), check out the video. Thanks for visiting again!

Related posts:

1. A design for design Part 2
2. A design for design Part 1
3. 5 occasions when training is wrong
4. Training jargon exposed and explained!
5. 6 Tips for training in a recession