YAGMC 2015 - Alex Kirtley

As I'm sure many of you already know my name is Alex Kirtley, I am 17 living in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear

The music I play is usual for my age, I play fingerstyle blues primarily, that is what has always appealed to me but first, let's start at the beginning.

I got my first guitar at around the age of 6 and I would do my best to annoy everyone by banging on the thing although I couldn't play a note on it, it wasn't until a few years later towards the end of primary school that the other kids and I were offered music lessons, everyone was taught the penny whistle as part of the lessons but we were also given a sheet of paper on which instruments were listed with boxes next to them and we were told that if we wanted to learn an instrument to put a tick in the box and hand it back, I needed a hobby so I ticked guitar and handed the sheet back, from then I had started guitar lessons.
At this point different musical styles and different guitars meant nothing to me, a guitar was a guitar and I wanted to play it, I got off lucky because the guitar we were learning on was a nylon strung acoustic AND we were taught very basic fingerstyle, although when the time came to leave primary school we'd only gotten so far as to know one scale, some very basic tunes, how to read basic notation, I didn't know a single chord, I decided to continue lessons on into highschool, at which point the teacher threw an electric guitar in my hands and really didn't teach me anything, I wasn't having that so I cancelled them and simply put the guitar down for a couple of years, eventually my musical interest was aroused again by the banjo, this was the start of my teaching myself, the banjo then got me interested in the guitar again I was done with teachers so I taught myself and me being a solo player I started delving into fingerstyle more and more and really started a musical discovery journey that isn't stopping any time soon.

After I started teaching myself I started finding influences, such as Doc Watson, Reverend Gary Davis then subsequently a lot of the old blues guys such as Lightnin Hopkins, Blind Willie McTell and the like I eventually got interested in songwriting and then started discovering a lot of great songwriters such as Steve Earle, Townes van zandt, Guy Clark and my favourite, Justin townes earle who I was lucky enough to meet earlier this year.

For a while now I have been playing on the local open mic/folk club/singaround circuit, this worked wonders with my confidence and musical style, becoming involved with this was one of the best things I have done.

The reason I would like to do music as a profession is basically because it is the only thing I am any good at, it gives me such a kick and it is constantly on my mind and not to mention it is very fun.
In terms of Samhradh, well, who wouldn't want one!, it is more of a guitar than I could ever afford, but in addition, different instruments, particularly different high quality instruments give you a totally different perspective on the music you play, it is also the key to finding new sounds you never thought possible, this guitar would help me find these new sounds, and I am sure that many new songs could be written as a result of it.

Thanks Dave for making this possible and thanks for reading.

Videos and soundclips to come, I have been having some technical difficulties because my computer has broken so I shall have to find ways around that.

Thanks

Alex