Aaron Wilson presents Guitar Summer School of Rock at AMS Edinburgh

AMS Edinburgh HND student Aaron Wilson will be running a rock guitar summer school series this year at the Edinburgh campus in Leith taking place over various dates.

The summer school will be 3 days a week, bi-weekly over 4 weeks in total, and the days will consist of 3 different groups: 2 hours Beginner group, then 2 hours Intermediate, then 2 hours Advanced.  Group sizes will be limited to 5 people and all sessions will adhere to strict social distancing guidelines. There will be beginner, intermediate and advanced sessions to suit every level of experience, and anyone is welcome to come along!

Each lesson is designed to boost all areas of attendees’ guitar playing and knowledge covering everything from scales, modes, fretboard and general music theory, and chord knowledge, to covering genre and guitarist appreciation and learning how to jam with your favourite songs and in a band setting; Aaron will cover it all!  

Dates:
Week 1: 6th, 7th, 8th of July
Week 2: 20th, 21st, 22nd of July
Week 3: 3rd, 4th, 5th of August
Week 4: 10th, 11th, 12th of August.  

Prices:
£65 a week per person OR £240 for 4 weeks

To book your place, contact Aaron Wilson on any of the following:
07932071121 | [email protected]www.aarronwilsonguitarlessons.com

About Aaron Wilson

Aaron is a lead guitarist, guitar tutor and session musician based in Edinburgh, about to complete his HND qualification at AMS Edinburgh. Aaron has been a lover of music for as long as he can remember, starting his musical journey at just 7 years old with his very first guitar. He has been passionately dedicated to playing and progressing with guitar in all ways ever since!  Aaron has studied guitar at multiple different music institutions, such as the Academy of Music and Sound Edinburgh, and Morningside School of Music, and also currently teaches guitar for the Leith School of Music.

With a range of experience in several forms of music, including Blues, Rock, Metal, Jazz, Fusion, and Finger-Style Acoustic, Aaron has become a proficient, young teaching professional, confident tutoring many styles. He also has experience in the live music scene too, having performed within various bands and as a session musician. 

Instagram page@aaron_wilzo
Facebook PageAaron Wilson Music
Websitewww.aaronwguitarlessons.com


Steg G recommends. . .

During our recent interview with the Scottish hip-hop artist and academic Steg G, Steg recommended to us a few of his favourite Scottish rappers, hip-hop artists and musicians. A mini who’s-who of Scottish hip-hop for those who hadn’t heard it before. We’ve listed his top 3 here. Scroll down to find out where to go first for your Scottish hip-hop fix….

Empress

Empress is one of Scotland’s finest female MC’s. With an impressive freestyle repertoire, and an empowering stage presence – she really knows what she’s doing. Having collaborated with the likes of Steg G and Loki, Empress is really making waves in the scene, and we can be sure to expect great things from her in the near future. With a great flow, beats and rhymes, she is a natural talent and we’re excited to see what she bring to the stage next. As Steg says, she’s simply a “fire rapper”.

Listen on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, or Spotify.

Stanley Odd

Stanley Odd are an experimental and alternative hip-hop collective. They are know for playing around with and combining instrumentation, with samples, loops and raps. It’s no surprise Steg recommends them as one of our 3 go-to artists.

Formed in 2009, the band have supported acts such as Arrested DevelopmentSage Francis and The View, and played at major Scottish festivals T in the Park and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Street Party. Their first album was released in May 2010 on Circular Records. Their self-released follow-up, Reject, was shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year Award 2013, and A Thing Brand New in 2014.

See more on their website.

Loki The Scottish Rapper

Loki (AKA Darren McGarvey) might be best known now for is TV and media appearances, plus social work and books, but as Steg reminds us, at his heart he’s a hip-hop head, and a talented one at that.

McGarvey was brought up in Pollok on the south side of Glasgow, and went on to study Journalsim – now well known for his social commentary. Between 2004 and 2006, he wrote and presented eight programmes about the causes of anti-social behaviour and social deprivation for BBC Radio Scotland. McGarvey has worked with youth organisation Volition in the past, teaching young people to rap, and in 2012 he led a workshop as part of a PowerRap competition for schools, encouraging young people to explore important issues through music and language.

But as Steg says, his actual hip-hop is also top tier. And we highly recommend you check it out.

Listen on Bandcamp now.


HANG, Scotland’s first hip hop and grime conference unveils full programme

The full programme is unveiled for HANG (Hip-Hop Aimed Networking with Grime), Scotland’s first ever hip hop and grime conference. The event is also asking for applications from artists to perform at a live showcase. 

Introducing HANG, Scotlands very first music industry conference dedicated solely to the hip-hop and grime scene currently flourishing in the country. Taking place online (1100-2000) and live (2000-2200) at Glasgow’s SWG3 on Saturday 31st July, HANG aims to empower members of Scotland’s hip hop and grime communities and celebrate the diversity of voices reflecting the country in the 21st-century. AMS are also proud to be one of the many sponsors and supporters of the inaugural event.

The all-day educational and cultural programme will see key speakers Tiffany Calver, host of BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Rap Show, Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) winner Nova, Aberdeen MC Ransom FA and Orwell Prize winner Darren McGarvey (AKA Loki the Scottish Rapper) all joined by experts from the industry, community organisations and artists from across Scotland.

New names revealed for HANG include Jill Brown, founder of Scotland’s first label for ex-offenders, broadcaster, musician and champion of new Scottish music Vic Galloway; Henca Maduro, founder of Europe’s largest urban music conference New Skool Rules; Khaleda Noon, the award-winning director of Intercultural Youth Scotland and Zander Whitehead (aka Fliptrix) founder of stalwart UK hip hop label High Focus Records.

Open to all ages and abilities, from fan to established artist, HANG’s free programme of workshops gives insight into the core elements of hip hop culture such as breakdancing with Tesko and Shelltoe Mel of Glasgow dance group TheDimeStop; spoken word with EmpressDave HookBecci Wallace and Washington, and DJ-ing with Steg G and DIJA.

Throughout the day, participants can watch the premiere of graffiti artist Rogue One re-creating the HANG logo in the iconic setting of Glasgow’s SWG3 where the event will culminate with a live showcase from Nova (the Edinburgh artist behind Re-Up, the first grime record to win the SAY Award) rising Dundee artist and SAMA winner India Ros3, Ayrshire rapper BemzMistah Bohze of Glasgow’s label Southside Deluxe, and two artists invited to perform exclusively for the event.

Darren McGarvey says: “HANG presents one of the first opportunities for artists from different generations, social backgrounds and genres to come together and share in a collective experience. Hip hop culture in Scotland is well developed, but not well integrated. This leaves many artists feeling like they exist on the outside and that the action is all happening somewhere else. HANG, in my view, could be a way to smash this perception, by supporting people to realise the truth – together we are stronger.”

HANG aims to empower artists with the skills to take charge of their careers with a series of free panel discussions on topics such as how to pitch your music to radio with Galloway, Go Radio’s Aarti Joshi and Delaina Sepko of Sunny G’s Beats & Breaks show; what platforms best support hip hop and grime with Henca Maduro, Clash Magazine editor Robin Murray and Sami Omar, founder of Glasgow-based music platform Up2standard; and how to monetise your music with Zander Whitehead (Fliptrix), Susan Montgomery of 23rd Precinct Music Publishing and Kwame Safo of the PRS Foundation’s Power Up initiative to support Black music creators and professionals.

McGarvey, Sinkler and Ransom FA – presenter of BBC THREE’s UK-wide Rap Tour – will begin the day with a discussion on the history of hip hop in Scotland, chaired by journalist Arusa Qureshi.

Partnered by Creative Scotland, HANG is presented by the Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMA), which is a signatory of the PRS’s Keychange commitment to include 50% of women and underrepresented genders by 2022 in programming, staffing and beyond.

The last discussion of the day will feature Calver exploring her career from blogger to becoming the first female host of BBC Radio 1Xtra’s The Rap Show with BBC Introducing in Scotland presenter and artist Shereen Cutkelvin.

Further challenging preconceptions about hip hop and grime will be a discussion on the importance of the genres to the wider community with Karen Dunbar (the comedian fronted hip hop workshops over lockdown), Intercultural Youth Scotland founder Khaleda Noon, Donna Boyd of Making Recovery Visible and Jill Brown, founder of Conviction Records.

The group will discuss how hip hop and spoken word informs their own approaches to community engagement, from its role in dry club nights, collaborative performances with refugees, songwriting workshops in prisons and more. Brown found a majority of inmates she worked with were drawn to hip hop. That’s a reflection of the genre’s burgeoning popularity but also how hip hop values authentic, unique voices.

Brown says: “I set up my label at the end of last year after leading songwriting workshops for young men in Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison. Hip hop culture, and its many musical forms, plays a crucial role in the lives of many of those on the margins of society in Scotland and this event recognises this. You can’t underestimate the power of giving people a voice.”

HANG comes at a time when hip hop and grime can no longer be relegated to the edges of Scottish culture.

“Hip hop in Scotland has been developing for as long as hip hop itself,” says McGarvey. “But it has been criminally under-studied and reported due to a fixation on the part of Scotland’s cultural institutions on more traditional forms of art and music. The truth is, Scotland’s cultural image and standing will benefit immensely from embracing hip hop rather than treating it like a dirty little secret.

“In a nation where experts scratch their heads, desperate to ‘engage’ young people in creativity and literacy, hip hop provides endless opportunities and some of the world’s best practitioners.”

 

Artist invitation

Two artists are invited to perform sets at HANG at Glasgow’s SWG3 on Saturday 31st July 2021. Artists are asked to submit a link to two tracks plus a short biography to [email protected] before 5pm on Friday 18th June.

 

Tickets

Tickets are available from 9am on Wednesday 9th June from Eventbrite.

Day passes for the online activities are free, and tickets to attend the socially-distanced evening showcase are £5 plus booking fee.

All day time programming will be available for free on @officialSAMA Facebook & YouTube channels. For the full programme visit officialsama.com/hang