Grief and music

The work now is the willingness to propose grief as a radicle political alertness to life, that is not a drag, is not sad, that the power of grief deepens the capacity of being alive. It is the realisation that it is not going to last. Steven Jenkinson.
 

This guy is one of the most profound speakers that I have ever heard and he is dealing with the idea of grief. He worked with hundreds of people in the last days of their life dealing with their fears and thoughts and I find hear something very powerful.

Music is a way of exploring emotions that we would rather keep at a distance. However keeping emotions unrealised can lead to problems. This is an area that for some of us can be a good way of developing your work; people exploring their own ideas musically with some prospect of self-healing. The idea of music therapy is not new but I think that it is something worth considering even as a stress buster for professional people who would rather not go to a therapist.

I have always found music a potent force for dealing with life’s twists and turns and I know of a number of people who sight playing a musical instrument helping them not having another breakdown (their words not mine). The idea of exploring grief and maybe writing something of an experience and making something artistic and beautiful out of it is a positive way of transforming shadows into something very powerful. Think Leonard Cohen.

Vic

 

 

 

"There’s a plague of sameness that is killing human joy." Zita Cobb

I have been reading Marx recently, as you do, and I have found his ideas deeply interesting. Some aspects are deeply flawed but there are many ideas that we should be thankful for.

He was most definitely someone who lived what he believed and wrote about; spending most of his adult life in totally poverty and because of his writings he was exiled from Germany and France and ended up here.

He and Engels formulated a way of understanding capitalism and  proposed an answer to it which led us in many ways to the national health system, a shorter working day and all of the things that the unions fought for and won in the 60’s and 70’s and he should be applauded for this.

It is easy for commentators to ridicule Marxism but without his ideas many of the great musical ideas would not have happened. He was an important source of inspiration for artists here and America in the 50’s and 60’s and the Americans had to run the gauntlet of the McCarthy witch hunts for their beliefs.

I am always inspired by people who are passionate in what they believe, those who make their beliefs become their lives; something that sadly  the majority do not do anymore.

Marx was not cut from the same cloth as of those around him, he was truly different. The irony was that his ideas through Stalinism made people have to all become the same but that was not Marx’s intention, but the corrupting influence of Stalin and the Bolsheviks.

For us, both in art and the teaching of it, the worst thing is to be like everyone else, it is the kiss of death, you must be different, you must find something that you believe in and then live it. Maybe this is the lesson of someone like Karl Marx; make your life become what you believe. 

Vic

 

Enjoy life play in a rock band

 

Visit www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zen and the art of cheese making

I learn to make cheese the other day. It is like alchemy, you take these ingredients and they become something else; true magic.

I do these things because I am always exploring the nature of creativity; it gives me insights into the magic of music and the human spirit. This I have always believed has given me a different perspective to the other teachers around me and when I watch some of my past pupils play, whether it is with local bands or famous artists I can see that they have found the magic, the holy grail of their creativity.

I cannot however  teach that stuff, they have to find it for themselves but I can help them to find where to look and that is something that all the crazy things that I have done has helped me to understand.

All of the things that we do as humans expresses what we are as beings and the Zen masters understood this hence you can as a spiritual practice sweep the floor, prepare food, do the washing, play a musical instrument or make cheese. 

So let me suggest that the next time that you teach someone to play the guitar you are setting them on a road to liberation. No pressure then.

Vic

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money. Karl Marx

Maybe this could be said of musicians because great music and art often comes from those that are hungry, angry and driven by a passionate belief. Very rarely does great art come from one looking to make lots of money.
I have been preparing for a couple of projects that are coming up, one of these is the course making money from music and the other is a gig that I am doing with two good friends and great musicians which is mostly improvised.
In the first of these I am looking to help those musicians to get the balance between the money making and the creating and making the crossover, the twilight zone where both can happen. For me it is all about the attitude that you need to make money, get the attitude right and it functions as a successful business and that puts food on the table, BUT to make great art and music you need to be driven by desire and passion and not by money therefore you also need projects that are not focused on the money but on the creativity. That is not to say that these projects will not eventually lead to financial reward but that is not the driver and I do have a couple of interesting techniques to make things happen (you will need to come along for those).
The second of these is playing with musicians who can read one another and that is pure magic but of course you need to sell tickets to pay everyone. The focus then is on the experience of the crowd, the fact that they will see something very special, people who will take a song and create something different and because the musicians are on the very edge and pushing that edge the members of the audience if they are learning music get the chance to study this and bring that into their own experience of playing. However the players are doing it for the fun of the playing and the danger of it all going wrong and going right!
Vic

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

I often get my pupils to sit and listen to Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters, and as the riff repeats and the crowd get whipped up into a frenzy I ask them one simple question ‘Why does something so simple work like this?’ if they can answer this question they have an insight to what makes music tick.

I think this is one of the truths of art that it is an emotive power and not an intellectual one. Yet we chew the cud over the scales,  chords and structure and all of that stuff, but at the end of the day a piece of music has to comes out and either grab you by the throat, heart or somewhere lower to have you in its power.

Teaching is more like taking people on a journey that enables them to discover this for themselves, when discovered you then realise it has been staring you in the face all of the time and now it seems so obvious but before it eluded you.

So have a listen to the music that really grabs you that is simple and feel why it works then use that information in your playing.

 

Vic

 

 

 

 

Make Money from Music course

On the 20^th October I am running a course about making money from music and it will look at building a business involving playing and teaching and creating streams of income that support one another.
The whole idea of this is an extension to the teaching that I do and that many of my pupils go on to play and teach, and like all things you can fall into the same traps that we all do trying to run a small business.
Many errors that are made are due to the fundamental attitude of running a business. You might not fail because you are a bad musician but you will fail because you are bad at business or bad at communicating.
I think the reason that I have lasted so long is that I am quite good at building a rapport with pupils and this does give me an advantage over a number of other teachers that I know, none of whom are guitarists I hasten to add.
If you are interested in attending contact me on vichyland@msn.com  the cost is only £50 for the day and this will repay itself many times over.
Vic

Discovery using old technology

I like to spend time watching and talking to musicians who play music unfamiliar to me, I find their music inspiring and on many occasions incredible and gives me new ideas about my music and my teaching practices.
Stepping outside ones comfort zone is very important for the process of learning and yet it is the very thing that we are not doing and as a society it is becoming endemic that we are ring fencing what we know. This is happening in a way that you may not spot because it is happening all around you; I will sum up it in two words, Google and Amazon.
As a kid I spent lots of time in the library and one of my favourite books as a child was an encyclopaedia. I had and still do have a fascination for new ‘facts’ and ideas and I have always made a point of looking at things in circles. I looked at circles that touched the circle of what I knew and then moved into a circle that touched that, so as an example I might look up the Roman empire which would take me to the Greeks and then to the myths and then to Hindu myths and then meditation and then to Ayurveda and so on.
Also you would stumble by ‘accident’ on something you really did not know so you might in a library see a book that was put back in the wrong place etc. this does not happen if you follow the rules of Amazon because they suggest books to you based on what you have browsed or have bought so it reinforces what you already think. Now if you throw dice to determine what you did well that would really open up the possibilities of learning!
Google gives you things that are chronological common in your searches so you get the stuff that others are searching, now for someone who is rather weird like me that is not what one wants. I know that raising your profile through traffic on twitter and Facebook makes it possible for you to compete in the traffic online easier (!) but not for discovery in something old which brings me back to the book found in a second hand shop or in the library. Let us face it that was the old World Wide Web maybe it could help you to discover things and be creative in ways that may in the near future be different from the crowd.
Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk one day course in October to make money from music contact for details

Someone is controlling your life and guess what, it isn’t you….. at the moment.

I was preparing for a course that I am running next week which explores creative techniques of playing music and within that I wanted to show how much we are controlled by the outside world.
Richard Bandler says that it is not a case of ‘can I be put into a trance but more a case of what trance am I in?’ We move from one trance state to another and the trick is to be able to choose your trance and it not to be dictated by someone else.
As an experiment I used a technique which I have used before, but speeded up, where my partner managed to make her memory of the colour of the front door of a previous home disappear, in fact the door in her memory vanished so as she thought of the house it had no front door. This took about three minutes to achieve.
Music is such a great way of exploring the unconscious and to be great artists we need to develop that muscle of creativity. One of the first things that we need is to get out of the straight jacket that society has put us in. Start by dreaming what you want and then present it as already happened, this puts it into our unconscious, and then let it fly. Strangely being detached from this emotionally at this point works a bit like buying something online, the emotion is there before the purchase, once you have confirmed the sale forget about it; it is going to be posted anyway.
What the unconscious does is spot opportunity, because you have not 'forgotten the colour of the front door' and therefore you can 'see' opportunity because you are empowered, remember the whole system of society is wrapped up in disempowerment; education, health, wealth creation, getting old, everything.
When you realise the doctors look sicker than you and the teachers who are teaching your children are not the sort of people that you would let plan your life based on their wisdom as many are fresh out of university so why are they the fonts of knowledge for you most precious thing, your child? And why are the politicians who make the decisions such bunch of self-opinionated ego obsessed twits? Because we supposedly are not clever enough to be in control ourselves so we have given it to some asshole from Eton. How did we get there? Well when we build people to be aware of their genius and use all the resources to honour that then we will build great societies of creative people, people who will make decisions about what they are good at not being manipulated into doing science because 'we need more scientists or engineers' who are the 'we' anyway?
Back to the creative musicians, put to one side the stuff that you have programmed that limits you and start with a new belief, not that you need to be saved by a beneficent god or saviour that is all part of the control. Ancient people did not believe this, they believed that they worked in harmony with their gods and in many cases their gods where fallible and had weakness like us in fact we could become gods in their eyes. That to me sounds a great idea and maybe for all of us to become rock gods, goddesses and guitar deities; sounds like a good place to start dreaming.
Vic


 Check out www.bluescampuk.co.uk for three days of being a Rock musician

Which came first the chicken or the egg? Answer, the dinosaur.

Often we get into a state of circular thinking where one situation is linked to another and vice versa, one perpetuating another or even precluding another; you are unable to move on without breaking the circle.
In such situations the answer lies outside of that loop as in the case of the chicken and the egg, whose answer if you go back far enough was the dinosaur but it is also a lateral thinking answer as well.
An example of one of these loops is the belief that someone is not musical and therefore they are not able to develop their abilities because they are not musical. How do you get good at playing a musical instrument if you first do not believe that you are able to become good enough? The fact is that EVERYOONE is musical and when I say musical and do not mean being able to play the guitar like someone else because that is mimicry. We can all speak but we do not all impersonate other people like a Rory Bremner or a John Sessions.
The deeper that one studies thought the stranger it becomes especially when you factor in hypnotic language patterns in the media which are influencing you, as well as the strange effect played by food and drink on your mind; the research into funguses and bacteria really make you wonder who is doing the thinking (I will return to this another time).
Breaking circular thinking requires us to hold an idea outside of the loop which is why lateral thinking can be effective as we are made to stand outside of the circle and look in.
There is a Buddhist quote about thoughts being clouds floating across the sky of the mind. If you take that analogy further clouds are formed by things that are not clouds, sea, wind, thermal currents, water vapour, heat etc. SO, our thoughts might be ‘created’ by forces outside of our own minds? When you change your belief patterning you become open to other influences creating new thermals and weather patterns to create new clouds of consciousness. For us the trick is to nudge these in the direction of travel that we desire.
Pattern breaking is what makes a great artist, Picasso, Hendrix, Miles Davis and Paganini where not great because they copied others they were great because they were different, something not encouraged in education where conformity is the pattern.
Be yourself. Break circular patterns that do not help you and remember that music in one form or another was here before the dinosaurs. Oh very deep.
Vic

check out www.bluescampuk.co.uk
Have a look at the pictures of this years rock stars, you could do that next year. Special deals available contact me for details through the site

You are only a few steps away….

At Bluescampuk this year we had a number of guests visit and jam with the campers
Chas Hodges came down on the Friday as did a good friend and session bass player Chis Dagger.
Chas played through lots of old rock and roll material with the attendees and also played through some of his hits finishing with London Girls. Chris Dagger came down so he could jam with Chas as he has been a fan of Chas and Dave for years.
Chris is currently working with Lianne La Havas and had just returned from a tour of America before playing at Glastonbury. After Bluescampuk Chris went home and we received a text saying ‘got in and Lianne is on the phone to Prince as he is in town.’
One of the things that we like to get across to the campers is that you are so close to what you believe is impossible you just have to change your beliefs and the world will change. By getting close to others and then making connections we then bring their connections closer, this is the principle of the Six degrees of separation that Milgram proposed back in the 60’s where you are only six connections away from anyone.
Maybe this is due to the choices we make or maybe because we have different filters set up we then see new opportunities to achieve what we now believe is possible just by changing your ideas and then asking and making contacts.
Later in the evening Chris sent another text saying ‘Just borrowed and jacket and shoes from a stranger and managed to get into a private club. Just chillin with Prince.’ So maybe borrowing clothing may be good as well.
Vic

Check out the website
www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Making money from teaching and playing

Want to earn money from playing and teaching maybe you want to earn more?

Now is your chance!

 

Making money from teaching and playing

Sunday 20^th October Hadlow in Kent. 10 till 4

Over thirty five years of experience in music and running my own teaching practice. Now I am going to show you how to make money from music.  In that time I have taught thousands of people,  I exam here and abroad, I write books and promote my musical interests. I have learnt many things in that time that are not found in books, the tricks of the trade if you will. They are the communication skills, the marketing ideas the business techniques that make the difference between it being a hobby and making money.

This has been motivated in part by the economic climate because a few of my pupils have asked me so they can make money and I thought it was time that I put this information out.

You might be thinking to yourself ‘ I could go and buy a book about this’, and you could but I does not get to the real facts and points that I cover in the seminar 'making money from teaching and playing' because a book can only go so far. In this seminar I cut to the chase and pack the information for you not only that you will become part of a network so you can share ideas and ask questions.

My other fascination apart from music is that of business and marketing and I have read literally hundreds of books and listened to hours and hours of talks on business and marketing. I have interviewed successful businessman and then written a book on the subject.

For me running a successful business as a musician is down to the business and not the music because you could be the best but if no one knows you or you are a bad communicator you will not succeed.

You may know many great bedroom musicians, you may be one yourself but I want you to go out into the outside world and make money!

Now the economic climate is tough also means paradoxically that you have an opportunity to start or develop your business and because you have to think about pricing and value you will have a stronger business for it.

For those of you already earning money from music this seminar will be able to help you lock your musical skills together to make money. This is a skill that I am good at because I had to be and I learnt the hard way so take the opportunity to learn from the thousands of pounds of my investment and get yourself increasing your income.

We will cover these and many other points…

How to set up as a teaching

What you need

How to get into teaching at schools.

Do I need a teaching diploma?

Book keeping and tax information

How to advertise ... For free

How to increase 'share of wallet'

Lesson Ideas, making them inspiring and original.

Writing reports.

Getting gigs to pay in more ways

How performing and teaching can develop one another and increase your cash flow

How to think as a business person not a hobbyist

How to price your product

Set up courses

Sell online

Teach on the Internet .. And much more

 

I have over the years invested £1000's in training and study and all your investment will be is £50 in something that will generate increased income.

A free copy of 'the art of creativity' on CD

 

Contact me to book your place. 07976405561 or vichyland@msn.com

 

 

 

 

Time for change

Socrates was sitting outside the gates of Athens when a man comes up to him. The man says ‘I am thinking of moving to Athens; what is it like living here?’ Socrates looks up and asks him ‘I would gladly tell you but answer me one question; what is it like where you live now?
The man replied ‘Terrible! The people are back stabbers and thieves, I will be leaving no friends behind me only enemies’ Socrates frowned ‘Well you had best be on your way because you will only find the same thing here in Athens.’
Later a second man approached who was considering moving to Athens. Once again the philosopher asked him of his previous experience of his home town. The man smiled and said ‘Where I come from the people all work together and help each other. Kindness is everywhere and you are always treated with respect. ‘Welcome to Athens’, smiled Socrates, ‘you will find the same thing here.’
How we see the world and the people around us is all to do with our programming and our beliefs. When people come to me to learn music I often reach a point where they meet themselves on the road and that is their biggest obstacle. Their beliefs are the only thing holding them back. What people believe about their abilities and failings are the things that need to be looked at and the more education someone gets the worse they are.
These programmes that run are put in by others, family, teachers, friends and then the outside world think about it they were not even your own thoughts! Maybe it is time to get the programming you deserve; yours.
So start by changing what you believe; if it is negative and you find it ‘truthful’, remember all hypnotic programming seems truthful BECAUSE is it hypnotic; fake it and then give it time and see what happens, trust me things will change.
It is time to take control and let the rock star out.

Vic

check out www.bluecampuk.co.uk

Sorrow and grief are like the compost of change, plant the seed of love in the compost.- Satish Kumar

Be the change you want in the world. - Ghandi

Focus on the change that you want, focus on what you want in the music that you are producing, and remember that all music comes from the fact that there is silence. We have love because there is hate, we see them as different but in fact they are the same thing but just different aspects, different polarities.

Day and night are both parts of the day; this brings us to the ridiculousness of continued economic growth as this is not natural. The politicians need to get to the basics of the nature of things and make sure that we start to flow with the way that is more holistic.

There will be periods of growth and periods of decline and if we are aware of these things then all the better, however the political system is not set up for this, what it is set up for is the few possessing the most with the many possessing the little; this is unsustainable and in time will change.

 Over the last few years there has been a recurring theme of the rich feathering their nests at the expense of the others and this is not going unnoticed with movements like the ‘Occupy Movement’. Again this is not new and there has to be poverty in the world just for the reasons that I have outlined above but there has to be change and balance not stagnation. 

We are entering a new phase of change and it can be the most creative time for the arts, think back to the decades of the 60’s and 70’s and of the way that music developed in those times of unrest.

Best that we work this out in the arts!

Vic 

 

 

The daily grind

I am a shaman, come in guise of a comic, in order to heal perception by using stories and jokes, and always the voice of reason…..

If comedy is an escape from anything it is an escape from illusions. The comic, by using the voice of reason, reminds us of our True Reality, and in that moment of recognition, we laugh, and the reality of the daily grind is shown for what it really is – unreal – a joke. - Bill Hicks

Back in the 1960’s music was a force for change and it was again in the 1970’s with Punk and Two Tone. Today it seems that most people are rather tranced-out and things seem to be going along with no one seeing what is happening. More and more things are being taken away from ordinary people and being placed in the hands of big business and the authorities.

Take schooling for instance; they are now more like businesses than places to learn, with some schools running several others like some form of corporate takeover. This is bloody ridiculous but no one seems to think it is, surely schooling has some aspect of locality to it so how can a school from a different area take over and know the aspects of that school.

It seems that any comment made that would have been fine down the pub in a matter of fact way now being delivered on the internet can result in the authorities moving in, well I am suspicious of them as well. I have NEVER believed in the well-meaning nature of the police or the ruling class and this is from a white guy; I just wonder how I would have felt if I was black and I had lived in Brixton in my early years.

I think that music and humour still has and maybe has even more a role a play to prick the bubble of pomposity of the authorities of this country, the USA and Europe as they are not only manipulating and corrupt but also inept.

So Bill as in all things the true nature of things shows itself in time and the daily grind is still grinding on.

Vic

 

RGT Electric Guitar Exams - Grade 3, Grade 4 & Grade 5

After the next election the taxes will go up whoever gets in, no matter what they say when they are trying to get your vote.

So many of the structures of society such as politics and government, health and the education system is based on an industrial model; this model is outmoded and we need to rethink, however the situation is like the guy who driving his car through Cornwall asks a farmer how to get the Midlands to which the farmer answers, ‘Best not to start from here’.  We have trapped ourselves into a system that is expensive and dysfunctional and part of the problem is that within the political arena, the country is being governed by people that really are out of touch and therefore many of the dictates that are handed down from on high are misjudged and in many cases are divisive. How can the political classes many of whom have had an elitist education understand, maybe because they are experts! Certainly not experts in scratching a living and making ends meet.

No one likes to pay taxes and Benjamin Franklin said that the only fair and successful way to run a taxation system was to run a lottery. But our taxes are being used to prop up the banks and the armed forces in an attempt to carry on punching above our weight on the world stage, maybe it is time to step back and not get so involved, not so interesting to the politician who wants to make their mark in the sands of history. They need to remember they are sands not rocks

Maybe there is a song in this.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk  play in a band for three days

 

 

 

 

Change the context, change reality.

Language is not merely a device for communicating ideas about the world, but rather a tool for bringing the world into existence in the first place. Reality is not simply ‘experienced’ or ‘reflected’ in language but is actually produced by language. – Terence McKenna.

Our world is set in a contextual reference and this is a way of not only exploring ‘reality’ it is also a way of trapping us in a hypnotic state within a ‘reality’.

Music expresses this brilliantly where the context of the music will set the parameters of what is possible with the music such as what sounds correct in classical and what then sounds possible in blues and Jazz and so on. What is impossible in one form of music is possible in another by the change of the parameters of the context. In certain forms of music every note is possible whereas in other forms they would sound wrong.

This is true with ‘reality’, change the context then things become acceptable and also not only possible but the norm; war for instance makes death and destruction the norm which they is not in peace.

Listen to the speeches of leaders leading up to war and see how language changes the context that people are living in preparing them for a different reality.

If you think this is not the thing that is consistently happening by the powers that be think again listen very carefully to the news and think about what they are telling you and ask yourself two questions; Why this and why now?

Now I have set the mood now here is how to change this go and listen to the great shape shifters of consciousness in music, Bob Marley and John Lennon. Music has REAL power let us use it.

Vic

 

www.bluescampuk.co.uk 

 

Agents and making money from metal hopefuls.

For me doing a concert is a form of advertising and therefore I am not a wholly dependent upon playing to earn a living. I have always found that the publicity attracted by playing can be far more valuable than the actual amount of money that you will earn from doing them so therefore I tend to do fewer but larger gigs and try to do as much advertising to maximise my time.

I have recently become aware of the amount of money some young players are paying ‘agents’ to get them gigs it seems particularly rife in the Heavy Metal scene. It costs somewhere in the region of £150 a month for the band for gigs in this country and then extra for gigs abroad where these so called tours are costing each member of a band a grand to do the tour of Europe for a week. What a con this is. These high profile gigs at prestigious venues are nothing of the sort; it is the same old story of the A and R men being in the audience, what rubbish!

They could have done this themselves and spent the money on promotional work but it takes years of experience to see through this patter. It is the same old thing; get out there and play, promote yourself get your name about, create a fan base, do not expect someone to do it for you.

It seems that even when people go to college they still fall into this trap, perhaps the courses should cover some of the aspects of what to watch out for.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk  learn to play in three days

 

 

Something Missing?

‘To the world that modern science fostered and shaped now appears to have exhausted its potential.  It is increasingly clear that, strangely, the relationship is missing something.  It fails to connect with the most intrinsic nature of reality, and with natural human experience.  It is now more of a source of disintegration and doubt that the source of integration and meaning.  It produces what amounts to a state of schizophrenia.  Man as observer is becoming alienated from himself as a being.  Classical modern science described only the surface of things, a single dimensional of reality.  And the more dogmatically science treated it as the only guy mention, as the very essence of reality, the more misleading it became.  Today for instance we may know immeasurably more about the universe than our ancestors did, and yet, it increasingly seems that they knew something more essential about it than we do, something that escapes us.  The same is true of nature and ourselves.  The more thoroughly all our organs and their functions, their internal structure and the biochemical reactions that take place within them are described, the more we seem to fail to grasp the spirit, purpose and meaning of the system that they create together and that we experience as their unique self’.  Vaclav Havel the first President of the Czech Republic.

 

Reductionist thinking reduces us to a closed mind in any area of endeavour remember the mind is like a parachute it works best when it is open. This seems to be lost on the education system not just here but in most countries; what we need now is diversity and flexibility of thinking.

Vic

 

www.bluescampuk.co.uk  Play in a rock band for three days

 

All people are musical it is just the way that music is taught that is the problem.

I was listening to Hugh Laurie on the radio a few days ago on Desert Island discs and he made the statement that he had a number of piano lessons as a kid but gave up having the lessons and carried on learning by himself.
He is a good amateur player and I suppose that now you could say he is a good professional as he has two best-selling albums out but the point that he went on to say was that when his children had lessons the way that music was taught was still as bad.
I see lots of music teaching and because of the way that schools function and I would in this respect point the finger at independent  and grammar schools in particular, the focus on the classical style puts most children off learning an instrument altogether.
For me learning classical music was like doing a Shakespeare play whereas playing contempory music such as rock, blues and jazz was like having a chat and learning to become fluent in the language  and carrying that analogy further most  do not like Shakespeare they would rather have a chat with their mates.
So pick and an instrument and start talking through it.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

three days playing in a rock band