Who are we and what we do? John Reid-Hansen is a guitar and drum teacher in the Thame, Aylesbury and High Wycombe area of England. With over 35 years experience as a performing and composing musician, John has managed bands, stage managed gigs and worked as musical director for stage musicals. Working with his wife, Annabelle, who is a vocalist with classical training as well as being an accomplished musician and administrator, they run the Nodding Snail Studio. The studio has keyboards, drums, guitar amps and a PA as well as the ability to record onto Sonar 7. Please contact John or Annabelle for our latest prices for recording. Part or full day recording is available. Full day recording also includes lunch and mineral water. Advice and coaching is also available for soloists and bands. Why do we do it? Music is a God given gift which should be shared. creating music and playing musical instruments is within the grasp of everybody and anybody. If you can walk along, left, right, left, right without the need to hop skip and jump, then you can keep a rhythm. If you can detect when a note goes up or down then you can hear pitch... The rest is up to you. There are millions of musical instruments in the world. From blowing to plucking, bowing to hitting, there's an instrument out there just waiting for you to play it. If you have music in your heart... let it out and share it with others. There are loads of books and CDs to choose from that will get you started. and some really good tutorials on the internet. If you have some time and a bit of spare cash why not invest in some private lessons? Instead of looking at the people on the stage who are entertaining you... become a person on the stage and entertain others. Why learn to read music? If you were given the job of inventing a language that all musicians, from any country and origin, playing any musical instrument could read and understand. That is so accurate that even the tinyest internation and expression can be clearly comunicated I wonder what you'd come up with. Oh, and by the way... due to the fact that some ethnic groups don't have words and sentences, you're only allowed to use five horizontal lines and some black dots. Manuscript score is just that. It's a simple to read code that tells you where to place your fingers, how to pluck or blow or hit your instrumenta and to what rhythm. It's not rocket science, it's just a language that will enable you to join in with musicians from all over the world. Don't try to do too much too quickly. Take your time and, at your own speed, start with the basics and steadily increase your knowledge and understanding until, one day, you'll wake up and realise that you can do it.