Guitar Workshop

No Strings Attached

All Souls is a church that practices generosity and believes in giving back to the community. The group of 5 seasoned and skilled instructors have offered to give lessons to anyone interested, completely free of charge. You don't have to attend All Souls to sign up for the workshop.

What's included?

The workshop includes 10 sessions, for beginner and intermediate guitar students, and will focus on basic music understanding and theory, chord structure, and practice with playing songs.

Requirements

The workshop is open to anyone 12+ (registrants under 18 must have a parent/guardian fill out a waiver).

Lessons will be held on the first and third Thursday of the month, from 7-9pm, starting January 17. Please be sure you can commit to attend the workshop before signing up via the registration button below. If you're looking for a great start up guitar, we recommend this one!

ADAM FALCON has worked with and shared the stage with some of the brightest names in music. Some of those artists are Roberta Flack, Sophie B. Hawkins, Whitney Houston, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Jim Lauderdale, Robert Palmer, Peter Gabriel, and Nona Hendryx, just to name a few.

Stepping out on his own, he's opened for James Cotton Blues Band, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Ruthie Foster, The Wailers, Jim Lauderdale and Tower of Power. Writing Grammy Nominated songs for George Benson and having songs on national television got Falcon noticed by The Song Writers Hall of Fame, which honored him with the Abe Olman Scholarship Award for Songwriting.

JOHN SHEPITKA has always enjoyed music and listening to live bands. His love for music inspired him to learn to play guitar. He purchased his first 6-string acoustic when he was 16 years old and was soon after playing in coffeehouses. In 2004, a professional studio engineer designed and built a beautiful, full-functioning, three-room, professional recording studio in John's new home. John is currently writing and producing Christian songs and incorporating local talent to record them.

BARRY GRETZ started learning to play the early Beatles songs on guitar at the age of 12. As the Beatles progressed from strumming simple chords to fancy picking, more innovative chords and keyboard parts, Barry followed suit. Barry learned from the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Jack Bruce, John Entwhistle and Jack Casady, and acoustic stylings from Paul Simon, James Taylor and the occasional riff from the Prog Rock hits of the seventies. Barry's forte is music theory and his love is arranging and producing. He's one of the most knowledgeable musicians you'll meet, and has a true gift for teaching.

CHRIS BUTEUX grew up listening to all genres of music but was drawn to country, folk and blue grass. He's been playing guitar since he was a teen. Not being formally taught, most of the learning came from listening, then reproducing chord shapes, progressions and melody lines. Most of the music theory Chris learned came from playing the violin, which he has played off and on for years.

Chris served as the worship leader at a Messianic Jewish congregation for nearly 10 years. Also during this time, he discovered Irish music, and started playing Irish fiddle tunes with accompanying guitar parts. He, along with his daughters, studied Irish music. They took trips to Ireland and learned from and played with many of the best Irish musicians in the world. Chris can be seen playing gigs in the tri-state area, alongside his daughters, in the Irish Folk Band; Called Away.

KEVIN STEVENS started playing guitar at age 12, thanks to the urging and inspiration of his mom. She gave him Phil Keaggy’s first CCM record “What A Day”, and he was able to get some intro instruction from a guitar workshop in Mentor OH (where they lived then). Kevin received about a year of private lessons intermittently, but after getting “the bug” for guitar, he spent his middle school, high school and college years playing guitar with a broad array of other guitarists and bands.

In 1988 a young man asked if Kevin would be willing to play in a newly forming contemporary worship band. This opportunity reignited Kevin's playing after a hiatus during law school and early law practice.

Since 1988, Kevin has had the privilege of leading or playing in contemporary worship bands for three vibrant churches, in Rockland and Bergen Counties. He's played with the All Souls worship band for the past seven years and continues to date.