Join the growing Guitar Orchestra making “beautiful noise” in Berwick-upon-Tweed

For musician, composer and teacher Chris Searle, one of the joys of creating music is making it up as you go along. It was this belief that led Chris to develop the idea for The Guitar Orchestra, a gathering of amateur and professional acoustic guitar players that could come together and make something beautiful.

Earlier this year, we awarded Chris funding through our Cultural Resource Hub Fund to create The Guitar Orchestra. Now, every Sunday at 6:15pm, Chris opens the doors to St. Aidan’s Hall in Berwick-upon-Tweed where he welcomes guitar players of all ages and all abilities. Together, they explore sound, melody and song construction, and at the end of their 90 minutes together, they record a piece of music.

Chris said: “I’ve been playing in improvised bands for a long time and I’ve always enjoyed the creative process of just trying things out. Obviously you need some structure to your playing, but for the most part you can have fun making it up as you go along.

“A lot of music is taught in a very formulaic and inaccessible way. I wanted to turn that on its head and create a place where musicians of all talents and abilities could learn from each other and organically, as a group, create a piece of music.”

With the weekly gatherings taking place until September, there are still lots of opportunities for people to get involved. In the sessions, Chris uses the pentatonic scale (a simple five-note scale that most people can play very easily) to create one cohesive sound that he calls a “beautiful noise”.

He continued: “Once people trust their own ability and just join in, you start to get amazing results. I love hearing the sounds of people just freeing themselves to play what comes naturally. There’s a beautiful naivety to how new musicians play their instruments and that complements the more experienced guitar players really well.”

Over the weeks The Guitar Orchestra has been meeting and playing, a lot of trust has developed within the ever-changing group. People begin to react and respond to other people’s playing; jamming along to the undulating sounds. As Chris explains, it’s important to be hands off and let things happen naturally.

“People often pick up on sounds that they identify and they’ll start having a little jam session with someone. It’s almost like a conversation using music.”

Chris is keen to continue The Guitar Orchestra after its run of Create Berwick-funded classes and involve even more people in the sessions. Some of the participants are also working on their own music projects with people they’ve met at St. Aiden’s Hall.

If you’d like to see The Guitar Orchestra in action, they’ll be performing at two local events this summer – Amped Festival (31 July – 01 August) and Heritage Festival (12 September).

And if you’d like to be part of The Guitar Orchestra yourself, the group meets every Sunday at 6:15pm at St. Aidan’s Hall in Berwick-upon-Tweed. No booking is required, just pop along with your acoustic guitar in hand and create beautiful compositions with other Berwick-based musicians. It doesn’t matter what your playing level is – everyone is invited!

To find out more and see videos from previous Guitar Orchestra meet-ups, head to The Guitar Orchestra’s official Facebook page.

The Guitar Orchestra is funded by Create Berwick, Northumberland County Council and the
North East Mayoral Strategic Authority.