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User: ChrisDowning
Name: Chris Downing
Email: coach@chrisdowning.co.uk
Website: http://www.chrisdowning.co.uk

I'm a full time guitar and bass player and have played guitar for 48 years and bass for 8. I've been using Rich's materials for over 11 years now. Played in a couple of bands in the mid sixties on the same bill as some pretty big bands, but decided it wasn't for me at that time and pursued a career in selling and marketing until 2002 when I returned to full time playing again. You can guess I'm over 60 from those dates (but younger than most of the Rolling Stones!) I teach in a local college most days (ages 12-18 yrs.), also teach a dozen youngsters at primary school (7-11 yrs.) and a handful of private students, who come to my home studio. I play in two bands - a classic rock trio called "Fat Freddie's Cat (The Cat) and a wedding and party duo called Cocktail-Rock (The Cock). With a new drum machine being programmed right now, these two are beginning to morph and blur into versions of each other - it's the venues that define them. With a strong grip on business approaches that work for commercial companies (my past career), I've recently started working on some new material and workshops aimed at helping musicians get more gigs, more money, and do it all with more fun and less stress. With the melt-down of traditional routes to market (record contracts, copyright protection, big agents, festival gigs, and radio and TV promotion) it's a great time to revisit how to become a successful musician.