Navigator jazz guitar workshop with Max Zaska

Max Zaska is an Irish guitarist, songwriter, musical director, and producer known for his collaborations with Irish vocalists, including Hozier and many others. Max is Navigator Musician in Residence at Ballina Arts Centre for 2024. Young musicians aged 13–17 are invited to join him for a jazz guitar workshop on Friday July 12th from 10am–12pm at Ballina Arts Centre.

NB: Suitable for teenagers aged 13–17 with a couple of years of playing experience

"Hello, my name is Max Zaska. I’m a guitarist / composer / soul & jazz artist living in Kildare. I’m delighted to be hosting this guitar techniques workshop in Ballina and look forward to meeting all the local players. The aim is to advance your guitar playing by exploring harmony, soloing, guitar tone.. and to have a lot of fun too! Looking forward to seeing you all there, Max"

WORKSHOP OUTLINE

Guitar Soloing
We will begin with a simple jam in A minor to get everyone loosened up. Once we have a nice groove set up I will go around the room and ask everyone to do a very quick solo for me. We will then explore a few different ideas anyone can use to improvise over this.

Chords
I will then show you how to turn simple chords into more advanced 7th versions and start to sound a little jazzier. We will explore how to play these chords in different positions and keys and how this can help hugely with both songwriting and also improv too.

Guitar Tone
I’ll show you then how to get great tone out of your instrument using simple effects and how to position these in your effects chain. Everything can effect your tone from strings, picks, amps, pedals & guitars and we will explore all of the variations.

Rhythm
Lastly we will talk about the importance of rhythm and by treating your guitar like a percussion instrument, how you can sound a lot funkier. We will finish with a jam again and use all the concepts we have learned in the session.

Interested?

Booking will open soon.