Brett Garsed visits London's Guitar Institute. Review by Robert Wallis

There was a quiet whispering around the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance last week "On Wednesday 14th March Brett Garsed will be giving a guitar masterclass!" Not only was Brett going to give a masterclass but he was also going to be playing live with three Institute teachers. Can they walk their talk I wondered?

* CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE TO WATCH VIDEO FOOTAGE FROM THE MASTERCLASS

Brett Garsed is a world class guitarist from Victoria, Australia, he is completely self taught and is seen as a god to many. The room at the Institute was packed and in walked a blonde 'Crocodile Dundee' with a guitar slung on his waist. Brett hooked up his guitar, smiled and started to play. His hands moved so smoothly, creating a fantastically clear and clean lyrical sound which invited me to sit back and enjoy the ride … and I certainly did! Brett astonishingly does sweep-picking with a pick and three fingers. He plays slide with a bottle poking over the end of his second finger and not only plays across the neck but diagonally as well! Bear in mind he does this all on an electric guitar. Brett can finger each note on the fret and at the same time hybrid finger-style with a bottleneck. Self-taught, his skill is just about unimaginable.

Brett talked for a while, he explained that although being told to do something in a certain way is often helpful; there is no point in investing time copying someone else as it will only leave us being a poor copy. He impressed on us the importance of finding our own sound by going through our own process of guitar discovery. Brett also talked about speed and licks, explaining that it is the melody which counts and the more he matures the less flashy licks he uses and the more uncluttered his playing becomes.

He then invited the Institute teachers Justin Scott, Dario Cortese and Terry Gregory to join him on stage and the masterclass went into the next gear! They played four songs and gave a perfect example of how wonderful accomplished musicians can sound together. Brett was like a brick up the front; solid and completely fluent. It was priceless for a student to see what is possible and without inspiration such as this I'd hang my guitar up. Learning to play the guitar is an incredible journey and I'd like to thank to Brett for bringing his magic to us!