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OK
Mike I like the look of you and I
believe
you, so just send me the FREE
Videos?
|
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Your
friendly manner is a breath of fresh
air and I (like many others I am sure) feel like I know you
~
I think you
have got it just right! I look
forward to opening my
e-mails every day in hope that there is another Mike Herbert's snippet.
You
have enough free material to keep us visiting
your site and
enough tempting material to make us part with our hard earned
cash.
~
I've
only just seen your first instructional
video and I've learned
more in 20 minutes than in the last 2 months.
~
"The
Best I've Seen!"
I
must
congratulate you on your
superb
choice of guitar tunes for us novices to have a go at. They seem to fit
the
part perfectly not too difficult and sound good to me even on my first
attempts. Having tried a few tutorial sites on the
internet
over the past 12 months yours is the best by far.
~
Thank
you
very much. Straight ahead and to the point. Love you!
~
Lovely
simple instruction, great
for a
beginner. Talented guy thanks for taking the time to do the videos
~
Great
teacher, keep up the good work. You're
the
best :D
I seem to learn so much faster
when you teach, please make more videos or upload some songs that you
have created if you haven't already :) thank you so much
~
I'm
sure
you get this a lot, but...you're a wonderful teacher. this is
helping me a lot.
~
You
are a
great teacher! Never seen such a clear explanation for a
beginner. Thanks for all the lessons.
~
Excellent
beginner blues tuition video. This is great
instruction, plain, simple and easy to understand. Thank you so much
for your time.
~
You
play well, speak well, film well, and teach well. Thanks a million
for your videos. All the best to you.
Mike,
Thank
you thank you thank you thank you.
I
can't tell you how much pleasure And
I love her
has given me in these few days. The FIRST piece I've ever been able to
play properly and almost from the word go.
I
always look at your
pieces and wonder at your ability to simplify things - but then at the
last moment spot a little chord I struggle with. With this
from
the
absolute beginning I could play it - though not as good as you
obviously.
After
12 months of my husband begging me to come downstairs
to play, I feel confident enough to play this in front of an audience -
albeit a not very critical one.
Thanks
again Mike - especially for your incredible generosity.
Pat
B. Wales
You can learn more online from here:
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Video
Loading...Please Wait a
moment |
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How
it works!
I
send you a series of
emails.
Each
of my emails has a link
to one of my FREE Acoustic
Guitar Lessons Video (like the ones in the video)
You
download each video that you like the look of, to your hard drive and play
them back as often as
you want.
Every
so often I'll let you know about other Guitar Video Lessons I produce, that
I think you might be
interested in.
You
PAY NOTHING
and can unsubscribe with a single click whenever you want.
|
Read
my own
'guitar learning' story
cc
 he
exact date has long
since gone from
my memory but I CAN still remember how good it felt AND more
importantly
how unlikely the situation was.
Picture
me now . . . I was 22 years old (I had hair) and had been playing guitar
for
less than 18 months.
(This was long before the creation of online acoustic guitar
lessons)
My
fulltime job, the one that fed the twin boys we had,
and kept the roof above our heads, was as a door to door insurance
agent. OK so it wasn't glamourous but it paid the mortgage on the tiny
house we had.
Most days I wore a cheap suit
and
travelled round on a 50cc motor cycle. Visiting clients in their own
homes and collecting their weekly premiums and trying (not very well in
those days, I sucked) to sell them more life/car/house insurance.
The
only
good part about that job was meeting people in the evenings and getting
to spend most of the daytime with my kids and indulging my new
found passion . . .
acoustic guitar lessons.
Can
YOU remember what first got
you
interested in Guitar?
I
can't
remember what first drew me to the guitar. I can remember the smell of
the wood and the sound of the strings and the feel of the thing but not
the reason I was drawn to it so completely.
I
remember
the first time I tried to hold down a chord. The pain was unbelievable.
I remember thinking
surely it can't
feel like this when you play...otherwise
why would anyone
do it? All
I needed
was a few easy
acoustic guitar lessons to
learn
Then
I
started to think . . . . . this is impossible!
When
I read those first books
on guitar, not one of them mentioned that
it actually hurt
your fingers. They
all made
it sound so
easy. 'Hold down
a G chord and strum four times . . then change to a C chord and Woah...
wait
a minute ....THIS
IS
IMPOSSIBLE.
I
admit
that I am a very compulsive and driven person, but I couldn't see how I
was going to get past holding down those first couple of chords. I'd
bought a few books by now and had a go at some tabs, but I was getting
nowhere.
Couldn't play
a damn song
to save my life . . . but I
could hold down a G chord . .
. well
yippidee dah!
"The
Story
Could Have
Ended Right There . . ."
The
story
could very easily have ended right there had it not been for a little
coincidence.
The
house next door to ours was vacant and the owner asked
if I could show potential tenants round if they showed up.
I
said yes
and one day a guy turned up to look at the house and he had a guitar
case with him. I asked him if
he could play and he said
yes...and
took out the
guitar and
started turning
me green with envy.
The
story
races on here...he moved in and we became great friends despite the
fact that I was round there every night (almost every night) for the
next 12 months. Paul (his real name) was very patient with me, I think
because he could
see how enthusiastic I was, and taught me just about everything he knew.
If he
showed me
something
that I found too difficult then he'd show me a way round it. He would
substitute easier fingering, simplified chord shapes. Sometimes we'd
just change key and suddenly everything got easier.
A
year
later we both realised that I had more of a talent for guitar than he
did but with his patience and his willingness to show me (sometimes
over and over again for hours)
I had
learned at a pace that was breathtaking.
They
were
going to regret this!
So
here we
were about 18 months
after I had first picked up a guitar,
a
room
full of
smirking wannabe 'musicians'
all
looking cool with long hair, torn jeans, smiling at this dude in the
cheap suit who had asked to look at one of the guitars.
I
had turned up at one of my usual calls and the house was full of guys
who were home from college...and they had a band (well kind of a band)
and were rehearsing!
'Do
you play?' one of them asked. 'A bit' I replied, as another one of them
passed this beaten up old acoustic guitar to me with a 'come
on
then smart-ass show us what you can do'
look on his face.
Four
guys
staring with wide eyes
and even wider mouths . . .
There
are some times in your life when
you just feel soooo good...and
this was one of those times. I'm not a 'show off' by nature but just
for that few minutes I was revelling in the glory.
I casually rattled
off half a dozen classic guitar pieces of the day, I still can't
remember what I played that day, but I
CAN REMEMBER THEIR
FACES.
When
I'd finished there was no applause. I just passed the guitar back and
said 'I better get going guys..' All eyes were on me as I left the
room. There was nothing else
to say, I'd just let my
playing do
the talking.
How
had I
managed to get so
good in such a short time?
Well
there
are many ways to learn guitar but they are not
all
equal. Books
and tabs work ok if
you have the talent, time and determination. If you are human like me
then there is a much better and faster way. . . . once you figure out
one simple fact.
The
acoustic guitar
IS
a folk instrument
And
what do you think is the best way to learn how to play a folk
instrument? Well for the last few thousand years we've learned by......
Watching
folks play it.
Yes!
It IS soooooooo simple isn't it?
To
this day mankind has found no better way to learn a simple
instrument like the acoustic guitar, than by getting someone to show us
how to
do it.
That simple fact, that I had learned all those years ago, was
the single reason that I started this entire venture in the first place.
Just remember I've done what you've done. I've bought the books, looked
at the chord charts, tried the tabs . . . .I've suffered the
frustration of thinking 'it must be me. I must just be too stupid to
learn guitar'. NO
It's not YOU.
It's the
idiots who
produce
the books who are stupid.
Stupid to think that seeing a line of text like G - C - D...
is going to teach you anything about making music.
Fast
forward 30 years
I did eventually get quite good as a salesman. In fact I became a sales
training consultant guru (whatever they're called)
I'd travelled the world, had a big house and lots of other expensive
toys and one day came to my senses. I sat back, looked at all this
stuff around me and thought......why?
I'd taught dozens of people to play guitar in the same way I'd learned
and decided I wanted to change my life completely.
Could I teach guitar full-time,
from home, on the
internet?
Well
the early videos I made make
me cringe a bit now.
The content is still good but the lighting, sound and image quality are
from a different era. (7 years is a long time in technology terms)
Anyhow...I studied this internet thing and soon saw that the way
forward was to produce loads of quality videos to give away in order to
establish my credibility and the quality of what was
being produced...so I did that.
The early days were spent figuring out exactly what music people like
you wanted to play and then making the videos. The theory is that if
you get some quality freebies from me then you might part with some
cash for some of the paid content later on.
The
good news is...that model works
and
so here we are today doing what we do.
As I said up the page, sign up to start getting the free lessons and
every now and then you'll get an email about something new that's been
produced and you'll have a chance to buy it.
A percentage of people will never buy anything, and that's absolutely
fine.
A percentage will want to learn the exact latest piece that's been
produced and.....between the two types of subscriber.....I make a
living.
Well it's been nice
talking to you but....better go now.....I've got videos to get made.
Click one of the links and start getting the free stuff immediately and
we'll talk again soon.
Mike Herberts
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What
makes Mike Herberts' different?
 ost
people
who find me don't want to learn any theory or boring stuff
when they start playing.
And
that's
fine because I can have you playing tons of songs on acoustic guitar
without learning any theory at all.
All you really need is
someone
to SHOW
you where to put your fingers and talk
you through the moves.
January. 2011
Dear
fellow acoustic guitarist,
I'm
going to
teach you some nice easy
songs to start with
and you'll be
instantly inspired.
So,
if
you're at the point where you think that your
guitar might be more useful as firewood just hang on a second before
you get out the matches and turn that lovely guitar into a pile of
ashes.
Mike,
You
were
there at the
right time, with the right song, presented in the
most wonderfully "learnable" way.
You seem like such a great guy and
what you've done for me and others I'm sure will stay with us forever.
I'm full of appreciation and just wanted to tell you how much you've
touched my life.
John
R. CA.
USA
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I
don't know if these are the most important reasons that you should sign
up to the site, only YOU will know that.
These
are just SOME of the things we've thought of to get you playing more
music and getting a LOT more pleasure from your guitar playing.
As you read
through this list I'm
sure you'll start to understand that THIS SITE is different and maybe
THIS TIME YOU REALLY ARE GOING TO SEE SOME MASSIVE IMPROVEMENT.
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1. Over-The-Shoulder-View
How
one really weird idea
changed
the way you learn
to
play guitar.
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 couple
of years ago I was watching the split screen shot of one of my
early videos and I had this wacky
idea
I thought to my self "wouldn't it be great if I could make these videos
showing the hands
on-screen from the same angle that you see them in real life".
I reckoned that shooting the videos this
way would make it a lot easier and quicker for you to learn them.
I
wasn't sure how my customers and subscribers would like that idea so I
made a really short snippet of video in
the new format and sent it out to get some feedback. Anyway
to cut a long story short....everybody really liked the idea.
So
all the videos made since then, have been shot in, what has become
known as, Over-The-Shoulder-Vision.
This means that when you look at the video on-screen, the view you see
of the fretting hand is from the
viewpoint as the player.
As you follow the on-screen action you simply move your hands and place
your
fingers exactly like you see them on the screen.
This
'players eye' view is not 100% perfect yet however (especially for left
handers) but it does give you a new and unique
way of viewing our video guitar lessons.
I suppose I should also tell you about a really odd side effect too.
As
you progress with any particular piece and can play it close to normal
speed something really crazy happens.
It's hard to describe the effect but it is something like virtual
reallity. You can see the piece being
played on-screen but it is almost like YOU are controlling the action.
I guess it is a bit like the new games
consoles (I think you know which ones I mean)
A
few people told me about this strange, and very useful, side effect
before I tried it and I couldn't wait to try
it for myself. Within seconds I could see exactly what they meant.
So,
the original experiment turned out to be a great success in more ways
than one and all new material is
now made this way.
The
next development is to get the same 'guitarists eye view' on the
righthand. This is a bit more tricky but we are
near the end of the experiments and should soon have something so
totally unique it will blow everybodys'
mind.
Using this method definitely makes these acoustic
guitar
lessons....even
easier to learn
 here
is a big problem for people learning new pieces on guitar that doesn't
happen with most other instruments.
I am sure you'll recognise the problem, It goes something like this:
You
start learning the new piece and everthing is going fine until.....you
get to the bit that is way beyond your
ability.
It could be the sudden introduction of a barre chord that you may not
have learned to do yet.
Or
may be some enormous stretch that takes years of practise to perfect.
I'm sure you know what I'm talking
about, but whatever it is, it spoils the piece and makes it unplayable
for you which is a shame.
This
is not a new problem however. It is something we all encounter when we
are first learning to play acoustic guitar and the good news is,
with a little bit of thought and experience there is almost always a
way round the tricky bits.
All the videos you'll
get from us will have had the Mike Herberts 'Work Around' treatment if
there are any difficult sections.
This
means you'll have a much better chance to learn the pieces ALL THE WAY
THROUGH.
Who
knows, with any luck, we might get you to the point where the next time
someone says 'what can you play', you'll
be able to play them something all the way through, instead of playing
the first 30 seconds of six different
pieces.
You'll start to feel a lot more like a guitarist instead of just
someone who messes around on guitar.
How
good is that going to make you feel?
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3. No Theory and Scales
Why
we don't do any
theory
or scales.
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|
re
you here because you want to learn theory . . . . . or because you want
to learn guitar?
There
is nothing wrong with learning theory of course, if that is what you
want.
The thing is, probably 99% of people
are not intending to become the next Eric Clapton. For that reason we
simply don't bother trying to
teach you any theory or scales.
In
my opinion, the best way to get you fired up and learning fast is to
show you how to play some of the pieces
you've always wanted to play.
Once you've got a few great pieces under your belt, and if you really think
it will help you, then there are loads of excellent websites that will
give you a deeper understanding of the
theory
of music.
We
just want to help you get those first 50 or 60 songs into your
repertoire so that you can then decide what direction
you want your playing to take.
Now,
I am sure there are many people who disagree about 'staying away from
theory'.
All I'm saying is, it didn't help
me in any way when I started playing and that is the reason I teach you
the way I do.
One thing I know for certain
is, I have had a lot of success doing it this way. At the time of
writing, the website has a total of 52,061
subscribers . . . . I hope you would like to join them, since being a
subscriber gets you a ton of my videos to
download, and the best bit is . . . it's completely free.
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4. Learning With Tablature
You
can think of tablature
as a picture of your
guitar fretboard.
|
ablature
is a very important element in your future success as a guitarist and
we have a couple of great tools
that we use to help you progress.
You can think of tablature as a picture of your guitar fretboard.
It shows the
six strings as if you were looking at them whilst holding the guitar.
(If you're right handed)
If
you hold your guitar in playing position and then lean forward and look
down you'll understand how tablature (tab or
tabs for short) works.
So
looking at a tab we'll see the thinnest string (1st of high 'E' string)
at the top, and then the other strings get
thicker (and sound lower) as we look down, until we get to the thickest
string (the 6th or low 'E' string)
If
we were to see a number 1 shown on the top string (High 'E') this means
'play/pick/pluck' the thinnest string whilst
fretting it (pressing your finger on it) just behind the first fret
If
we then saw a number 2 on the 2nd string, that means 'play/pick/pluck'
the second string whilst fretting just behind the
second fret.
So
what we have here is a literal view of the fretboard and a system that
tells you exactly which strings to hit and which
fret to hold down.
This is much easier than having to read music and means you can learn
much more quickly.
For
most of the videos we make, we will supply a tab. Even better than
that, we also supply some free software that will actually
'play' the tab right in front of your eyes.
You just install the free software and open the tab file we supply and
you can see and listen to the piece being played.
As
if that wasn't good enough, you can also slow down a section. You can
highlight, and have a section repeat.
You
can play the same measure over and over again at slow speed until the
way to play it is memorised to perfection.
Using
this software (it's called TefView if you were wondering) along with
the video lesson increases your ability to learn
new pieces at an astonishing rate.
Tefview
is so well used around the world that you can also search online and
find 1,000's and 1,000's of .tef files
of other guitar pieces that you might want to learn.
Oh
I almost forgot: We'll also give you a printable version of the
tab so
you can learn anywhere, not just while sitting in front of your
computer screen.
Just print off the song and put it in your
guitar case so that you can take it wherever you go for that sneaky
little 10 minute practise session.
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5. Free LifeTime Access
Computers
are not perfect and
neither
are we human beings.
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|
 or
any video you download from the site, and that includes any
free ones as well as ones you've bought, we'll give you lifetime access.
That
means that you don't have to worry about ever losing a video. If your
computer goes up in smoke or you get a new one
and can't transfer you files, getting them again is very simple.
You just drop us an email (or give us a call) and we'll simply
send you the download page again.
That's
it. Nothing to it really is there. So in our case, lifetime access
means just that.
You'll never have to worry about backing
up our stuff (can't vouch for anything else on your computer though)
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6. Great Song Collection
We'll
bring you the best
(in
our opinion) range
of
songs we know.
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|
 ou
won't
find any
electric/ metal/ thrash/ shredding type of music here I'm afraid. If
that's what you're looking for there are 1,000's of websites
you could try.
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Nor do we have any Flamenco at the moment, so you'll need to look
elsewhere for that.
To
categorise the kind of offerings we have I would use headings like:
Fingerstyle
Blues, Singer Songwriter, Original Ragtime, Country Blues, Folk Rock
Standards, Fingerpicking.
For
the beginner we have a whole range of material. The first 6 or 7 videos
in the free subscribers are for the absolute beginner.
We'll cover tuning up first and then show you how to hold down the
simplest of chords, some with just one or two fingers.
We'll show you how to get some music out of your guitar within the
first five minutes (yes really, that's all it takes)
As
you progress then you'll see we have a video set aimed directly at
total beginners'.
Using the basic tricks we taught you in the first
few free videos we'll show you how to use those and build up a
repertoire of 20 well known songs.
This is a very quick way of
gettting you a useful repertoire in the time it usually takes beginners
to learn their first few 'exercises' (Reminder:
We don't do ANY exercises)
Intermediate
guitarists will find a ton of old favourites here as we
have some of the greatest acoustic pieces ever recorded.
We have lessons to learn pieces by:
The Beatles, John Denver, James
Taylor, Eric Clapton, Simon and Garfunkel, Ralph McTell, Donovan, Elton
John, Rolling Stones, Arlo Guthrie, Buddy Holly, Robert
Johnson, Skip James, Blind Blake, Greenday, Led Zeppelin, Elvis
Presley, Willie Nelson, Michael Chapman, John Fahey, Bryan Adams, Dion,
The Eagles, Queen, Neil Diamond, Roxy Music, Sammi Smith, The
Byrds, The Kinks, U2, Fleetwood Mac, Paul McCartney.
We have many basic beginners pieces using techniques like strumming,
fingerpicking, flatpicking, fingerstyle instrumental.
Experienced
guitarists will find plenty of material to challenge them too.
We have some pretty complex pieces that take a long time to
even figure out (never mind play). To save you all the drudgery, we've
done all that figuring out for you so that you can pick up even
quite complex pieces in half the time it used to take.
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7. Relaxed Teaching Style
What
about the
teaching
style?
|
Mike
and Jerry are two very experienced teachers.
 e
have no need of ego. We don't need to show off, making you feel inadequate
with your playing. We are just straight talking guys.
We'll
go through the pieces slowly and you'll get plenty of repetitions if
the piece needs it. We won't get technical and we won't assume
that an 'easy' section is easy for you.
We'll talk more in terms of "put this finger here and that finger
there" rather than
saying "hold an F#maj7 2nd position whilst playing a 6 string arpeggio"
because we know most people won't have a clue what
that means (including me says Mike)
Mike,
I have been playing since the age of 11 and am now almost thirty but i
got stuck in a rut and stumbled across your good self on Youtube many
months ago.
Since then I have passed on your site to 7 other people and they all
love your teaching methods as much as me.
You are fantastic and you helped me come up with some new
material for my album i am working on.
I have picked up some excellent blues techniques and even tho I have
been playing for a long time it never hurts to go back to basics and I
am truly grateful for the help I have found your videos so far.
Laura S.
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8.
You Can Reach Us
The
best result for us,
is if you learn the
pieces really well.
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|
If you need help, (and most days we regret this offer) we'll help.
here
are
several ways to get in touch with us. Email, telephone, the blog, the
forum and now, I've placed one of those message boxes on
the home page where you can type in a message and it pops up on our
computers.
This is the only 100% guaranteed way to get in touch apart
from picking up the phone. (The phone number is up there too)
What
we're saying guys and gals, is that we don't hide ourselves away. We
will answer your questions, we will talk to you if you call. I'm
not sure we'll be able to do this for ever as the site grows, but
anyway we ARE able to do it at the moment. D'ya wanna test us?
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9.
We're Not Just
After Your Money
The
most important thing
for us is not, as you might think, that we
extract
money from you.
|
 t
is
that you actually learn and enjoy the
pieces. We want you to be so 'knocked out' at your progress that you'll
just keep coming back again and again.
That
would be a real result for you because you'd obviously be benefitting
from our stuff and it would be a result for us to have been
a part of your progress, and it's likely that you'll not only buy
something in the future, but you'll recommend the site to other
people.
10. What we Won't Do
These
are no-no's to us.
|
 |
e
will treat the storage space on your hard drive with the same respect
that YOU do.
We
won't fill up your hard drive with useless 100,000 chord ebooks or any
other nasty little public domain guitar learning ebooks.
We
won't ever offer you other 'guitar related' products from affiliate
sites. Truth is, we don't know of anything else available on
the net that would be of any great use to you.
We
won't send you pointless emails just for the sake of it.
Everything we
send by email will be relevent and of great value to you in
your quest to become an accomplished guitarist.
We
won't be offering you any expensive courses.
We don't do any courses because that will almost certainly involve
teaching you theory,
and we don't do that remember.
Oh
did I say? We don't do theory.
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Hi Mike,
Thank you for your help and
patience, I was able to download all the videos and am delighted.
I have enjoyed my guitar more
in the past week than I have done in the past 3 years since I
discovered your website.
Thank you once again and will look forward to progressing further with
your excellent teaching method.
Best Regards,
Bob M. Northern Ireland.
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11.
We Don't Just Say
It
We
Prove It.
You'll
be getting NOT
LESS THAN 50
FREE Video Lessons.
(No Obligation)
|
he
only way we know
to convince you that this is the right place to be is to prove it to
you by
letting you
experience
it for yourself, for FREE,
and then hope that you'll come
back
and maybe spend some money one day.
So, if
you want to finally
start
playing
real actual
music instead of
just chords.
If you keep getting
so far through a piece and then hit a brick wall
when the tricky bit shows up.
If
you're sick with
disappointment when your latest purchase turns out
to be garbage yet again.....watch
the video
above.
Click one of the links on this
page and start
getting something that
is really going to help. And
best of all . . it's FREE
.
Mike Herberts
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|
icture
a
time when YOU are
playing a full repertoire of songs while other 'back bedroom 