A weekend of creativity in the most inspiring setting imaginable in deepest, lush mid summer Kent.
Dates: Friday 18th 12 noon to Sunday 20th 12 noon August
Beneath the canopy of the trees we’ll be running workshops on songwriting, music production and home recording.
The Music Workshops: You’ll be working with Thomas Binns, founder of The Guitar Social and former front man of countless bands as chief songwriter. Workshops include; traditional song forms; working within a key; finding the melody; avant garde composition; feeling good about being a song writer and what to do with your music.
The writing workshops: You’ll be working with Josh Hallam, founder of Words & Space, one of London’s most popular poetry events, publisher of Kite String Poetry Magazine, musician and UK poetry competition winner and multiple festival performer. Workshops include; the folk canon – between poetry and song-writing from Dylan Thomas to Bob Dylan, musicality on the page, spoken word performance, and using music to write.
The home recording: You’ll be learning about the equipment you’ll need and the cost saving benefits of home recording, a brief overview of the recording software, recording audio, mixing essentials and exporting your session into an audio file.
The song production: We’ll be creating a home recording studio at the campsite where you can put all of this into practice before having your music pressed to Vinyl at our onsite Vinyl Factory.
The accommodation
We have a variety of options for you from camping to glamming in huts and cabins dotted around glades and woodland.
Food and Drink
Your price includes all your food and drinks. Food is prepared in teams over the campfire, with all the cooking utensils and pots you need to make these gourmet dishes. Here’s a typical menu with meat and vegan version for everything: Breakfast of chilli and Feta Scrambled Eggs plus berries, pastries, cereal, toast and spreads. What else would we have for lunch other than a BBQ with all the trimmings including squeaky sliced American cheese. Just as those hunger pangs set in it’s time for a Devonshire cream tea of the finest scones with jam and clotted cream. A typical dinner is spicy Rice, Chicken and Black Bean Nachos with Greek salad . The snack bar which never runs out, serving all the sugar and salt your heart desires. The day ends with the campfire snacks of beans served with chilli and garlic and marshmallows melted on the fire. You’ll never go thirsty with bottomless beer, ale, wine, cider, fruit juice and fizzy drinks.
Extra stuff
Your home for the weekend is a rich and historic woodland and the sites owner, Laura, runs a fascinating foraging tour for £5. Feeling mystic, have your tarot cards read by moon light for £10. Feeling inspired and need to get your song recorded right now-book yourself into our on site recording studio for free or, for something extra special, record your song underneath a tree and have it pressed to Vinyl right there and then at our onsite Vinyl Factory. Yes, you read that right, crazy isn’t it? All campers get a Guitar Social note book
Who typically comes
The Guitar Social’s members range in age from about 20 to 101. We actually do have someone learning with us who is 101. All levels of players are welcome, however, this is not a guitar tuition retreat (for that you’d need to book onto band camp so you will need to be able to string some chords together. However, your song is your song so if you want to come and write a two chord song, there isn’t anything wrong with that.
A typical day
You wake to the smell of wood smoke, that’s your breakfast cooking. We eat together. Someone will likely play us a song. Then, book yourself onto the workshops taking placer throughout the day. In between all that learning and discussion there’s plenty of space for idle walks, time on your own and of course, writing.
When night falls, you follow the candle lit path into the woods for an evening of music and performance by not one, but five fire pits. It’s magical.
Prices: These are our early bird prices at 30% off for the first 5 people who book
We have different sleeping options which all come with a different price tag and bell and cabin options are limited and sell out very fast
Bring your own tent: £300
Sleep on your own in a bell tent: 400
Not included in the price is your travel.
To book, just email thomas@theguitarsocial.com
Want to pay in full, you can with 5% off. Want to pay in 3s, you can do that too, with the final payment by 1st June 2023
View our holiday Ts&Cs here
