Josh Watson – Against All the Odds

In addition to building fine and great value Guitars, I’m very lucky to have been able to keep a small group of Guitar Students over the last 15 years.

Since my first Student Exam Entry with the RGT back in 2008 I’ve had the privilege of helping lots of students of all ages to progress up to Grade 8 of the RGT / LCM Guitar Exams.

With many memorable lessons and Exam successes along the way, with one or two exceptional highlights, a recent Exam result has given me the greatest satisfaction and sense of achievement to date.

Josh Watson has had to face significant personal difficulties all of his life which directly affect his ability to learn and recall new information – those of you who know Josh will know what I mean.

Josh started Bass Guitar lessons with me way back in 2016 and has diligently attended his weekly lessons ever since. Josh would be the first to admit that progress has been slow – very slow – but things began to fall into place after the Summer break last year when Josh’s many hours of repetitive practice began to pay off.

So, after careful consideration, we decided to run the gauntlet and enter the Preliminary Grade Electric Bass Guitar Exam. Whilst this might seem to be a very modest Exam level after so many years of lessons, for Josh this was a huge step.

Josh has had no luck with exams over the years and we both agreed that we will do our best with the RGT / LCM exam, but if he didn’t pass we’d just put it down to experience and move on to something else.

Well the day came and Josh walked in confidently to meet the Examiner and came out looking quite relaxed and satisfied with his performance. So far so good – we then had to wait for the result…

Whilst we were both hopeful that Josh might scrape a Pass, we were prepared to deal with possibility of him not achieving the required standard.

So when his certificates arrived we were both thrilled to see that he had exceed our expectations and achieved a MERIT.

Very well done Josh. I have never seen anyone work quite so hard with such patience for so long with the sole aim of passing your first Bass Guitar Exam.

But you did it and I and all of your friends and family are very proud of you.

You have shown us all what sheer determination can achieve against all the odds – now on to Grade 1…