Veevar Guitar: Interview with the Creators

A while back, we did a review of the new online and offline guitar community, Veevar Guitar, which you can check out here. Veevar Guitar is a community of guitar students and teachers using the same syllabus both online and offline in the form of face-to-face lessons (UK only).

We caught up with the creators of Veevar Guitar [Adam Welch, Nick Manners and Joe Garrett] to find out how the program came about and where it’s headed in the near future.

Matt: We liked the idea of creating a community of guitar students and teachers, how did that come about? Does the name mean anything?

Veevar: The three of us all go back a long way. We realised that joining forces and creating a local hub of qualified teachers would be great for our local guitar students. Within a year or so we had a further four teachers onboard and came up with the idea of writing an interactive guitar syllabus and expanding nationwide.

The name Veevar is derived from the word Viva and we pronounce it the same way. We chose this name because we liked the fact Viva means to celebrate something. The reason we created a word is for the benefits of intellectual property and trademarking issues. We are hoping that over time the name Veevar will define itself as a great place for anyone wanting to learn a musical instrument. Our vision is to combine three things:

1. Great Guitar Tuition providing students access to real teachers either in person or on screen.
2. The use of technology such as our use of interactive tab/music notation.
3. The social aspect of our site which is our online community. This part of the site will be going live soon.

Matt: There are a lot of other online guitar courses on the market, what makes Veevar Guitar different/stand out? What problems did you see with conventional online/offline courses?

Veevar: The big problem with conventional videos and things like YouTube is the lack of interaction with a qualified teacher. We believe feedback from an expert is crucial to the development for guitarists of all levels, sometimes you just need someone to tell you what you’re doing wrong and how to correct it. We provide a lot of quality content but in addition will be giving our users the opportunity to post a question to an expert teacher. We believe providing these options solves the problem of someone struggling on their own.

Matt: Do you think online learning can/will eventually replace traditional music schools? A lot of the big music schools now have an online learning facility.

Veevar: We think online and virtual classes will be a big thing in the future and will eventually become mainstream although we don’t believe traditional music colleges will be completely replaced. We have actually been developing good relationships with The Academy of Contemporary Music and the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance.

Matt: You can see that a lot of hard work has gone into getting Veevar Guitar up and running, what do each of you bring to the table?

Veevar: We share the roles such as the admin side of things, social media and technical jobs. The three of us wrote the core syllabus material with a further four excellent guitarists contributing to the syllabus as well. We have been lucky with the support we have had regarding the business side of things and have some great advisors onboard. We also have two brilliant guys looking after the technical side of things and are starting to develop a really good team.

Matt: If a student wants to pursue a particular style of playing, can Veevar Guitar adapt to their needs?

Veevar: Our syllabus covers an extensive range of styles and techniques but one of the great things about having a pool of teachers is the variety of expertise on offer in different musical styles. We also provide our teachers with the opportunity to create their own courses which we will sell on our online shop. Over time there will be many courses covering even more different musical styles over our five difficulty levels. We have also recently launched a new series of videos called ‘Lick of the week’ these feature our teachers playing in various musical styles. This is also free content so a great way for any guitarist of any level learn some new licks and tricks.

Matt: Do you have any special requirements for teachers wanting to register with you?

Veevar: Nearly all of the guitarists we have onboard at the moment are music college graduates but not all of them. We request a video demo of potential teachers playing so we can assess their playing standard. If they have a solid understanding of the necessary musical theory aspects and are a good player and come across well when we chat with them we will take someone on. We have a three month trial to see how things go initially for both parties.

Matt: Do you have any plans to include other instruments or expand the face-to-face teaching element to other countries in the near future? What else could be added to the platform?

Veevar: Yes, we currently have two brilliant drummers planning the Veevar Drums syllabus. We also have plans for Veevar Bass too. These syllabus’ will share joint songs with the guitar syllabus so they will interlink with each other. We think this would be really beneficial for musicians looking to meet up with potential band mates for the first time as they would have some common material to jam and know they are at the same level as the other musicians. We feel we could create a syllabus for any musical instrument and have some exciting plans for the future too. One of these may include teachers providing one to one lessons in different countries.

As far as option for learning guitar online go, Veevar Guitar is well-worth checking out.

The chaps at Veevar have been kind enough to provide the discount code 5ver so you can get 25% off EVERY month as well as a month’s worth of FREE access!

Head over to Veevar Guitar and see what you make of it.