About Me

First Name	Susan McHale
Last Name	Fingerpicking, Flatpicking, Songwriting, Bluegrass, Blues, Discovering new music
Nickname	susan-mchale
Why I'm Here	I am a yoga teacher, hypnotherapist and occupational therapist working in mental health. I am training to be a yoga therapist too. I love walking on the moors and in the woodlands near where I live. I am an artist and a singer. I should have had a lifetime in music, but I didn’t have any music lessons when I was young and I can’t believe I am now mid-fifties and still haven’t properly learned an instrument. I havent had a TV for years, but I do have a room full of different instruments, most of which I intend to learn to play. I have played guitar since I was in my teens, because someone taught me a few chords and I worked a lot out myself. I had a few lessons in my twenties, but hardly picked it up after I had children. Now my three daughters are grown up and have left home, I live on my own and can set my own routines. At last I can see a space in my life to do what I really want to do. My guitar is a Fender acoustic. I don’t know much about guitars makes. It’s quite good, but I have held and heard more resonant guitars. I feel lucky to have what I have. Excited to learn!
City	I am a frustrated singer-songwriter. I have written one song in 2006 and often get tunes in my head but lose them before I can do anything with it because I am not competent enough with any instrument. I like the guitar and that is what I usually accompany my singing with. It is portable and versatile. So although I am slowly learning piano and mandolin too, I am concentrating on the guitar. Certainly now I have signed up for TAC. It's given me focus and discipline instead of wanting to play everything and not getting anywhere. I want to learn open tunings. I hope the courses help me connect all the fragments I already know and the practice will speed up my fluency. It would be great to play with ease and flow. I find it inspiring to hear others do that and can imagine what a buzz it would be to do it myself. Singing with guitar gives me freedom of expression because I am in control of the timing of both. Looking forward to it!

Susan McHale