ABOUT ME
Hello, my name is Jamie
I guess I should have gotten someone else to write my About section. They would have been able to say all sorts of great ‘market-y’ things about me. They would have told you that you HAVE to spend money with me or miss out on the best investment in your guitar playing life and in your life in general. That I will go down in history as the greatest guitar instructor of all time and YOU’LL miss out. That if you don’t buy NOW, the price will go up by thousands… So GIVE.ME.YOUR.MONEY.NOW!
But… I’m a straight shooter.
If I say something about myself, whether it’s good or bad, I say it it’s because it’s true. I’m not an ‘influencer’ or a ‘marketer’ so won’t give the same BS that you get from them all the time to try and convince you to part with your hard-earned money. Yes, I’ve played in front of thousands of people, I’ve travelled the world with my guitar, I’ve met and worked with lots of amazing people, but I’d prefer you to see the more ‘real’ side of my life, and not just the highlight reel where I show you how amazing and glamorous me and my life are. Us Irish folk are known to have a certain humility that makes us pretty bad at self-promotion and marketing, but also has given us a reputation as being pretty authentic people. It’s a character trait that’s bred into us from when we were kids, for better or for worse.
So, yeah… I’m just a dude. From Ireland. Loves music. Loves film. Loves tech.
My girlfriend Silvia and I at a wedding in Germany.
For years I busked (street-performed) around the world with my guitar. I would turn up in a new city and play every day I could. It wasn’t always glamorous, but it taught me my craft and helped me put food on the table at the same time. By doing this, I realized that I could make money doing something I actually enjoyed (my previous job had been as a dishwasher). So I worked at it. Oh boy, did I work at it. In each city, there are typically ‘spots’ that are far enough away from each other so that you don’t compete with the music of the next busker. More often than not, you’d wait for a couple of hours to get one of these spots and would play for 40mins – 2 hours, depending on the regulations of the city. Most other buskers would generally come out for a couple of hours each day, whereas I would often do 18-hour days to try and make use of every possible busking spot I could work.
I used the money I made to pay for my food and rent, buy some nice guitars, camera equipment and lights, and then put whatever was left into helping others. I met some wonderful homeless people on the streets who I would try to help by buying food and clothes and I donated the earnings of my busiest week of the year to a 3-year-old girl with Neuroblastoma, a rare form of children’s cancer. This story later went viral and snowballed into a huge national campaign to raise money for the disease. I say this not for a pat on the back for my charitable efforts, but to point out that this all came from a couple of wires on a piece of wood, and a determination to make a difference. In my mind, others needed the money more than me, and if I could do something to help, then I would. And as such, It went far beyond just ‘I’ll play you some nice songs and you enjoy them’ and actually was making a genuine difference in the world.
Following this, I put a few guitar covers of songs I like to play on Youtube. I always knew I could play half-decently from the response I would get from people, but never thought I was particularly amazing or anything. I had known how much I had struggled to get to the point of being able to play these songs. How many bum notes had been hit over the years, how many wrong strings had been strummed, and how many questions I had asked of myself (Am I good enough? Maybe I don’t have what it takes. Should I do something else etc.). However, all the videos I uploaded were quickly becoming the highest-viewed versions of all of these songs online, and the comments I was getting were suggesting otherwise.
People started asking me to show them how to play like that, and to demonstrate how I sound the way I do. I had been teaching guitar privately for many years at this point and had a pretty flawless track record for getting students results. So I did.
I created and sold my first course for $5 and sold an average of about one every other month. Not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme, but I continued teaching and busking to make ends meet. After about two years, I thought it might be nice to get €10 every other month instead of €5. So I made another. And another.
My family at our Irish home for my Dads 65th birthday. My Dad gave me my first guitar, and more importantly my first lesson
Over time, the courses grew, and the response also grew to the point where it became almost unbelievable. The feedback from people who had taken the courses was beyond incredible. People were genuinely emailing me to tell me how their lives had been changed by the courses. That I had ignited a motivation and inspiration in them that they hadn’t had for years. That I had helped them get the girl they wanted (or many of the girls they wanted) through the irresistible pull that musicians who can actually play seem to have over the opposite sex. That I had helped them get through their cancer treatment, or get over the loss of a loved one by finally learning ‘their’ song. That I had helped them set up a new band, which is now touring all over the world, get over their guitar-playing plateau, love music again, and finally understand the mechanics of the fretboard… The list goes on…
I would message other people completely unrelated to the guitar about something also completely unrelated and they would say ‘OMG you’re Jamie Harrison, I love your stuff dude’, or I would get recognized in a local park or in the music shops thousands of miles from my hometown. People were truly loving these courses, and clearly, I was doing something that was genuinely making a difference to people’s lives.
My earliest childhood friends. Have known these guys since we were babies. I used to be in a band with Conor, the guy on the right
I do have a more backstory which I might go into more detail if people want to hear more, but for those of you who don’t care about my time living in a van, performing on streets all over the world, or producing songs with Coldplay’s producer, I’ll spare you the details here.
For now, you can rest assured that I’m now here to serve you. I have made a platform that I guarantee you will love. I have built technology that I guarantee you will love. I have built a community that I guarantee you will love. I have customer support that I guarantee you will love. And if you don’t, I’ll give you your money back.
“Invest in yourself, invest in the process, and you will be rewarded many times over”
