The Glasgow Guitar Show 2022

The Glasgow Guitar show is a must for guitarists, enthusiasts, retailers, distributors, manufacturers, suppliers, luthiers and private collectors. It is a unique opportunity to buy, sell and trade new, vintage and second-hand guitars, amps, effects, accessories and guitar related art and collectibles. There will also be the opportunity to learn from experts and be entertained with live music throughout the day. The show will be held in the iconic Pearce Institute, in Govan, Glasgow which has fabulous facilities, access and great bus and subway connections.

Tickets on sale now from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/glasgow-guitar-show-2022-tickets-413978891007

Moving up to Harmony Row

We are delighted to announce our move to our new facility at 6 Harmony Row in Govan. We will be announcing our Spring 2022 programme of events soon, so be sure to follow our Facebook and Instagram pages.

12 Guitars at

The Teenage Cancer Trust

Ken Morton of 12Guitars and Samantha Termer of Teenage Cancer Trust

12 Guitars at the Teenage Cancer Trust
12 Guitars are pleased to announce the gifting of guitars and equipment to
The Teenage Cancer Trust ward at The Beatson in Glasgow.

Glasgow based Social Enterprise 12Guitars are on a mission to enable young musicians and other people in our society needing a boost by donating free guitars and providing guitar tuition free of charge at the point of use. Established in 2019, 12Guitars has already created quite an impact with many young people, youth
groups and support organisations having donated dozens of guitars and having delivered many great guitar tuition sessions.

12Guitars’ Director Ken Morton explains: “12 Guitars is delighted to be in a position to support the Teenage Cancer Trust and their ambitions for providing music therapy as a core activity to their young patients. The UK music charity ‘Music for All’ kindly donated a number of very high-quality guitars to 12Guitars for us to distribute to worthy causes. When we approached the Teenage Cancer Trust at The Beatson in Glasgow, we couldn’t have been more welcomed by Julie Cain, the Advanced Clinical Nurse Specialist, and her inspirational team. They already had three acoustic guitars in their ward but none were playable, with broken and rusty strings and needing some work. 12Guitars serviced and restrung these guitars with strings from our partner: Rotosound strings. They are now back in the ward ready to play again. This was then followed up with the 12Guitars donation of high quality electric guitars (received from Music for All)together with suitable amplifiers and equipment.

Ken Morton continues “12 Guitars is delighted to have started this pilot scheme at the Teenage Cancer Trust ward at The Beatson and it is our ambition to reach out to all the other Teenage Cancer Trust Wards and outlying support staff in the UK. This is so we can donate further guitars and provide tuition services so
all teenagers who are patients will have additional opportunities to participate in music therapy. We have been in discussions with Regional Operations and Partnerships Manager; Vanessa Todd at the Teenage
Cancer Trust and sincerely thank her for her amazing support to get this programme started.”

Find out more about the Teenage Cancer Trust’s music therapy here:
https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/about-us/our-story/music

12 Guitars refurbished 3 acoustics Samantha Termer with the 12Guitars donation

Rotosound

We are delighted to have Rotosound as our String Partner. All of the guitars we refresh and refurbish go out with Rotosound strings fitted.

Founded in 1958 by James How as a small, UK based, family-owned and operated company, Rotosound core values are little changed today. More sophisticated machines, designed and built by the late founders son, Jason How, still produce high quality instrument strings using only the best materials and a great team of people who really love what they do. Each string is physically and visually inspected at every stage of the manufacturing process to get maximum consistency, ensuring each one is unrivalled in tone, tuning stability and durability.

Rotosound has been creating, designing and making strings for over fifty years. By helping music icons like Jimi Hendrix, John Entwistle and Geddy Lee to create their amazing sounds, Rotosound strings have become synonymous with the British Tone. Renowned throughout the world, Rotosound is the home of legendary products such as Swing Bass 66 and Roto strings and is justifiably proud to be part of rock history.

Whole Lotta Guitars

What’s the Story

From July to September 2020, Glasgow-based social enterprise 12 Guitars will be giving away 12 guitars to 12 individuals or organisations in Scotland and beyond. Although our primary focus is on enabling young people to access guitars and tuition, we are broadening our focus for this campaign to cover all ages. The guitars will be a mix of types and styles and will include acoustic guitars, classical guitars, electric guitars and bass guitars

Making it happen

Gerry Thorogood, Co-Founder of 12 Guitars explained “12 guitars will be selected from our instrument library. Some will be brand new guitars and some will be guitars repaired, refurbished or improved by our Technical Guru, Ken Morton of Morton Guitars. All guitars will have a new set of Rotosound Strings fitted courtesy of our new sponsor Rotosound. We will be making a short film for each guitar, checking it over and preparing it for use and will film the handover of each guitar to the individual recipient or organisation and cover the background to the individual’s own desire to play guitar ”.

Identifying Recipients

We will be working across the community with the Third Sector and with our partners to identify individuals and organisations that will benefit from receiving a guitar. We are aiming to find people from different backgrounds and locations and to get a guitar into their hands and get them playing as soon as possible. If they need tuition, we will provide this to get them started. We will make sure that we cover different locations in Scotland and perhaps a few that are further afield too.

If you want to tell 12 Guitars about a deserving individual or organisation you would like to put forward, you can send an email to whatinspired@12guitars.org or use the contact form on the website www.12guitars.org

About 12 Guitars

12 Guitars is a social enterprise formed in 2019 in Glasgow by Gerry Thorogood and Steve Plummer. We make guitar playing accessible to young people free at the point use. We have engaged over 200 hundred young people since our formation and have given away or loaned dozens of guitars. We have converted a double-decker London bus into a practice and recording studio, learning space, meeting place and guitar tech workshop. We are based in the Glasgow Caring City Warehouse at 249 Govan Rd, close to the BBC, The SSE Hydro and The Science Centre.

“We have seen the positive effect that guitar playing can have on people of all ages, building confidence, improving communication and teamwork skills and helping people de-stress from everyday life. We want to use this campaign to build on the success of our first year and we look forward to enabling a whole lotta new guitar players” – Steve Plummer Co-Founder of 12 Guitars

About Rotosound

Started in 1958 by James How, an engineer who made strings for his own instruments, Rotosound became known around the world for its superior quality products and famous endorsees such as Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and Queen to name just a few. The Who’s John Entwistle started a long partnership with James and helped develop the Swing Bass roundwound strings which have become the industry standard. Gathering the most prominent artists over the following decades from Jaco Pastorius to The Edge, Oasis to Guthrie Govan, Rotosound has been the go-to string for every music generation.

About Morton Guitars

Morton Guitars’ founder, Ken Morton says, “I’ve been playing guitars since the early 70s and many of the hundreds of guitars I’ve owned and played were built in the 50s , 60s and 70s. I have been playing, building, repairing, upgrading, buying and selling electric, acoustic and bass guitars for most my life. I know a thing or two about what guitars were like back then, what made them great and how they are built today. At Morton guitars we specialise in taking old, broken, unloved and un-played guitars and bringing them back to life so they play really well for someone new to cherish and make music on them again. We also build our own range of electric guitars, some of which are owned and played by top performing and recording guitar players around the world. We just love everything about guitars!

Delivering online classes

During lockdown we are continuing to deliver classes online for the Glasgow Home Education Group. We are currently exploring how we can accomplish similar programmes for our other clients.

Our new monthly event for guitar lover launches Feb 23rd

Support from Charlie Burchill of the Simple Minds

Some Launch Party Pics …..

12 Guitars is live and we want to receive any musical instruments or equipment that you wish to donate to enable us to use, re-cycle, up-cycle or sell to generate funds.

We would like to hear from Guitar and equipment manufacturers and also Corporate organisations who would like to sponsor any of our events or support the conversion of our Double Decker Bus into a mobile recording and practice studio, a learning space and a meeting place.

We would also like to hear from you if you would to get involved in one of our events, volunteer for 12 Guitars or offer tuition.

Let us know about someone whom you think might benefit from our support.