YORK guitar teacher Ivor A Fox is to hold classes in Room 109 at the Space 109 community arts centre in Walmgate.

“At a few days short of my 73rd birthday, I was beginning to believe that I had actually retired. At last! How wrong can one be?” he says.

“I want to spend the rest of my life teaching music. Moreover, I want to use the guitar and bass guitar as the instruments upon which to teach music.”

And so Mr Fox has decided to expand his music school, Cimbio Music, teaching mainly guitar and bass but also tuba.

“The Cimbio modern guitar and bass is modern,” he says. “To be modern is its reason for existing. Modern use and modern thinking makes the instruments many times more effective and enjoyable. More versatile too. Uniquely, this makes the instruments easier to learn than trying to learn the old way.”

The teaching system, Cimbio or Chimbio in English, is his own innovation. “It’s genuine; I’m prepared to let any qualified musician examine it and even possibly share it,” he says.

“Any music teachers who would like to look at it with teaching it in mind are welcome to talk to me about that.

Classes will be mixed; the minimum age is ten and no maximum age applies, although at first children must be accompanied by a responsible adult. One-to-one sessions can be arranged too.

“We want you to enjoy lessons,” says Mr Fox. “Lessons will be well taught and easy to understand; it’s friendly, it’s fun, it’s music. At the end of every lesson, there’ll be a question period, so ask away.”

The opening stage for absolute beginners will be a six-week course.

“Perhaps this is a chance for you or yours to find out whether music/ bass/guitar is really what you want to do or can do,” says Mr Fox.

“People who do advance can go in for exams, if that is what they want. With us, you learn to play chords, play tunes, improvise, strum, harmonise, transpose, understand and play in a band. The lot!”

• For further information, phone Mr Fox on 01904 652701 or send an email to I4fredwood@aol.com