The Guitar Loft Music Studio

01/05/2020

RIP Don George ❤️🥁

George, Donald James - At McNally House in Grimsby, on Tuesday, December 31, aged 72 years. Survived by son James and his mother Terri and by his siblings Marg Shea, Doug (Colleen) George, and Ruth (John) Rasmussen. Cremation has taken place. A memorial gathering will be held at the Fireside Room of...

01/05/2020

Mr Don George, Don George -The Drummer
April 1947 - December 2019

We were extremely honoured and blessed to have our Music Studio voted the best Music Instruction Studio each of the 10 years we were open.
The primary reason we were credited with this distinction was because of the truly exceptional instructors we provided for our students.
They were all extraordinarily talented, educated and passionate about teaching the gift of music. It was the caliber of Music Instructors one would expect to find from a prestigious Studio in Toronto.

Don George was with us as one of those extraordinary Music instructors for most of the 10 years the studio was in business. He was an incredibly humble man.
Our first encounter with Don was when he came in to see if we carried his favourite
“HeadHunter” drum sticks which at the time we hadn’t received yet. The only thing we knew from his visit was that he was a drummer.
It was only after hearing the buzz on street that Neil Pearts first drum instructor had moved to Smithville that I happened to run into Don again a few weeks later in town at Buzbys General store.
Knowing he was a drummer I asked him if he had heard the buzz about Neils drum instructor living locally.
He very modestly acknowledged it was himself.
This very quiet and unassuming man held the distinction of teaching one of the most revered drummers in the world (Neil Peart) and wasn’t even boastful about it.
He indicated he had retired from teaching drums years before and had more recently retired from his other profession as a CAD technician. We convinced him to start teaching for us around 2008 working around the night school courses he had signed up for at College.
He very soon became one of our most dedicated and passionate instructors. He provided each student with the skills and knowledge he himself had learned.
Don went on to develop, write and print his very own drum instructional book which contained many of the skills and syncopation lessons he had learned over his lifetime. He was always looking for a better way to teach his students the craft of playing drums.
He started providing some of his younger students with a chocolate chip cookie as a reward if they mastered some of the more challenging techniques on the drum kit during his lessons.
Over the time Don worked for us he succeeded in developing incredibly talented drummers both young and old. Some went on to become recording technicians while others played in bands and orchestra’s.
It was a complete honour to provide the means and to host the taping of an interview with Don on Drum Talk TV by Dan Shinder in our Studio location in Grimsby.
It was a live Studio audience and packed to capacity for the very prestigious event. We are so grateful to Dan and his wife Nja for flying up from Los Angeles California to film this feature interview with Don. It has allowed his knowledge and stories to be heard and seen by drummers from around the world.
Dons legacy will live on through anyone who watches it.
While Don was at the Music Studio he would frequently do a Tim Horton’s coffee run for the other instructors and staff. Don really loved his Timmies coffee. Always ordering a small for himself. That’s just the way he liked it.
In one of his quirky mannerisms it tasted gooder that way.
He loved to give. Quite often when we sold a drum kit to a student he’d readily volunteer to help with the assembly , tuning and setting up, always to perfection.
As a master of his craft, Don had learned that drumsticks in their packaging aren’t always true or matched in their pitch. He showed his students how to roll them individually on a flat surface to ensure they were turned true without any bend and then tap them to listen for matched pitch and tone.

This invariably left us with a drawer of Dons “misfit” drumsticks.
One lasting memory of Don was his lightning quick dry wit.
He always seemed to find a humorous way of telling a story.

It is with broken hearts we heard the news of Dons passing at McNally House on New Years Eve day from two of his closest friends Briar and Lisa.

Dear Don, may your legacy live on and you Rest In Peace ❤️

- Jim Edwards

03/09/2017

LIQUIDATION SALE!!

HAVE NO FEAR, WE'RE STILL HERE!! :)
We are currently liquidating our retail inventory as big box stores have made it increasingly difficult to compete over the last few years. We have made the decision to focus primarily on LESSON INSTRUCTION as well as INSTRUMENT REPAIRS as we have always done over the past 9 years in business. We will continue to stock strings, various accessories, as well as USED instruments but we have decided to not carry NEW instruments any longer. Thank you for your continued business!

01/28/2017

OPEN MIC 🎤 Happening now!!!

01/04/2017

Wishing everyone a Merry belated Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! Remember, we are still on a modified schedule this week. Regular scheduled lessons and hours will resume next week. Looking forward to seeing everyone back!! :)

12/17/2016

Darrin Harper ripping it up!!

12/17/2016

Matt Staples in action!!

09/21/2016

In conjunction with the release of Secret Path, the forthcoming album, book, and film, we are excited to announced two live shows, in Ottawa (October 18) and Toronto (October 21). All proceeds will be donated to reconciliation.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - Ottawa, ON - Southam Hall, National Arts Centre
Friday, October 21, 2016 - Toronto, ON - Roy Thomson Hall

Tickets will be available Friday, September 23 @ 10am ET at www.gorddownie.com/shows.

Secret Path is ten songs that tell the story of Chanie Wenjack (miscalled “Charlie” by his teachers), a twelve year-old boy who died fleeing the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario, fifty years ago, walking home to the family he was taken from over 400 miles away. Downie was introduced to the story by his brother Mike Downie, who shared with him Ian Adams’ Maclean’s story from February 6, 1967, “The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack.”

“Chanie haunts me. His story is Canada’s story. This is about Canada… The next hundred years are going to be painful as we get to know Chanie Wenjack and thousands like him – as we find out about ourselves, about all of us – but only when we do can we truly call ourselves, Canada.” – Gord Downie

Secret Path acknowledges a dark part of Canada’s history – the long-suppressed mistreatment of Indigenous children and families by the residential school system – with the hope of starting our country on a road to reconciliation. Every year as Chanie Wenjack is remembered, the hope for Secret Path is that it educates all Canadians young and old on this omitted part of the country's history, urging us all to play an active role in the preservation of Indigenous lives and culture in Canada.

Secret Path will arrive on October 18, 2016, in a deluxe vinyl and book edition, and as a book with album download. Pre-order on www.secretpath.ca

The Secret Path animated film will be broadcast by CBC in an hour-long commercial-free television special on Sunday, October 23, 2016, at 9pm (9:30 NT).

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON SECRET PATH visit secretpath.ca

07/05/2016

Hey everyone, WELCOME SUMMER!! Hope you all enjoyed your long weekend. Just a heads up we are now into the summer schedule and our hours have changed. Summer hours are as follows;

Mon: 11am-6pm
Tues-Wed: 11am-8pm
Thurs-Fri: 11am-6pm
Sat: 11am-4pm

05/02/2016

Don George -The Drummer