Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.I am sitting cross legged on a bright yellow sun lounger, acoustic guitar in hand, on the deck of the East Meets West, a mahogany and teak gulet moored off Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. A gentle breeze blows across the ship’s bow as I strum through the chord sequence for Radiohead’s 1995 single “High and Dry”. It might sound like a tranquil scene, but my internal monologue is screaming fear. I recently turned 50 and, partly because I could not justify to myself or my wife the purchase of a red sports car, I decided to make a serious stab at achieving a long-held ambition of becoming a semi-competent guitarist.Having gained a basic level of ability with riffs, barre chords and the pentatonic scale, I now find myself on my first guitarists’ retreat. My fellow musical travellers and I might not be of the standard of The Beatles when they decamped to Rishikesh — that produced the metamorphic White Album, quite a high bar — but the salads, pulses and fresh fish prepared for us by East Meets West’s onboard chef are far superior to the spiced food that sent Ringo scuttling home from India.Our eight-day cruise from Marmaris, around the sun drenched Göcek islands, to Bozburun, has been organised by The Guitar Social (TGS). A London-based music tutoring start-up, its innovation is to teach budding Eric Claptons as a group, harmonising as well as covering for the odd sausage finger mispluck by classmates. Our cruise is one of several retreats that TGS runs, including a US road trip from Nashville to New Orleans, time in a remote French château and a musical tour through Ireland. And they attract an eclectic mix of people.My fellow guitar students include a Polish emerging markets trader for a hedge fund, a Bavarian doctor of mathematics, a nurse, a retired electrician and a media business co-founder. Our instruments are equally eclectic: alongside semi-acoustics and semi-hollow electrics is a three-string cigar box guitar, a ukulele and a mandolin.Our leader for the week is TGS founder Thomas Binns, a stick thin 38-year-old Yorkshireman, who rocks a Jarvis Cocker vibe in sunglasses, Eighties football shorts and a selection of Hawaiian shirts. A talented guitar and harmonica player, Binns is also a kind and generous teacher, offering one-on-one tuition on deck to help me improve my picking and introducing me to an exercise to nurture “spaghetti fingers” (a good thing, he assures me) as well as running workshops for the whole group on musical theory and songwriting techniques.Partly to relieve the tension of music practice, or just to cool off from the 34C heat, we are encouraged to swim in the crystal clear azure waters around the boat in between sessions. It creates a certain rhythm to each day: rise, swim, breakfast, strum, swim again, strum again, lunch, swim, strum, swim, strum, dinner, swim, perform, repeat. Midnight dips are also popular, accompanied (of course) by REM’s “Nightswimming”.We break this pattern for one day to travel up the Dalyan River — home to giant loggerhead turtles — cruising past the Byzantine burial tombs carved high in the rocks and stopping to sample the local mudbaths. Apart from that, I have no need to do as much as put my shoes on. The step count on my health tracker plunges to zero.None of this however reduces the dread of that first public performance, when the sun sets on the mountains around us and Binns gathers us together around the cushions in East Meets West’s stern.Only four people are bold enough on that first night to volunteer a song, and that is fine, Binns reassures us. Then, gradually, over the following days the mood among all of us changes as we realise we have nothing to lose. Those with the bottle to have a go are rewarded with cheers and compliments on enjoyable elements of the performance. There is something positive to say to everyone, even if, as in my first attempt, you have to restart the piece.By the end of the week, not only are we all contributing at least one item to the nightly show, but the more brave among us are trying new compositions and preparing pieces together. Before we know it the week has ended, the calluses on our fingertips have hardened and we all feel more accomplished musicians.Back on home soil, three of us grab the train from Gatwick airport back into London. The carriage is packed with Saturday night revellers and as we try to find some space, a group spots the guitar cases. One asks: “Are you in a band?” I pause, then reply: “Not yet.”
