Where words fail, music speaks.
Famous author Hans Christian Andersen was the first to utter that phrase, which has been adopted by Resonance Music Studio owner Paul Edwards.
The Bridgend-based composer and educator is aiming to give everyone a voice through his music courses.
Paul, who has a background in modern and traditional music writing and performance, launched a course titled Couch to Five Chords after enlisting the help and support of Superfast Business Wales.
A one-to-one with adviser Peter Mackenzie, who reviewed Paul’s website, focused the musician’s mind on creating a teaching programme.
Paul, who launched the course late last year, said: “Peter was happy with the fact that the site explained who I am and what it is that I do, but the big thing missing was that it didn’t sell anything and that needed to change.
“I thought about putting music on, but there are complexities around copyright, so that was when I settled on starting my own courses and online learning platform.
“I am a guitarist and people celebrate my talent when I play, which is something I take for granted. The ability to pass those skills to others made sense.”
Former schoolteacher Paul set about devising a plan to launch a free course on Teachable, which would feed into a bigger paid-for training scheme.
When everything was in place, he advertised the course on Facebook with Peter’s advice on increased social media usage ringing in his ears.
Paul continued: “It has been slower getting to the point of launching the course, but I wanted to make sure everything was right, and the numbers on the very first one has been encouraging.
“Peter really wanted me to increase the number of posts I did on social media, including videos of me playing the guitar and content around my producing work, to spread awareness of what I had to offer and build up my followers – and it certainly worked.
“More than 50 people signed up for the free course, which is very promising, and I’m optimistic that from that figure there will be a migration to the paid-for option.
“I’ve also had some really good numbers in terms of metrics on my Facebook page since increasing my focus on producing content.
“One post I did advertising the main course reached more than 6,000 people with close to 11,000 impressions and 200-plus link clicks.
“There has also been an increase of more than 50 new followers of the page with shares and likes also on the up.”
Peter’s advice has also helped boost the company’s website with Paul working hard to improve all aspects of the business.
Suggestions were made after digging into the search engine optimisation (SEO), and there has been a series of positive outcomes as a result of Paul taking these on board.
He said: “Peter wanted me to improve the backlinks on the site, which would help with SEO, and I consider it to be as up to date as it can be now.
“There is a link to a BBC documentary called Strong Women I worked on, as well as an interview on ITV talking about Richard ‘Dil’ Williams and helping produce his festive song, A Picture of Christmas.
“Certainly, in terms of visits and views, the site is working better than it has done in the past and that’s down to the recommendations I received.
“I was looking at the figures for the last 30 days and views have increased by 177 per cent and unique visits are up 67 per cent, with the average number of pages seen close to three, which suggests that people aren’t just clicking straight off.
“Peter suggested that the speed of the site could be improved, and I feel that is another thing ticked off the to-do list.”
Paul is not about to rest on his laurels, however, with plans in place to extend his offerings down the line, as well as further increase his social media usage.
He continued: “When I started to come up with the idea of the teaching course, I wanted to offer something different to the majority, who often showcase their talent without explaining how they got to the level they are at.
“I’m self-taught and I want to inspire and help as many people as possible to play the guitar, so went down the route of the Couch to Five Chords course.
“I would like to show people what I can do, which I think might help those thinking of doing the course to trust I know what I’m talking about!
“With that in mind, I have investigated using TikTok as well as adding videos to Facebook and YouTube as I already do.
“Then there is the longer-term goal of launching a song writing course, which ties in with my work as a composer.
“I’m also constantly looking at how to improve my website and whether that means switching from Weebly to WordPress, which appears to have a greater impact on Google, we shall see.”
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