Guitar Musings

If you have read Guitar Musings for the past couple of months, you might have noticed that I’ve been on a huge Tommy Emmanuel kick.   When I listen to the “Live One” CD’s, I get inspired/motivated to keep plugging away and keep working hard at guitar and wanted to learn all about him and his playing.  However, you can get too much of a good thing.  What do I mean by this?  I was so focused on T.E. songs, that my playing narrowed to a point where it has been a bit stagnant.  I neglected my theory and exercises that helped me take my playing just a level higher.  This isn’t the first time this has happened.  I have had Bruce Cockburn, Eddie VH and Eric Johnson obsessions as well.    What happened in the past, is that I would stop playing for anywhere from week to many months but not anymore.

So I’m taking step back and pulling out my chord progression book and scales book and remember to work on those more.  I recall reading an interview with studio musicians where they talked about how they didn’t work on learning songs but theory and progressions when practicing.  This was so they were always prepared for any piece of music that was brought to them to play for recording.  This has helped me quite a bit and maybe, just maybe, this will get me a step closer to that elusive YouTube post.

There are a ton of guitar lesson sites available for all of us to use.  Some are invaluable tools that I frequent often and others are completely worthless.  If you don’t have the money to pay for online lessons, your chances of running into a worthless site are even better.   I don’t actively look for site to rate but I have stumbled across this and felt it worth a mention.

A guitarist by the name of Rob Bourassa is giving a “7 week primer” on YouTube which will “..enable the student to learn to play by ear.”  It is a course with a weekly lesson video and 5 minute practice companions to help you stay on task.  The first 3 courses covers scales and and fingerpicking (Travis).  I’m running through the lessons myself because I’m curious on what the lessons will bring and  my daughter is learning the guitar and he has great insight on teaching.  Rob has been playing for 40 years and is an incredible guitarist and is a  frequent contributor to the Acoustic Guitar Magazine Forum.  

So if you are just learning or know someone who is, check it out.  What Rob has done is incredibly generous.  Lessons like these would cost thirty to forty dollars if you wanted to get it on DVD.

Rob’s YouTube Lessons

7 Week Lesson Forum Thread

I’m a huge fan of podcasts and video podcasts and I love the the wealth of information that you can obtain from them.  I have probably 20 or so on my iTouch as I write this and it keep on growing.  One podcast that I am having a hard time finding is a good instructional podcasts for music. Most music podcasts that I find are usually radio shows presenting recommended listening in a certain genre.  Great tools to expose yourself to new music but not what I’m looking for.

I did find is the Musicology Show from Pandora. which is a true instructional show that digs inside the nuances of music it’s styles.  One show will teach you about metric modulation (aka time signature changes) and the next week you will learn about aspects of composition or what a madrigal is.  For some it will be a refresher course and for others, it will expose you to different aspects of music that would otherwise stay unknown to you. 

Give the Musicology Show a listen and tell me what you think.  Are there any good guitar/music instructional podcasts you would recommend?

http://blog.pandora.com/podcast/

Had an interesting conversation with a friend last weekend.  We were watching YouTube showing each other different guitarists that we dig.  I showed him some Michael Hedges and William Ackerman videos,

which then led us to a conversation about open tunings. I explained to him that Hedges and Ackerman used/use alternate tunings almost exclusively. 

When I pointed this out, he seemed unimpressed and maybe even lost a bit of interest once I mentioned open tunings.  The first thing he asked was why not just learn/write the song in normal tuning; adjust yourself to the instrument instead forcing the instrument to adjust to you.  Interesting point but I had to disagree and explained that many of these songs would be impossible to replicate in standard tuning and if you could play it in standard tuning the mood or feel of the piece might be adversely affected.  He nodded as if to agree but not totally convinced.  His background is as a progressive metal guitarist and in his experiences, he has witnessed some players tune to an open tuning and just bar everything for every song. To him, that is a shortcut or cheating.  I agreed with him to some extent but that person still needs to have rhythm and a feel for the changes, so there is some sort musicianship going on there.   We went back and forth a bit more and I think he has more respect for alternate tunings but I don’t think I’ll see him playing any open C tunings any time soon.

So are alternate tunings cheating?  I don’t think so.  It’s just another tool at our disposal we can use to enhance our music and to, at times, make it easier for us to play.  If we really want to nitpick, we would have to call capos, effects, amps, computers,etc… cheating as well.  I guess I’m a cheater and glad I have all these resources to cheat with.  How about you?

Links of Interest:

• William Ackerman’s list of alternate tunings
• Michael Hedges alternate tunings