Revenge is Sweet (sometimes)

Listen to how Dave Carroll of "Sons of Maxwell" gets his revenge on United Airlines. Here's the story in his words: "In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise."

Go get'em Dave. Click here for "United Breaks Guitars". (Again, I had to put a youtube link because of the size.)

I Love My Job

One of the benefits of playing guitar is that from time to time pretty girls will come up and ask to have their pictures taken with me. These two very kind young ladies traveled all the way from China(!) for this one, taken at my Beachstreet USA gig this past Sunday evening. Thanks to Song Qingyun (Sienna) for sending them!

Facebooking

I'm becoming a fan of Facebook. I signed up for Facebook a while back when people started asking me if I had a page there, but I didn't pay much attention. Since then I've learned a lot. For one thing, if you make friends with Lynn Kelley on facebook, you get a LOT of new friends links and contacts, which is a very good thing. Thank you Lynn.

Another thing I found out is that it's a great place to find old friends you've lost touch with. When I was in my early 20s I was in the USAF band (honorably discharged after four years, mind you). I played with some great musicians and made some great friends I've since lost touch with. This week I was able to contact some folks that I hadn't talked to in almost 30 years. One was a guy named Burdette Becks. Burdette was as natural a musician as you could find — a jazz flute player and singer. Come to find out he's living in Germany and over the years has played with the likes of Bob Hope, Wynton Marsalis, Dionne Warwick, Lou Rawls and more. He's told me that his band may be coming to Newport News for a gig in the future. I hope so and I'll let you know. You should check out his site to hear some great music that includes some seriously good guitar playing.

Another friend was Paul Sammons. Paul was the penultimate bandmate, a (really) great arranger, guitar player, singer and plain ol' entertainer, plus a nice solid guy to boot. Oh, and though he was kind enough to never do it in front of us, he played the trombone too. We would cuss Paul sometimes during rehearsals for making us play a tune for the umpteenth time, listen to each other, keep a solid groove, pay attention to dynamics.... pretty much all the things that real bands do that amateurs don't. But you can bet when we saw the response we got from our audiences, we stopped cussing and started thanking Paul for his leadership. If you want to see something really funny, click on Paul's Memory Lane page and just by chance, see a picture of me playing the 1960-something cherry-red Gibson ES335, which I still own. I paid 300 bucks for it back then. I'm pretty sure it's worth more now. The picture is of us playing at the Iowa State Fair in 1978 and is the last one on the page. I'm on the right, and yes that is a cowboy hat. Paul is happily living out his "retirement" in Arizona and is the star of The Saguaro Sunset Band. No doubt, Saguaro sunsetters are boogieing hard when Paul's band cranks it up.

Simplicity

There's real beauty in simplicity in all kinds of music, but especially "light entertaining music", as a friend reminded me this week. Here's a great example of what I'm talking about. Earl Klugh has been coming up with simple, beautiful chords and melodies for a long time now. Here's a very young Klugh showing us that sometimes less is more.



Former New York Yankees great, centerfielder and probably future MLB Hall of Famer Bernie Williams is a pretty good guitar player. Listen to how he takes a simple, familiar melody and makes great music with it. Hear how he enhances it with the harmony he lays around it. And yes, that really is Bernie Williams playing. (I had to put a link to this one because the size of it didn't fit in my blog layout. It's a link to youtube:)


Bernie Williams' Take Me Out to the Ballgame

'Round Midnight

'Round Midnight, Thelonius Monk's 1944 classic has been called the perfect jazz standard. Listen as Dutch guitarist Olaf Tarenskeen plays his own very, very nice arrangement:



Next I've found a beauty called "The Reluctant Bride" by Ralph Towner. (Isn't that a thought provoking, melancholy title?!?) Some of you may remember Towner from his work with the Paul Winter Consort, and the group "Oregon". Enjoy!:

Cesar Camargo Mariano & Romero Lubambo

I came across this piano/guitar duet recently and had to post it. Rarely have I heard such good cooperation between these two instruments. Mariano and Lubambo play "Curumim" with very clever virtuosity. Enjoy:

Great Guitars Videos

In my never ending search for great guitar videos (so you won't have to) I've come up with a couple of beauties. Julian Bream and John Williams, two of the greatest classial guitarists in the world team up here for for a very lively and fun dance by Claude DeBussy called "Golliwog's Cakewalk":



Next here's Bream and Williams again, playing one of the great all time guitar duets in my opinion. Just wait until you hear them light this piece up — brilliant technique combined with fire. Also, there are some terrific (if brief) close-ups of each of their right hand techniques. Manuel De Falla's Spanish Dance #1:

I Learn an India Arie Song

I was asked to play for a wedding this Saturday. I'll be playing for about a half hour before the wedding and for a little while after. During the ceremony I'll be accompanying the bride as she sings a song I was asked to learn for the occasion. Yesterday we had a rehearsal that went very well. She has a very nice voice and the song is beautiful. I thought I'd share it with you. It's by India Arie who, as an aside, is the daughter of former UVA basketball star and NBAer Ralph Sampson. The song is called "Ready for Love".

Music & Wisdom from a Great Guitarist

Friend and guitar student Ben loaned me a CD of guitar great John Williams' "El Diablo Suelto, Guitar Music of Venezuela". A quick internet search told me that "El Diablo Suelto" translates as "In an Uproar". It is full of incredible music and guitar playing. I haven't yet found a video of Williams playing any of these pieces but I did come across one played very nicely by Danish guitarist Peo Kindgrin. The piece is by Alfonso Montes and is called "Preludio de Adios":



Whether you're familiar with Williams or not, I hope you'll take time to listen to this one. It's a great example of his playing. This is a Prelude from the Bach Lute Suite #4:



Later I came across this interview with Williams on guitarteacher.com. It's full of good information: John Williams Interview

Another Ibanez Jemsite Post by Moi

It's been a month since my last posting, sorry. Times flies. Sometimes I'm in playing mode, sometimes I'm in writing mode. On really good days, both.

I hurt my back and was having trouble moving around for awhile. The day after I hurt it I caught a cold. The glass definitely stayed half full though. It gave me some time to practice. All I could do was sit in one position anyway, so what was to stop me?

I'm excited to say I've had another post published by Ibanez Guitars' Jemsite. After my last post there the hits on my humble blog skyrocketed. According to my sitemeter I had hits from places I never imagined I'd have hits from — all over the U.S and Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Iceland, The United Kingdom, France, Spain, Bosnia, The Czech Republic, Egypt, Israel, India, Australia and more; even Hanoi and Islamabad (imagine!). I'm still waiting on Japan but have high hopes. I see it as a great un-tapped resource.

In this post I write about zoning whilst playing guitar. I found it a difficult subject to write about, but it's dear to my heart so I couldn't let that stop me. For those who know me well (and you know who you are), this might clear up a few things you may have wondered about me. My thanks again to Jemsite publisher Awesome Ava for her awesome (of course) support, plus her editing prowess that makes the whole thing much more readable.

Here's the link:
http://www.jemsite.com/blog/43-general/781-zoning-issues.html

My kinda' livin'.

Ibanez Guitars' Jemsite

Last week I was asked by the Awesome Ava of Ibanez Guitars' Jemsite to write a posting for their Jemsite guitar forum. I was honored. The Jem Guitar was personally designed for Ibanez by legendary guitarist Steve Vai. I had the chance to hear Vai play years ago when he toured with Frank Zappa and The Mother's of Invention (as a "stunt guitarist", according to his MySpace page). Awesome.

My thanks to Awesome Ava for finding my humble blog all the way from beautiful Tel Aviv, and asking me to write for them. I hope to add more in the future. I also hope you'll take time to look at their forum, whose readers I'm guessing are a lot younger then I.

Here's a direct link to my post:
http://www.jemsite.com/blog/43-general/763-tips-from-a-guitar-vet.html

My kinda livin'.

Music on Deaf Ears

"Evelyn Glennie is simply a phenomenon of a performer."
— New York Times

Can a deaf person be a musician? In my searches through the web for good music-related stuff (so you won't have to) I came across a video of Evelyn Glennie that I had to share with you. Glennie, a Grammy winning percussionist has been profoundly deaf since age 12. She regularly plays barefoot for both live performances and studio recordings, to better "feel" the music, and says to have "taught herself to hear with parts of her body other than her ears".

Glennie has recorded with, among others, Bjork, Sting, Bobby McFerrin, Emmanuel Ax, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. She won Grammies for her recording of Bela Bartok's "Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion" and also for collaborative work with Bela Fleck. Amazing.

Here's a youtube recording of her playing Scott Joplin's classic Maple Leaf Rag.



Unsurprisingly, Glennie has become a much-sought motivational speaker. If you really want to hear something amazing, see (and hear!) her "How to Listen to Music with Your Whole Body".

Fret Not

I was changing my strings recently when a very bad thing happened. The screw that holds the B-string tuning gear in place on my guitar was missing, gone, AWOL. I've been playing the guitar for a long time and this had never happened to me. Even the thought of losing one had never occurred to me (charmed life). Evidently the tension of the string had been holding it in place, but when I loosened it, the gear fell off completely (causing a very different kind of tension). Apparently I unknowingly had a screw loose for a good while, and had now lost it completely. (Go ahead, insert joke here.)

This is a very small machine screw, maybe a quarter-inch to 5/16ths long, but it's a fat little thing with a very tight thread count. It could have fallen off anytime, anywhere. I do a quick search around the room I practice in. When that doesn't work I take the methodical-inch-by-inch approach. This is a Sunday afternoon. Believe me, I am not in the mood for the methodical-inch-by-inch approach. I wanted to change the strings in the first place so I could play the guitar. Football is on.

I wave a magnet over every area I can think to wave it. I dig into the couch (interesting, but no screw). Useless. I give up. I go grab a jar of screws I keep for emergencies. Nothing even close. I'm not crazy about the idea, but I grab my old National classical guitar thinking I can maybe cannibalize it. Different thread.

Off to the internet where I find the tuning keys on my guitar are handmade and hand-engraved "Fustero" tuners crafted in Spain and plated in "real gold" (sic). (My guitar is a Ramirez, also made in Spain.) A new set of similar Fusteros retails for about 300 bucks. Ugh. (More than what I paid for the old National.)

Bill Colgan, of Isle of Wight Instruments in Smithfield had been my go-to-guy for guitar repairs for years. Great guy, but he had tragically passed some years ago, still missed by many in this area. Then from somewhere in my brain (how do these things happen?) I remember someone telling me about a woman on the peninsula who had worked with Bill, and had a guitar repair shop.

8:00 a.m. Monday after a quick search, I call Fret Not Guitar Repair, Inc. and leave a message that I need help... fast. At 9:00 a.m. (she doesn't open until 9:00) Margarite Pastella of Fret Not calls me back. She won't promise she can help, but I can come by and she'll see what she can do. By 9:30 I'm off to Newport News.

Like all luthiers, she has jars and jars of screws accumulated over the years but after a good half hour she still hasn't found a match. She's fun to talk guitars with though, and helps me maintain my semblance of sanity. She offers to let me play a guitar she'd built. It was a high quality steel string. I mean beautifully made — real craftsmanship. I didn't ask how much she wanted for it, but I knew it couldn't be nearly what it would actually be worth given the time she had put into building it. Come to find out, Margarite is a certified repair lady for Martin, Taylor, and Fender too. Those companies don't give out those certifications lightly.

She finds a screw that fits. Great(!), except that the head of the screw is so small that as she put's it in, it goes right through the gear and won't hold it in place. Back to looking, and remember this was a LOT of screws to look through. More drama for me.

Finally, Margarite finds a screw that's the right size and thread count. Only one problem — it's about a half inch too long. No problem for her, she whips out a small hand saw and cuts it to length. It takes a long time to cut, too. Problem solved. Margarite had just spent nearly an hour and a half, having dropped whatever she was doing, to help a total stranger. What else do you need to know about Fret Not?

Classical Guitar Basics

Friend and student Scott Wood had a great idea. Scott is one of those IT guys who is a whiz at computer stuff and has created a new site called Classical Guitar Basics. He has kindly invited me to be a part of CGB, has published some of my posts on there, and allowed me to be a featured instructor for the site. CGB is beautifully designed and features lessons, articles, a blog, and even a participatory forum. There are also some great videos of guitarists (my favorite: Kevin Loh, aged 10, playing Bach), and links to other very good sites.

I hope you'll take some time to give it a look and bookmark it. Scott is a great writer, with a strong understanding of how the mind works as it relates to playing guitar. Let me know what you think!

Studies in Concentration

I'm always amazed at the concentration of some musicians. Tommy Emmanuel, whom I wrote about in an earlier post is one such guitarist. It is an ability to concentrate that draws listeners into the music in a way that I can't describe, but I know it when I see it. Or better put, I know it when I hear it. I do however get almost as much out of watching these two play as I do listening to them.

Here are two of the best examples. Neither are guitarists, but I had to include them anyway. Both are studies in true grace, and there's a great deal for us to learn here. I encourage you to seek out their music on your own.

First here's jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, performing live, playing George Gershwin's beautiful "I Loves You Porgy", from "Porgy and Bess".



Next, the inimitable Vladimir Horiwitz performing Frédéric Chopin's first ballade. Watch as he pauses before playing to center himself.



'Nuff said.