Recording at Home or Away

Do It Yourself Approach – There are basically two ways to record your own CD. The first is what a lot of independent artists are doing: they do it themselves in the privacy of their own home. They get themselves a computer, install Pro-Tools and go to town.

The advantage to this approach is simple. You can spend a year recording your CD and tweak every tiny thing that bugs you. You can punch in your guitar solo seven thousand times between Thanksgiving and Christmas ’til you get it right. You can fix any pitch problems, add tons of layers, spend a bunch of time getting a killer tone, go nuts without getting yourself in debt like you would if you had to pay an engineer or for the same amount of studio time.

The only problem is that unless you practically have a studio in your home, you are going to have a rough time recording a full band, especially if you play the kind of music that needs to be played live, with real musicians. Jazz, Fusion, Blues and some Rock are a few examples. Drums are a nightmare and big amps can also possibly pose some problems. That is why the kind of music that generally gets recorded using this “do it in the privacy of your own home” method is ambient, techno, electronica and the like. Not to say you can’t record other genres effectively but a recording studio tends to produce better recording results when you need to record traditional instruments.

A decent quality pro-tools system can cost anywhere from five to thirty grand depending on how many tracks (and speed) you need but it is a great investment if you plan on producing good quality recordings at home.

The Traditional Approach – Rehearse the band and get in the studio. This poses one big obstacle: MONEY! Studio time is expensive so you need to be well rehearsed or at least use musicians that are quick. Both my CDs, Big Bad Sun and my first release, Prospects, were recorded this way and with no rehearsals. We only had three days to record the Big Bad Sun CD so more then the other two guys in the band, I had to be totally prepared. I had to know exactly how I wanted to start and end each song, the form or each tune, have my lyrics together. Recording a CD in three days is impossible if you have to spend more than two hours on each song so I had to have an image of each song in my head before we even got in the studio. By the way, most CDs are recorded in about a month but when you are paying for the studio time yourself, plan on doing it in about five days or you’ll go broke.

Who Does What

The Engineer - When recording at home an engineer is out of the question (unless it is you). You would have to be Bill Gates to be able to afford paying an engineer to come over everyday for six months. In a recording studio, you will have to hire one or use the one that they give you. Out of all my years playing guitar in dozens of recording studios, I still don’t know how to turn half the stuff or much less mix my own tracks. As I said, most recording studios will supply an engineer but you may want to hire one with a good reputation. You can always listen to CDs that they engineered. Basically engineers are passive for the most part, they work best when they are told what to do. That’s where problems arise. I mean, during a recording session if the engineer where to ask me; “How do you want me to EQ the snare drum?” I would be dumbfounded for an answer. I know what I like when I hear it but I don’t know how to EQ it to make it sound like what I like. So if you are not up to giving the orders, you may want to consider a producer. A producer is who usually does the ordering. By the way, I paid the engineer for the Big Bad Sun session about twelve hundred dollars for the three days plus the mixdown.

The Producer - Sometimes you can find a guy that is good at both engineering and producing. One reason a producer is good to have is because with only a few days in the studio, you are going to have a hell of a time editing your tracks by yourself. Let me explain: let’s say you are recording your vocal track, usually you sing through the song four or five times and record each take on different track. Each time you sing through it, the producer sitting at his groovy producer desk in the studio, picks the phrases from each vocal take that he likes the best. He makes notes on your lyric sheets, marking which phrase he likes from what take. After you are done singing through the song several times he will tell the engineer how to glue the different parts he likes together. If you aren’t the greatest singer, it is an enormous undertaking, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It would take you way to much time to do this yourself. He will also tell the engineer how to mix everything, what kind of reverb, delay, how to EQ your guitar. Being a musician, you would figure that you could tell the engineer how to mix everything but I found that after hours in the studio I tend to lose my sense of perspective but a good producer’s ears never seem to get tired. A good producer also has a fascinating ability to know how things will sound recorded. Guitarists tend to listen to the sound of our amp and that’s where it ends but the producer listens to the sound of our amp, imagines the sound hitting a specific mike placed in a specific location in the studio, travel to the mixing board, get some reverb and delay added, get mixed with the other instruments, get mastered, burned and getting stuck in a $27.99 CD player bought at K-Mart and getting listened to by someone who probably doesn’t even play the guitar. Musicians tend to listen in real time but a producer must be a clairvoyant. You should definitely take a listen to the CDs that he has produced before you hire him. Each producer has his style, some guys like everything super wet and some hate wet sounding recordings, so it is best to match up your likes and dislikes with his. When you meet with him, tell him what kind of image you have and maybe give him some CDs of recording that you like. One reason I picked the producer I did for the Big Bad Sun session is because he, like me, is a guitarist and pays special attention to mixing the guitar correctly.

In the Studio Before you Actually Start Recording

Equipment - This is what happens when you get in the studio to record your CD: You get there and bring your equipment in. Generally decent studios will already have various amps and at least one quality drum set but you may still want to bring your own if that is what you are used to. I always bring my own amp because I can dial up my sound right away but also because I have a good professional relationship with the most of the companies that offer me special deals on my equipment. For that reason I want to use their stuff on my recordings as promotion for them. If the studio has an amp that is better than yours, you can always use it instead of your own anyways.

Microphones - Next the engineer will be getting everything miked up and getting the sound together. This will take a little time. He will be placing a mike right on the speaker of your cabinet and most likely an ambient mike a few meters away. Open back combos like Fender amps generally get a mike in back also. Two or three mikes for one guitar amp. The producer may suggest specific mikes for your amp. I personally like a cheapo Shure 57 on a Marshall and Sennheiser for an ambient mike. I sometimes like to use two amps and pan them somewhat right and left, this will make some engineers crazy and other like this kind of thing. I like the subtle differences in each respective speaker. Some engineers don’t like the sound of the mike too close to the speaker, some like a 57 stuck an inch away. The sound is different but both get good results depending on who is doing the engineering.

Headphones - Recording is a very unnatural way to make music. How you hear yourself and each other will make or break the session. There are different ways to record. You can record everything separately but the disadvantage to this method is time and it also makes it pretty difficult to end songs and it also makes musical interplay an impossibility. Recording everything separately also takes a lot of time. If the tracks for type of music that you create are best recorded separately, you might want to consider going for the “do it yourself at home” method discussed earlier. The type of music that I mostly write requires, at least everything but the vocal track, to be recorded simultaneously. I used to like to be in the room with my amp and watch the other guys through the window but lately I have been playing in the same room with the bassist and drummer and run a line to my amp in a separate location. To make up for the lack of sustain I crank up the amp really loud and I seem to be able the get the tone I want. The next step is getting the mix right in your headphones. If you screw this up, you will be miserable throughout the session so it is best to get this straight right away. There are some engineers who know exactly how to send your sound back to you in your headphones and others that you will have to spell it out a thousand different ways in order to get it sounding right. I have the engineer mix a little delay or reverb on my guitar so I can play things easier. The reverb or delay on your guitar is a temporary thing only for your monitor so don’t worry if it is a little to long or short or mixed in a way that you don’t think appropriate for your music, you will be able to change it later when you mix the recording. Now you are ready to record.

Recording

Play - Now you can start recording. When the engineer or producer give the okay you can play through the tune. The first time is pretty much a rehearsal, now your ready to go. If you have it together, three or four takes may be enough. You then will go back to where the engineer and producer are and listen back to each take through the studio monitors and you can decide with the producer which take is the best. You can also punch-in anything that may not have worked out the way you wanted. Remember this: anything that bugs you a little will bug you a lot after you burn a thousand CDs. So if you hear something that you don’t like, punch-in the individual part again or do another take with the band. When you listen back to the take in the mixing room don’t let it bother you if your guitar volume is too low or the kick drum is too loud, that will all get fixed during the mixdown. If you are using Pro-Tools the producer may have the engineer fix some timing or pitch problems on the spot. Modern technology has done wonders for the recording process.

Vocal Tracks

Vocals - When I record my own music, I generally record the music first and do the vocal tracks later on. But be careful not to get stuck doing every vocal track on the last day. If you figure that you will sing every song five times and record ten songs, you’ll have to sing fifty takes. Sing a couple of songs a day and don’t risk injury. As I mentioned before, the producer will pick different sections or each vocal take and edit them together to get one perfect vocal track for each song. He also may fix any pitch or timing problems using the computer. Make sure you have copies of your lyrics for the engineer and producer if you are using one, as I mentioned, they will be marking which individual phrases to glue together to make the final track.

The Mixdown - After the tunes are recorded the engineer and producer start to mix everything. He will add reverb and delay on various parts and EQ things. The producer and engineer might fight about certain things here, if that happens leave for a while and come back later. You are paying the cash so you will give the final okay. Usually getting the first tune mixed down takes a ton of time, maybe three or four hours. After that the next tune will go faster. Every engineer is different. I have seen guys mix a whole CD in several hours and make it sound great and other guys spend a week mixing and have the recording end up sounding like crap. We spent about twenty-four hours mixing Big Bad Sun.

Choosing A Studio

What to look for - Because the computer is used mostly these days rather than tape, the process is a lot faster. When things where recorded on tape half your studio time was spent rewinding each take. It may seem trivial but when you record nine or ten songs four or five times each, puch-in solos, separately record the vocal tracks several times each and edit them, you spend an enormous time rewinding tape. Since studio time is expensive definitely pick a digital studio over an analogue one. Whether or not you record at home or in a recording studio, there is also one more great advantage to using Pro-Tools. Since it is pretty much standard software for recording, you can send the data out for various purposes. Mastering is one example but also imagine this, you could record your tune and send the data to me, and then I could record in a guitar solo and send it back to you. You could send your data all over the world and have different people record different tracks. Couldn’t really do that in the old days. Generally the medium sized studios will charge you on average four of five hundred dollars a day including an engineer. Less if you bring in your own engineer but of course you will need to pay him separately for his time. The big studios will charge you more and may be less interested in the project.

Best of Both Worlds

There are some guys that combine both the “do it yourself at home” and “traditional” methods for spectacular results. Keyboards and sequences are recorded at home, the data brought to the studio, drums, guitars and vocals added, data brought back home, tweaked and tweaked again, etc.. This method is also very cost effective as it reduces your time in the studio.

Once It’s Recorded

Mastering - Don’t screw up here. You get in the studio, record a great session, mix it down, and add the perfect blend of equalization, reverb, delay and whatnot. Now you have to get it mastered. When you master a CD this is what happens, the data goes to a mastering studio, the mastering engineer will then arrange the songs in the proper order, do fade-outs on the songs he is supposed to, make sure all the songs are the same level, EQ the whole thing, compress the music so there is no jagged edges sticking out, and raise the general volume. He basically makes it easy to listen to. My general rule of thumb is that I never let the engineer who mixed the music master it. It is a whole different thing and it is best to let someone who listening with fresh ears to master it. Mastering takes four to eight hours and costs between four hundred to a grand depending on the mastering studio and amount of songs that need to be mastered. I would suggest you wait at least a week to master your CD. You should listen to it a bunch of times in different stereo systems before to make sure you like the mix first. Studio monitors sound great so don’t let them fool you, compare it to some other CDs at home in the same stereo that you always listen to.

Is it worth it? - I would guestimate that five days in the studio, including the mixdown will set you back about five or six grand depending on what studio, what engineer and producer you use. Lets see here, fifteen dollars per CD multiplied by one thousand CDs equals fifteen thousand dollars, which in turn will make you ten thousand dollars in profit. If you sell them all you can re-press another thousand. Lets say the whole thing costs you five thousand dollars to do, you will need to sell three hundred and thirty three units. If you have four guys in your band, you would each have to sell eighty three CDs each (and you can probably sell more than a few to your own mother). If you can put together a good CD, a website and gigs it is not a tremendous undertaking at all. Imagine if the CD where to hit and you sell ten thousand of them, $150,000!!!!! Stranger things have happened.

Whichever recording method works best for you if for you to decide and both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. My final advice is this: it is easier making music than selling it so be not only an artist but also be a businessman. Do the math, homework and all the preparations you need and finally sell enough to make a profit. Let me know how things turn out.

If you are not familiar with Adrian Legg, allow me to describe to you what kind of player he is. First of all, he is unlike any guitarist you have ever heard. He uses various tunings and quite often changes tunings mid-song. He may be described as a finger style player, meaning he chooses to use his fingers rather than a pick. He generally plays solo. When I saw him back when I was teaching in LA he played an Ovation acoustic but now he plays a guitar that has the harmonic characteristics of an acoustic guitar but is really an electric guitar. He is one of the few guitarists that you could describe as a technical wizard but still has the uncanny ability to write tender and touching music, definitely a lost art. Adrian has been Voted “Guitarist of the Decade” by Guitarist magazine and also was the winner for Best Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitarist for 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 in the Guitar Player’s Reader’s Poll.

Let me share what I learned from Adrian with you as we traveled around Japan together. These are some of the answers I got to the many questions I asked along the way from Tokyo to Fukuoka. Oh yeah, I should warn you, this interview is in retrospect so you will have to replace my New York vernacular with his British one for his answers to get the full gentlemanly effect:

Chris: You use various techniques like the Banjo roll and artificial harmonics to get some interesting effects. What’s your view on technique?

Adrian: Technique is just like a bicycle. It simply gets you to your destination.

Chris: How often do you practice?

Adrian: I tend to practice a great deal before recording a new CD and before a tour and take it easy after the fact. I took a year off to fish once.

Chris: Who would you suggest the aspiring guitarist listen too?

Adrian: Listen to the other stringed instruments. When I started out, I was mostly listening to the Banjo and Pedal Steel players. I also absolutely love the Bach double violin concerto.

Chris: Your guitar is one of the most unique guitars I’ve ever seen. It looks like an electric but sounds like an acoustic. It has a small soundhole, not on the front, but on the treble-side cutaway. Can you tell me a little about the guitar?

Adrian: There are several reasons I got away from the typical acoustic guitar for touring: One reason is The Boeing 777. It has an overhead bin of only 37.5 inches making it impossible to hold a guitar. I needed a guitar that would fit in the overhead bin. The other reason is that amplification can create serious problems with straight acoustic guitars. I had the sound chamber considerably reduced to work at the kinds of levels needed for live performances. The soundhole is in the treble-side cutaway, and is flared to maximize the out of phase coupling of the sound chamber. This lifts treble response and opens out the high end harmonics very attractively. The body is made of swamp ash and the neck is Black Walnut, which worked so well for the Ovation Adamas. The fingerboard is ebony. The bridge is a standard Ovation bridge in black walnut, and the pick-up, also an Ovation.

Chris: Who made the guitar for you?

Adrian: Bill Puplett in England.

Chris: Who makes the Banjo tuners you use?

Adrian: They are made by Bill Keith at the Beacon Banjo Company in Woodstock, NY, USA. The Banjo tuners allow you to change tunings quickly between or during songs. Guitarists are always amazed by the mid-song tuning changes but Banjo players have been doing it for years.

Contact Info:
Bill Keith
Beacon Banjo Company
PO Box 597
Woodstock
NY 12498

Chris: You use open C, G, and D tunings quite often, are there any other tunings that you are particularly fond of?

Adrian: I also like the DADGAD tuning. Although not a typical Celtic tuning, it lends itself to Celtic music quite well. Not having either a minor or major 3rd in the tuning, it has an ambiguous tonality that I like.

Chris: Is there any history behind the DADGAD tuning?

Adrian: I did a workshop at a Canadian folk festival a few years ago with John Renbourn. He told the story then that I’ve heard before; the story is that Davey Graham went to Morocco, and hung out with some of the local oud players. He found that the only way he could play along with them was to tune his guitar to DADGAD. He brought the tuning back to England, and it’s been around ever since.

Chris: What exactly is an oud?

Adrian: The oud is an interesting instrument. It’s a round back fretless cousin of the lute, and its fretlessness allows those gorgeous Arabic scales.

Chris: Other than getting fed some of the strangest food I could think of, how did you enjoy your brief stay in Japan?

Adrian: I was utterly charmed by the Japanese people and was very happy there. I found it creatively stimulating. I’ll be looking forward to next year.

Examples and Exercises to try

These are a few examples of Adrian’s techniques taken from some of the songs from his newest CD, Guitar Bones.

The Banjo Roll - Typically used in Bluegrass music, the Banjo Roll is a right hand fingerstyle technique usually used by Banjo Players. As well as using it to get a typical bluegrass effect, Adrian also uses this technique in ballads. Check out the first four bars of “St. Mary’s.” Your thumb should play the bass notes on the 6th, 5th and 4th strings plus the 3rd string notes. Your index and middle finger will play the 2nd and 3rd string notes. Keep in mind, although a ballad, you have to arpeggiate the notes at a pretty good tempo to get the effect. To get this technique down, keep repeating the following four bars slowly and gradually get it up to the proper tempo. Let the notes ring out as long as possible:

Open Strings – The next example from the opening cut, “Uncle Adrian” on the “Guitar Bones” CD shows how Adrian incorporates open strings into various phrases. As in the previous example, let the notes ring out as long as possible to get the desired effect:

Pedal Steel Effects – Adrian mimics a pedal steel in “Old Friends.” The notation may be a little difficult to understand without a good idea of what the song sounds like. I would suggest a good listen first:

If you are not familiar with Adrian Legg’s music yet, you don’t know what you are missing. I don’t know too many solo players that can hold an audience’s attention for a whole concert and Adrian is one of the few, a true guitar pioneer and a gentleman.

Check out these related links:
Adrian Legg: http://www.adrianlegg.com

Oud: http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/Oud.htm

Until next time…

Perfect Pitch – There are certain musicians who have the uncanny ability of being able to identify any pitch you throw at them. That means that if you played a B flat on your instrument, they could tell you what it was immediately with little or no hesitation. Because of this, if they develop this interesting ability to its full extent, they can also learn to listen to something and play it back without much effort. Some musicians using this strange and bewildering musical sixth sense can even transcribe stuff without even using their instruments to help them along the way. Pretty cool, don’t ya think? I know this bassist who not only has perfect pitch; he also has a photographic memory, the ability to look at something and kind of take a mental photo of it, and recall it perfectly. Just like looking at a photo for reference, a Polaroid camera in his brain. He can just look at a chart of anything, take a mental snapshot of it and play it back without having to look at the chart again. Jeez, I can hardly even read a chart!

How to get it – Unfortunately, if you don’t have it now and you’re old enough to be reading this without the help of your Mom or Dad, it’s probably going to take a little work. Most of the musicians who have perfect pitch developed it as kids. I would assume it’s because they started learning music while their brains where developing and their brains got wired for sound better then the rest of us. Guitarists generally don’t have perfect pitch. I think the reason for this is simple: we guitarists tend to start playing later in life. Pianists often get started by their parents really early in life, some as young as four or five.

Colors – Most musicians, who have it, describe the sounds of certain notes as colors. There are some courses and programs to develop perfect pitch. I don’t know if they work or not but I have an open mind. You may want to try one of the programs out for yourself. If it works out, let me know and I’ll do it too.

Not Exactly Perfect – I don’t have perfect pitch, I have what we call relative pitch (I’ll get to it later). If God came out of the heavens and asked me if I wanted perfect pitch I would say; “Sure, God.” But if he only gave me one wish, I would chose world peace over perfect pitch. Perfect pitch would come somewhere between free strings for life and a complete ban on whale hunting.

Will Perfect Pitch Make You the Greatest Guitarist in the Universe? – I’m not sure, it can’t hurt. I know a lot of musicians, some of them have perfect pitch but most of them don’t. One thing I do know for sure, perfect pitch or not, all the really great players I personally know have good ears. It is important to develop your ear. I know one musician with perfect pitch, a pianist. He can tell you what any note is, figure out any phrase in half the time it takes me, listen to song once and play it back for you. But you know what? He really isn’t that hot a player. Because of his gifted ear he could definitely be a better player than me but I don’t think he really works on all the other stuff that I did. He doesn’t write well, doesn’t understand scale/chord relationships and doesn’t seem to practice very much. I would love to have his ear but I wouldn’t trade it for the other things that I have as a player.

Relative Pitch – Relative pitch is a little different than perfect pitch. People who have relative pitch have the ability of recognizing what one pitch is in relation to another. I know I just confused you, sorry. I’ll give you an example: If you play one note and tell me that it is an E note and then play, let’s say, a B flat note without telling me that it is a B flat note, I would know what it is because my ear tells me that the interval between the first note (E) and the second note (B flat) is a diminished 5th. I just know the sound of a diminished 5th interval and because I know my music theory, I know that the note that is a diminished 5th from E is B flat. The cute girl sitting next to me in the car on that day in Studio City would know the B flat without having to hear the E note first.

E Note on the Brain – To be honest, I’ve been playing guitar long enough that I have a built-in E note in my head. The reason is because the first thing I play when I pick the guitar up every day is the sixth string which as you know, is an E note. After 25 years, it just kind of got engrained in my brain. For that reason, half the time I can usually tell what any single note is by itself even without the first note to compare it to. It is still relative pitch because I’m still mentally comparing the note in question to an E note, the E note stuck in my brain. Someone with perfect pitch doesn’t have to compare one note to any other note (even a mentally created one) to know what it is. By the way, a Diminished 5th is the interval that starts off the Jimi Hendrix song, Purple Haze. In the case of Purple Haze it is a B flat and an E, try it. I know the sound of Purple Haze’s intro so I know the sound of a Diminished 5th interval.

Developing Relative Pitch – You can develop relative pitch with a little practice. Take a look at the intervals below. Memorize what they look and sound like one by one. I also included some song names that will help you to remember what the intervals sound like. After you get used to the sounds of all the intervals, have one of your guitar player buddies test you on ‘em. I’ll start with the easier intervals first:

Perfect 4th – Song examples: Here Comes the Bride, Amazing Grace.

Perfect 5th – Song examples: Love me Tender, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Major 3rd – Song examples: When the Saints Go Marching In, On Top of Old Smoky

Major 6th – Song examples: My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

Diminished 5th (Augmented 4th) – Song examples: Purple Haze intro, Maria from West Side Story.

Major 2nd – Happy Birthday

Minor 3rd – Greensleeves

Minor 2nd – Jaws

Minor 6th – Love Story (in reverse)

Minor 7th – Star Trek Theme

Major 7th – I have no idea for songs for this one. I offer a challenge to all readers of this lesson: find a song that uses this interval and I’ll be eternally grateful. Someone once told me the theme to Superman starts with the interval of a major 7th. but the song isn’t common enough to be of any use.

Get used to the sounds and shapes of all the intervals. Move them up and down the fingerboard and on to other strings. You will find the shapes will stay the same till you get to the fourth and third strings. Get together with a guitar friend and test yourselves: have him play an interval and see if you can tell what it is by its sound. You’ll find your ears improving a little everyday and before you know it, you won’t need a beautiful brunette to tell the names of various daily pitches anymore.

Until next time…

Practicing

Playing Versus Practicing – Recently Jennifer Batten (solo artist, Jeff Beck, Michael Jackson band member) did a seminar at Tokyo School of Music, the school I run in Tokyo. She said this about practice; “Practice as much as you possibly can stand without it turning into something you hate to do.” Practice should be fun but challenging. Practice should be done with specific goals in mind. I know tons of guitarists who think they are practicing but what they are really doing is just playing. Playing is important too but practice is something different. What you practice should come out in your playing. If it doesn’t, you’re not practicing efficiently. Before you sit down to practice, make sure you know what goals you are trying to reach by practicing, short term and long. It may even help to keep a log of your practice sessions. When and how long you practiced and what specifically you practiced. If you have a guitar teacher, go over the log with him at your lessons.

Continuance – Just like going to the gym, the important thing is to practice just about every day. Four hours today and nothing else for a week will amount to close to nothing. If you can only stand practicing an hour or so, that’s fine, just as long as it is almost every day.

Goals – Remember the dreaded F chord? You almost gave up didn’t you? Me, too. After you got it under your fingers, it was smooth sailing for a while until the next hurdle came up. More so than any other instrument, the guitar will challenge you this way. That is why it is important to set realistic goals for yourself. Always remember, nothing can be learned in an hour or so. The goals you set should be for weeks or months. Some of the things that I am currently practicing will take me a year to get together. Don’t get discouraged, anything worth learning will take time.

Balance – The way you practice should change with time. I’ve been playing for twenty somewhat years, so what I practice these days, is completely different than what I worked on my first few years. I know all my scales and have enough chops that I don’t need to work on those very much. I usually work on improvising over really hard chord changes. Stuff like John Coletrain’s “Giant Steps” or a Wayne Shorter song. I may sequence my own chord changes and try playing over them. I also find that working on the tunes for the gigs I do often turn into a good learning experience. For that reason I never turn down gigs that I know are going to be a real pain in the butt to get the tunes together for.

In the Beginning – If you are just starting out, you should dedicate a lot more time to technique than I do nowadays. But don’t let that be the only thing you work on. If I could change anything about the way I practiced when I first started out, I would cut down the time I worked on technique and would have dedicated more time to rhythm playing and reading. When I think back, it kind of cracks me up because I was working on scales and arpeggios for about five or six hours every day. I was sure that I was destined to be the fastest guitarist in the universe.

Life Lesson 1 (Chris gets forced to look in the mirror) – When I went to MI in the eighties, I was shocked because every student around me was really, really fast. You have to recall, this was about the same time Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani were at their zenith and Paul Gilbert was just getting his start in Mr. Big. Everyone was lightning fast and it dawned on me that I had been focusing on something that was soon to be in little demand. I completely failed to shine amongst my fellow students. I have to admit, all the scales and arpeggios I worked on in my younger days left me with chops that I still have today but there was a time that I struggled because I didn’t have my rhythm and reading chops together. I realized that I was way more likely to get a gig because I could play great rhythm or could read anything upside down than because I have fast fingers. It is now a whole different era of music and chops don’t count as much any more. That’s because the eighties was one big guitar sporting event.

I actually notice a whole different trend going on with young guitarists these days. It seems a lot of students have no interest in getting their chops together at all, which is a whole different problem. The point I’m trying to make here is that balance is the key to good practice. Work on your chops, your reading and comping skills, your ears and your theory knowledge.

Wasting Time – Don’t practice something you aren’t going to use. We guitarists often make the mistake of practicing exercises that have nothing to do with music at all. It makes no sense because there are so many things that we could be working on to increase our chops that we can actually use in a song or something. Instead we tend to work on these real mathematical chromatic exercises or something that will never find its way into a guitar solo. I often get students who ask me why, even though they practice all the time, they don’t have any chops. They haven’t realized it but they actually do have chops but the only thing they can play with real precision is these strange mathematical chromatic lines. Work on what you can use.

Ruts

Stop What you’re Doing – Sometimes you will feel frustrated about your playing. Don’t worry, it’s completely natural. It seems like you practice and practice and nothing seems to change. You sometimes seem to lose all your creativity. I often have this problem myself. This is what I do: I stop whatever I’m doing and get out a CD of some musician I really admire. I listen to the CD and find some phrase that I want to know and figure it our by ear. I may have to slow it down to do so. I then analyze it to find out how I can use it (this is why music theory is so important). Then I practice it over some chord changes and let it be come a part of my vocabulary. It never fails to amaze me how something like this can start to get my creative mind working again.

Life Lesson 2 (Joe’s Advise) – When I was studying guitar at music school in the eighties, I fell into a horrible rut halfway through the year. I asked Jazz legend Joe Diorio what he thought I should do. He asked me; “Have you been out on a date lately?” I answered; “No.” He asked; “How about to the movies?” I answered: “No.” He then asked me; “Read any good books lately?” I answered; “Well, I’ve kinda been looking at a book on orchestration these days.” Then he said; “No wonder you can’t do anything creative on the guitar, your life is a complete bore.” He then instructed me to not touch a guitar on Sundays and have some fun. Go on a date or read a book, see a movie, give your brain some food. To be a creative musician your life has to be somewhat creative. One time I sent all my guitar students of to make pottery one weekend.

Get Going on Your Daily Practicing

Some Practice Advise – Use rhythm whenever you can. The one thing that hasn’t changed about the way I practice is exactly that. When I started going to lessons my teacher would often give me scales and the chord changes that would work with them. I would tape myself playing the changes on one of them super gigantic tape players that we had back in the dark ages and jam along with it. These days I use a Yamaha QY20 that I program the changes into. It makes practice time way more interesting and helps to develop my ears. A metronome is fine for practicing but it will only help your rhythmic ear. It won’t help your harmonic ear.

The Five Areas of Practice – As I said before, what you practice will change as you advance as a player. No matter how long you play, the basic five things you work on will most likely stay the same. The amount of time spent on each of them will probably vary to accommodate your changing strengths and weaknesses. I can’t tell you exactly what and how much you should be working on any one of these five different sections because I have never heard you play so I don’t know your strengths and weaknesses. Nor have I ever discussed your goals as a guitarist with you. You or you and your guitar teacher will have to decide how much time to dedicate to each one of them. Use the following section as a guide.

Scales, Arpeggios and Chops

Single Note Studies – Scales and arpeggios are important to work on for two reasons. One reason is because the only way to develop chops is by practicing them and the other is because any solo you play, regardless of genre, is going to be based on a scale or an arpeggio. If you don’t have much experience working on scales and arpeggios, at first the whole thing will be just plain mathematics and that’s okay for the time being. Don’t worry if at first the whole thing seems a little mechanical at first.

Start with your major scales. There are five patterns, roots in black:

Start with just one and practice it up and down. Make sure to use a metronome or better yet sequence, record or get a friend to play a rhythm track for you to play over. What chords do you use to play over? Try starting in C major. Use any of these chords to make a rhythm track: Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin and Bdim. If you want to, try using 7th. chords: Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, G7, Amin7 and Bmin7b5. Try moving around to different keys and use alternate picking.

After you feel comfortable playing up and down the scale try to work in sequences of thirds and fourths. Slowly work in all the other five scale patterns until you can play all over the neck.

Do the same with the arpeggios. Try to learn all the arpeggios that are inside each of the five scale patterns. That’s right, you’ll find a Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin and Bdim arpeggio in each of the five scale patterns. See if you can match them up to the proper chords in the chord progression you are improvising over.

The goal here is to be able to improvise freely all over the neck so make sure to make some time to just play randomly. Try to make up your own phrases. A good guitar solo should have a motif so try to create melodies.

Your goal is to eventually learn and use to improvise using the: Major Scale, Minor and Major Pentatonic scales, The Blues scale, the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aolian and Locrian modes. After that, the Harmonic minor scale and the melodic minor scale and its seven modes. The symmetrical scales: the whole tone and diminished half/whole scale, triad and 7th arpeggios. Starting from scratch, it should take you a good ten years or so to learn how to use them freely. I’m still working on them myself.

You may choose to start on the blues rather than the major scale patterns. That’s what I did. There are also five patterns of the pentatonic and blues scales. Just record or sequence a blues and go to town.

Rhythm – Make sure to be aware of what you are playing rhythmically. Try playing whole, half, quarter, sixteenth notes and triplets. Sometimes we tend to just play without thinking of how we rhythmically play the notes.

Life Lesson 3 (Scott Henderson lets me have it) – One time I was in a guitar lesson with Scott Henderson. We where playing some Jazz standard or something and I was doing my solo. He stopped me in the middle of it and said; “Chris, you know what scales to play and you have a good sense of melody but your rhythm sucks!” He continued; “If you are going to play a triplet, play a triplet. If you want to play sixteenth notes, play sixteenth notes. Everything you play is in the middle somewhere”. I had never actually though about it before, as strange as it may seem. I went home that night and got out the metronome and made a conscious effort to divide up what I play in definite rhythmic subdivisions.

Chords and Rhythm Playing

Harmony – Harmony is one of the most overlooked aspects of practice. It’s strange because we generally start off playing the chords to our favorite songs. As soon as we learn to solo a bit, we never think about them again. When I started out, I made the mistake of buying one of those chord dictionary books that just ended up frustrating me because there was so many chords and no explanation about how to use them. It is important to see how the chords fit together with one another. I use the “Real Book” to practice with a lot of the time. The “Real Book” is a fake book of hundreds of Jazz standards. I look at the chords and try to find voicings that work well with one another. I may even record them and improvise over the changes after sight reading the head. I can knock off my sight reading, scales and chords all in one shot this way. It’s best to kill a bunch of birds with one stone when it comes to practicing. Each individual style of music has its own rhythmic styles and unique chord voicings so work a little on everything. Some styles lend them self well to the fingers rather than the pick in the right hand and some, like Funk, leave you little choice but the pick.

Reading

Get Going Now – This is where I made my big mistake as an aspiring guitarist. I didn’t dedicate enough time to reading. I still regret it to this day. I’ve learned to read okay I guess, but I wish I was a better sight reader. It would have saved me a lot of stress. As I said before, I tend to use the “Real Book” to practice my reading. Get going early on if you can.

Theory

Brain Power – Music theory is important because without understanding theory you will never really be able to analyze music. Without being able to analyze music you will never be really be able to understand why you like certain songs or guitar solos that your hear. Without being able to analyze music you will also never be able to conceptualize certain melodic or harmonic techniques and make them your own. Especially if you want to get into Jazz, you will need to understand theory because of the complicated nature of chord scale relationships in the genre.

Since you are working on your major scales, start working on writing them too. Get yourself a good theory book and check it out. Scales, intervals, chords and arpeggios are all important to study. The good thing about theory is that you don’t necessarily need a guitar to work on it. You can do it on your morning commute or while you are waiting in some line somewhere. Theory will help you glue together all the other things together.

Tunes and Your Ears

Use Your Ears – Figuring songs and solos are important for developing you ears. I was fortunate to not have all the resources that we have today. I was forced to get out the records and work everything out using my ears. I think it is great that we have everything transcribed these days but try to the transcriptions as a tool to help you figure stuff out. Try it first using your ears.

Life Lesson 4 (The most depressing day of my life) – When I was about fifteen, I was practicing in my bedroom with the windows open (the joys of suburbia) and the guy that lived down the street came to my window. He was, oh, I guess, about twenty-one or two or so and said he was playing the drums in this band that played around town and that one of the guitarists had just quit and that he heard me playing in my room and maybe I should audition. I told him I was only fifteen and probably couldn’t play in bars but he said we’ll worry about that later. He said he would pick me up at about 7:30 and bring me to the warehouse where his band plays. I was in heaven. While I put on my favorite concert T-shirt and jeans and got my guitar and amp together I imagined that I went to the audition, played some incredible stuff and everyone fell in love with me and hugged me and welcomed me into their band and I was on my way to being the most famous guitarist the world has ever known.

So, I get to the warehouse and the other guitarist was there. His name was George. He was the coolest thing I had ever seen. He had this real long hair and played a Flying V through a real big Music Man half stack. Anyways, he asked me what I wanted to play. I said I liked Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. So we started it and it fell apart because I only knew some of it. We went on to something else and it fell apart too. Finally he asked me if I knew something easy like “Johnny B. Goode” and I didn’t. I could tell that the whole thing was a fiasco and I had no right even being there in the first place.

George was a real decent cat. Even though he knew I didn’t have enough experience to ever play with them, he told me to get some songs together, really together, the intros, endings and everything in-between and come back again. I went home, and for the second time in my life debated quitting or not. As you know by now, I chose to not to quit.

What I decided to do was to build a repertoire of songs, from beginning to end paying attention to all the small details. I also decided that the songs I would learn would have to be universal standards, songs that I could pull out of my hat on a moment’s notice, on request, songs that I could play anywhere, on an audition or when I sit in on someone’s gig. And that’s exactly what I did.

Strangely enough I would end up working with George later down the road and we would laugh at times thinking about the little fifteen year old who couldn’t even tune his guitar who came to audition five years before hand. The lesson that George taught me became one of the most important lessons I ever had, and thinking back upon it, I never thanked him for it. So if you read this George, Thanks.

Whew, took me long enough to tell you the story. The point is: learn as many standards as you can, and every detail counts. The key word here is “standards,” songs that you can use and people will request you to play, not just your favorite songs. Those are okay to learn too but whether they will get you any work is a different thing all together. In the school that I run in Tokyo I have the students play in their instrumental ensemble classes such songs as: “Freeway Jam” and “Blue Wind” by Jeff Beck and “Footprints” by Wayne Shorter. “Watermelon Man” by Herbie Hancock and “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by Joe Zawinul. By knowing tunes like these you will always be able to sit in on other musician’s gigs. I also have the students learn some Blues, Rock and Funk standards also.

Listen – One of the most important things you can do but a lot of people forget is to listen. You will be surprised how much you can absorb from just listening alone. I usually tell my students that they have to get the blues together before anything else. Blues is the mother to all modern music. For that reason I think some time should definitely be dedicated to at least listening to it while learning it. Besides the Blues, there is a ton of stuff to listen to. If I had to suggest some CD’s to learn from I would suggest these:

Blues

Stevie Ray Vaughn – “Couldn’t Stand The Weather” – Good overview of the blues.

Muddy Waters – “Best Of” – Once you hear these tunes you’ll understand how someone like Jimi Hendrix and the 60s musical era was born.

Albert King – “Best Of” – Just good plain blues. A dictionary of guitar blues licks.

Rock

Jeff Beck – “Blow By Blow,” “Guitar Shop” – An old one and a newer one. Jeff gave the guitar a voice in instrumental music.

Jimi Hendrix – “Are you Experienced,” “Axis: Bold as Love,” “Electric Ladyland” – Jimi Hendrix took various styles of music and combined them to make something completely new. He would change guitar playing forever. Without him, we would still be in the dark ages.

Led Zeppelin – “1″, “2″ – Jimmy Page is a genius song writer and player. The blues influenced him immensely.

Fusion

John Scofield – “Still Warm,” “A Go Go” – Great fusion guitarist. Before you start getting into scales other then the major scale and its modes and pentatonic scales, adjust your ears by listen to John. Warning: like anything great, it will take you a few listens to get used to.

Pat Metheny – “Bright Size Life,” “Letter from Home” – Again an old one and a newer one. Pat Metheny is a genius because he is a true artist who manages to appeal to a wide audience. A great improviser and writer.

Weather Report – “Heavy Weather” – No guitar playing going on here but great writing and incredible synergy.

Miles Davis – “Nefertiti,” “Miles Smiles,” “The Sorcerer” – Classic Miles Davis, No guitar here either but improvisation at its very best.

Chris Juergensen – “Prospects” – Just Kidding!

Funk

James Brown – “Best Of” – Just for the grooves.

Classical

Bela Batok – “Concerto for Orchestra” – Bold melodies. A dictionary of orchestration.

Stravinsky – “Symphony of Psalms,” “The Firebird Suite” – Scary. Harmonically intense.

Of course these suggestions are my personal favorites. Ask around and research yourself. If you decide to get any of these CDs or any CDs for that matter, I suggest you buy one at a time. Really ingest them one by one. Let each one become your personal friend before buying the next.

Education

Equations – Good practice is only half the equation. The other half is education. Although I’m a big fan of formal music education, there is informal education. I mean private lessons at your local music store or with someone who has enough experience to point you in the proper direction. You can even find ways to educate yourself. The site you are looking at right now is one good example. No matter how you decide to get a musical education, the musical education is only as important as the practicing. One without the other neutralizes them both. Remember this; education will not make you a great guitarist, it will only provide a map on how to get to that destination. You, as the driver have to get yourself there. If you think a million guitar lessons will make you the greatest player around your wrong. Only the practice in conjunction with the lessons will. I often get questions from students asking why, even though they come to classes everyday, don’t seem to be improving on the guitar. The answer is simple, they’re coming to classes but they aren’t practicing what was covered in the classes. Even if you understand the concept covered in the class, it will never find its way into your playing without some good old fashioned practice.

The Perfect Student – Before you become the perfect player try to become the perfect student. I personally believe the keys to me becoming a somewhat successful guitarist was one; all the great teachers I had along the way, and two; all the great students I have had. They both have been the source of endless inspiration. When you find yourself a great teacher, keep him on his feet. Ask questions and challenge him from time to time. I drove my first teacher, Wayne Reese, nuts. I asked him some questions he probably never heard before: “Mr. Reese, why does a blues scale work over both dominant chords and minor chords?” “Why are all the strings on the guitar tuned in fourths except the second string? Instead of a B string, shouldn’t it be a C string?” “Why does a melodic minor scale get played ascending one way and descending an other?” I bet he was researching stuff all over the place before the next lesson. When I shipped off to California, Mr. Reese told me that the lessons with me were fun and he learned some stuff too. The student teacher relationship is exactly that, a relationship. It shouldn’t be a one sided thing at all.

Finding a good teacher – Research is important here. Ask around. If your local community college has a music program, they may be able to point you to a good teacher. Most music stores offer lessons too. If you are in high school, even if you aren’t active in the school orchestra, ask the music teacher if he can suggest someone. Try a search on the Web; “guitar lessons in your town.” If you are in the Los Angeles or Tokyo area, ask me! Whatever you do, when you find a perspective teacher, meet him first. Ask questions. Ask him to give you a basic one year plan. If he is a good teacher, he will meet with you and ask you some questions too. Questions like; how long you’ve been playing, who you listen to, and what goals you have for the future. Like I said before, it has to be a relationship. And any relationship starts with communication.

What to look for in a teacher – A teacher should cover a lot of basses. He should be teaching you about chords and scales, theory, reading and even help you learn some of your favorite tunes and some standards. Too much of any one thing will be bad in the long run. It is also about motivation. Your teacher should have a genuine interest in your advancement. My first teacher turned me into such a fan of education that I quit taking lessons from him and enrolled at a school of higher (music) education. The goal of a good teacher is to provide the tools to the student that will eventually lead the student to outgrow the teacher. You, like me, may just decide to enroll yourself in a great school like MI, LAMA, Berklee or (shameless plug) Tokyo School of Music.

The “Real Book” – The “Real Book” that I use is pretty difficult to find these days. There are some other great fake books that you can get:

1. The New Real Book Vol.1
2. The New Real Book Vol.2
3. The New Real Book Vol.3
4. The Latin Real Book

Music Theory:

1. The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine

Book Link: http://www.shermusic.com/

Good luck on your never ending adventure because it is just that, never ending. I still consider myself a music student and I will continue to practice and grow as a musician for the rest of my days and I hope you will too. If you read this all the way to the bottom, I would like to congratulate you. You have taken your first steps in becoming the musician you are destined to become. Please e-mail me with any questions or suggestions you might have.

Until next time…

Betty - My heart was beating as I waited outside the door of the little studio where I was about to get my first lesson on the guitar at twelve years old. I prayed to God the night before; “I wanna play just like Jimmy Page.” My new teacher called me into the room and asked me to take out the $50 guitar my parents bought me for Christmas. He asked me to take a good look at it. He then asked me what I thought it looked like. I didn’t know the answer. He said; “it’s shaped kinda like a girl don’t you think?” “Kinda curvy,” he said. He then told me to treat it like a girl. “Hold it gently, treat it nice and don’t let it get dirty.” It’s true when you think about it though. Nobody I know names their guitar “Pete” or “Joe.” They usually give it a girl’s name, like “Lucille” or something. My guitar’s name is “Betty.”

Keep on moving - It is shaped like a girl, but why? Why did the guitar get built in the first place? What makes the guitar different from all the other instruments? I’ll answer it for you. Unlike a piano, you can carry it around with you. That’s why the guitar got invented. Most historians would agree that it was born in or around the desert, somewhere in the east, maybe around the Arabian Peninsula or the Persian Gulf. You see, people had to move around a lot in those days; you went where the water or game was. They couldn’t carry a piano around on a camel (or whatever guys rode around on in those days) so they wired some gut strings on a wooden thing with some holes in it to amplify the sound and carried it around with them. Without a doubt they used it by itself or in a group to accompany themselves, probably singing tunes about life and love and things like that. I must stress the word accompany. You can carry a violin around with you, but you are gonna look silly accompanying yourself singing a tune with it. The polyphony of the guitar, which would develop over time, is what would eventually make the guitar the most popular instrument on the planet.

Those guitars weren’t called guitars in those days and didn’t have six strings like guitars do today. And they probably looked different, although it was basically the same thing that Jimmy Page played on “Whole Lotta Love” that made me get down on my knees on the night before my first lesson. The romance of the guitar is found in its mobility. Even the first guitarists were rolling stones, travelers, playing under the stars.

Inroads - The guitar would eventually find its way into Spain and the Troubadours would carry it around Europe singing the same songs celebrating life in different languages. The guitar would get all its strings in Spain, become popular and eventually develop into the modern day guitar.

Appeal - One of the reasons the guitar is so accepted by the masses is that it is the true instrument of the common man. The problem back in the old days was there was no electricity. These days, if you wanted to throw a party and get all your friends over to dance, you would just plug in a radio and go to it. Four-hundred years ago, if you wanted to dance you had to hire an orchestra, since there where no radios. If you didn’t have any cash, you would have to make your own music. I imagine all the neighborhood cats would bring their guitars down to the local watering hole and play some tunes while the girls would dance and sing and generally have a good time. This tradition is still alive in Flamenco music today. The guitar is a radio.

Spending money - I’m gonna have to go backwards here and give you a little history lesson. In the 1300s all of a sudden, the European population got a middle class. It is for a reason you would probably never imagine: The Plague. The plague killed off about a third of all Europeans back in those days. Since all those people died, a labor shortage was born. Since there weren’t enough workers, the workers demanded better wages. Europe had some cash and they wanted to spend it. Since they didn’t have Gucci downtown they wanted silks from the Far East. Also, since they didn’t have electricity they didn’t have refrigerators. Since they didn’t have refrigerators they also wanted spices from the Far East, China and India. Spices would help preserve or, yes, cover up the taste of food that was getting a little too ripe. Spices were worth their weight in gold. Ever wonder why food around the equator is real spicy? Anyway, this gave birth to two things: the search for an all-water rout to Asia and to the African slave trade. I know, you’re asking what does this have to do with the guitar. I’m getting’ to it.

Birth of a new musical era - To make a long story short, Columbus rather than going all the way around Africa, decided to sail west. He knew the world was round rather than flat and figured he would sail into Asia using a shortcut. He wanted to get there through the backdoor using an Atlantic route. He misjudged the distance but in the process he discovered the South American continent. He never found out the truth, and died thinking he found India. That’s why Native Americans are known as Indians. Pretty silly if you think about it.

Anyway, when the news got out, a bunch of people wanted to go. Who do you think raised their hands? Remember that going in a boat to South America was probably a real drag. It probably took months to get there and once you got there all you had was a jungle. I can tell you for sure that it wasn’t rich people. Rich people weren’t about to give up their big houses to go live in the woods in a foreign land. It was the guys looking for a new life who went, and they brought their guitars along with them.

Africans - That’s right, it wasn’t the rich, but the other guys who went. You need a lot of people to build a New World, so at first the Europeans used the Native Americans as slaves. The only problem with this idea was that almost all of them died because they had no resistance to the diseases that the Europeans brought over. That’s why the scourge of mankind, the slave trade, started. On the way over to the New World they stopped off in Africa and got themselves cheap help.

To make a long story short (again), the Spanish and Portuguese workers brought over their guitars (radios) with them, combined their musical ideas with the percussive skills of the Africans and a new era of music was born. The Rumba would evolve in Cuba. Meringue starts up in the Dominican Republic. Argentineans create the Tango. The Portuguese, trying to get around Africa to East Asia, mistakenly ran into South America (pretty funny if you think about it) and since nobody is around, they claim part of it and call it Brazil. The music they make is called the Bossa Nova and the Samba. The Clave, the rhythm that can be found in all Latin music, is a present from Africa. If you ever get a chance to hear some genuine African drum music, you will hear the same Clave throughout. Even in Louisiana, blues players used the Clave to build rhythmic motifs. Check out Bo Diddly’s “Who do you Love” if you get the opportunity.

Birth of the Blues in America - In the early nineteen hundreds, ex-slaves started carrying the guitar around the south with them and playing blues music for mostly black audiences. The spirit of the guitar was still the same. It was perfect to carry around and accompany oneself with. Robert Johnson would end up making a name for himself before he dies at the tender age of twenty-seven in Mississippi. In 1948, twenty-eight year old Muddy Waters moves up to Chicago from Mississippi, looking for a better life away from the South.

Once again, a man in search of a new life carrying a guitar with him. He finds the clubs in Chicago overwhelmingly large. So he, like many of the guitarists started to do in those days, jumps on the electric bandwagon and begins to pave the way for electric blues to become musical force. Later on in the sixties Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix get into the old recordings of Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and make their own versions of their tunes, and I end up listening to Jimmy and Jimi at twelve and get hooked. And that’s why I find myself at twelve years old at my first lesson. And keeping with the tradition, my teacher, on this sunny Saturday morning, teaches me how to play a medium shuffle twelve bar blues that I still play today with the same feeling of adventure that I felt way back then.

Before you do anything - Before you start working on your scales and chords and all the other things you need to do to become the greatest guitarist around, start by understanding the spirit of the guitar. Let’s review:

1. The guitar is like a woman - Treat the guitar with respect. When I meet a new student for the first time I always play his or her guitar before I do anything else. I check to see if the guitar is clean and well cared for. It is a reflection of the student’s attitude about guitar and music in general. The Japanese say, if you want to find out if the Sushi chef is good or not, check his knife.
2. The guitar is a radio - The guitar was built to move, not for you to play in your room. It was designed for you to carry with you and tell your story with it. It was made so people could listen and sing and dance and celebrate life. The guitar isn’t about chops – it’s about stories. Every time I travel with my guitar, it makes me feel happy to know I’m carrying on in the tradition of the Troubadours and blues musicians of the past. I don’t care if the flight attendant is perturbed because my guitar takes up all the room in my overhead compartment. I’m bringing it with me. And when I get where I’m going, I’m gonna tell someone a story with it.
3. The guitar is about adventure - The guitar was brought around the world by people looking for new lives and new chances. All these people where risk takers, and their guitars were their best friends. Don’t be afraid to be a guitarist. No matter what bad luck comes to you in life, you will always have the guitar to play. And don’t forget, the greatest joy there is, is the joy of making music. I would rather live as a poor, happy guitarist than a rich, unhappy banker. Always follow your heart and you have nothing to fear.

Think about these things while I get my next column together, the one that will deal with the next step in becoming the best guitarist you can be.

Check out these links for some history lessons:

• Guitar History
• The Plague
• Blues History

Until next time…