Tom “Noteboat” Serb is celebrating the first year of his music school, the Midwest Music Academy. One year ago today we ran a short interview with Tom and this would certainly be a great time to post it once again:
Tom, as most of you already know, hails from the far southwestern suburbs of Chicago. To get things started, we begin with a few basic questions and then move onto the “real interview:”
GN: Occupation?
TS: I define myself as a musician. Since I’m not a “star”, that means I have to do a whole lot of things to pay the mortgage, but they’re all music related: I’m a guitarist, guitar teacher, composer, arranger, I do transcriptions, I buy and sell gear, I write lessons for magazines, I own a music school, etc. I guess I’m a musical entrepreneur by default.
GN: Playing music since?
TS: I honestly don’t remember. I’ve always been drawn to music, and remember playing instruments (or at least playing “at” playing instruments) since I was 4. Since I don’t remember anything before that, I guess I’ve always been doing it.
GN: Playing guitar since?
TS: Since the early 1970s. It’s hard to fix an exact date… partly because those were the 1970s! I’ve been performing as a guitarist since 1976, and teaching professionally since 1978.
GN: If possible, can you remember what first brought you to Guitar Noise and why you continue to hang around?
TS: I stumbled across Guitar Noise while surfing for guitar websites. I’ve stayed because it’s a friendly place to hang out!
GN: Can you give us a brief history of your musical life?
TS: Wow! No way I can be brief about that without missing a lot…
I’m the oldest child, and my parents weren’t very musical. But even though I didn’t have any musical role models, I was always drawn to music. My mother tells me as an infant I’d wiggle around to the music whenever she played a Louis Armstrong record.
I was always messing around with musical things. On Sundays we’d go to my grandparent’s house for dinner, and my grandmother had a piano. I remember a book she had called “Songs Children Love to Play”, which had a diagram of the keyboard on the inside cover, with dotted lines showing the notes on the staff. I’d flip back and forth between that and pieces in the book, and basically taught myself how to read music – I was probably 6 or 7 then.
My first real music lessons were on drums – I bought myself a drum set with money I’d saved from my paper route. I played percussion all the way through high school and college, performing in the HS marching and concert bands, and in the college jazz band. I don’t really keep it up today, but every once in a while I’ll play tympani with a local community orchestra.
I messed around with every instrument I could get my hands on. My first guitar was one my mother bought for my father… he never learned to play, and gave it to my sister… who never learned to play, so I swiped it and learned. I still have that guitar, too – a 1962 Harmony!
In college I had some awesome teachers. My favorite was Dr. Hans Gross, my theory teacher – he really got me into the structural beauty of music, and had a way of presenting music history that was just fascinating. Anyway, at that point I decided music was it for me, career-wise. While I was still in school I got a job teaching percussion at Morse Avenue Music in Chicago, and quickly became their only guitar teacher as well – because even though I considered the guitar my “second” instrument at that point, it turned out I was a lot better at it than the guy they had teaching. In less than a year I had a full load of guitar students, and I stopped teaching
percussion.
In the late 70s I did only performing and teaching. But the disco era killed off the venues; I went from performing six nights a week to just one or two - so I started doing other things: film scoring, record production, owning a music store, etc. From then to now, I’ve done whatever I’ve had to that kept me in music – the most recent stuff is in the “occupation” question above! I try to keep learning, too. I recently spent about five years studying classical piano with Joe Cech. I’m in awe of him – he taught me more about score reading and musical interpretation than I’d learned from anyone, ever.
GN: Of course, the big news is the opening of your music school, the Midwest Music Academy in Plainfield, Illinois. How did you come about making this decision and what have been the highs and lows about getting things together for opening this fall?
TS: I realized pretty early on that you can’t make it in the music business until you approach it as a business! Some years ago I took a hard look at the business strategy I was using as a guitar teacher, and I decided to diversify geographically. In my experience it’s pretty easy to go from 10 to 20 students, but really hard to go from 50 to 60 – so I decided I’d try teaching from three locations, and see what happened. Initially I chose Woodridge (where I live), Naperville about 15 miles to the NW, and Western
Springs about the same distance to the East. Western Springs didn’t pan out as well as I’d hoped, so about three years ago I tried going South to Plainfield.
My Plainfield roster grew rapidly. I ended up dropping Woodridge to spend more time there, and had a solid waiting list – so I started to look at the demographic projections, and they looked really strong for growth. I did a lot of soul searching, and spent a lot of time talking things over with my family and friends, and decided this is probably the place for me to be.
First I tried buying a place… and I came really close to making a deal on one. But when the seller backed out, I decided I’d better just start my own. The highs and lows have been pretty incredible. The lowest spots have been realizing just how much money it’s taking to do it right – and the red tape! For example, Plainfield is in the process of re-numbering their streets… and every government agency I’ve talked to seems to have a different idea of what my address should be! (I’ve actually gotten FIVE different opinions!)
The high spot is definitely the reaction of the students and parents. I think everybody who’s walked through the door has told me how nice the place looks, how nice the gear is, how much they like the way I’m doing things, even how nice the place smells!
GN: After all the years you’ve spent as a teacher, what are some of the biggest challenges of your new position? And what have you looked for in choosing teachers to work at your school?
TS: I think the biggest challenge for me is moving from teaching directly to teaching through others. Because I’ve spent so much time in the teacher’s chair, I know what’s important to the teachers, and I’m trying to provide everything they need to excel. But I’ve also got more years teaching than almost any of my staff – and I know what works.
But right there is the crux of it – I know what works for me in communicating with students, but I’m not the other teachers. They have things that work for them. So the real puzzle is figuring out what I should coach, and what I shouldn’t. I want things to be consistently excellent for our students, but it’s not “best practice” just because I do it. Ideally I’ll be learning as much from them as they learn from me, and we’ll be the best in the business because of it.
So that’s driving how I’m choosing teachers. When I grew up, the corner barbershop had two barbers. My father told me to always pick the barber with the worst haircut. Why? “Because they probably cut each other’s hair.” And that’s been in the back of my mind since I started recruiting: I don’t care how well they play; I don’t care how well they communicate with me; I want to hear their students play – that’ll tell me what kind of “haircut” they can give!
Just yesterday a teacher came up to me and told me he wasn’t sure about the vocal teacher I’ve got starting next week – he doesn’t think he’s a very good singer. I sort of agree – and I think the teacher making the comment (who’s a guitar teacher) is a better singer than the vocal teacher. But I’ve heard some of the vocal teacher’s long-time students sing, and I know he’s top-notch.
GN: Many Guitar Noise readers regard you as the “guru of music theory.” And your first book, Music Theory for Guitarists, certainly bears that out. Any plans for more writing in the near future?
TS: I’ve got a few writing projects in the works right now, but for the last several months my writing has been on hold – starting the school has taken too much time! But I hope to get back to it sometime next year. There’s a sequel on harmony in the works, a second edition of the theory book, and a couple of projects to be revealed later!
GN: You’ve certainly worn a lot of musical hats. And you’ve certainly gotten this question hundreds of times, but I have to ask anyway! What advice do you have for someone wanting to make a life’s career in music? Not necessarily as an “A List” performer, but simply to have a life doing something one loves?
TS: A month ago I had breakfast with a pretty successful songwriter. He told me that his musical success really started once he realized everybody was a commodity – you can replace a guitar player (or songwriter, or anybody else) with one or two phone calls if you need to.
Once you face up to that fact, you realize that the music business – or any business, really – is about building and maintaining relationships. So if you want to succeed, you don’t have to be the “best” – sure you have to be ”good enough”, and you have to get your foot in the door for your first opportunity, but after that… you have to be the one they’re not looking to replace.
That means paying attention to the little details, the non-musical stuff. It’s important: show up on time. Do what you say you’ll do. Be friendly. Smile. Remember people’s names. Don’t argue. Be confident – but don’t be a prima donna. Follow up – but don’t be a pest. Treat everybody with respect. It really boils down to the golden rule.
None of it is hard to do, but for some reason many musicians don’t do them, or don’t do them enough of the time. But I’ve found that if you do them as much as you possibly can, and meet as many people as you possibly can, success will find you.
Here is the third and final part of Jamie Andreas’ wonderful video lessons on the Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” This time out, Jamie guides you through the bridge section of the song, providing detailed step-by-step instruction on how to move effortlessly from one fingering position to the next. By applying many of her Guitar Principles, taken directly from her teachings and her website (Guitar Principles), she helps make the playing of this arrangement quite a bit easier than just going at it alone.
We at Guitar Noise can’t thank Jamie enough for taking time out of her busy schedule to create these lessons for us. So please take a moment of your time to send her an email and say thanks, too!
Back in August 2003, I was still in Chicago but I got my first look at where I would end up moving to the coming New Year’s Day. Thinking back, it may actually have been my second or third look, but it’s hard to remember accurately. All I knew was that all sorts of things were going on and life was a bit of a roller coaster.
Looking back now, I’m tempted to say that some of the unsettledness had a subliminal effect in my choosing Cat’s Steven’s “Wild World” as a new Easy Songs for Beginners lesson, but I suppose that could just be me making a typical use of hindsight.
Whatever the reason, or lack of reason, it still makes a good lesson!
We’re going to hit the ground running here. This may be the most involved beginners’ song that we’ve done yet but don’t let that deter you! While the focus of this lesson is on switching chords smoothly, you’ll also learn some cool flourishes and riffs and strumming patterns and even find a good practical use for that pesky C major scale!
Setting the “Wayback Machine” for 2006 led me to Josh Urban’s first piece for Guitar Noise and since ear training and listening is a huge part of learning to solo, it seemed to make sense to use it as a feature. Plus, any lesson from Doug Sparling, be it new or old, is certainly worth a read!
Also known as “Are You Sleeping Brother John,” this has to be one of the best known children’s songs in the world. Doug brings up a fun and thoughtful arrangement of this favorite song.
Listen Up Examining the overlooked skill of ear training
by Josh Urban
Guitar Noise is pleased to welcome Josh Urban as a contributing writer to our website. Josh’s first piece examines what many musicians refer to as the most important skill one can develop – listening. And, as with most everything about the guitar, listening has many different aspects and each must be practiced in order to become a better musician.
Forty years ago today, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had the attention of nearly everyone on the planet when they became the first men to walk on the moon. Some of us here weren’t even born at the time and it’s hard to imagine the excitement of this historic moment. Looking back, we see that 1969 was a year of many milestones; among them several that still captivate the hearts of music fans today.
Ever heard of Woodstock? Barely a month after the first moonwalk, a farm near Woodstock, New York played host to the most infamous rock festival of the hippie generation. Some of the bands that performed may be lost on today’s audiences, but it’s hard to think of guitarist Jimi Hendrix and not consider his Woodstock rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. Other bands that made names for themselves at the three day festival include Santana, Janis Joplin, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Two notable bands from the San Francisco area made appearances at the festival: Creedence Clearwater Revival who was enjoying the success of Bad moon Rising and The Grateful Dead who had just released their experimental album Aoxomoxoa.
While Woodstock is often given the label of “peace and love,” the Grateful Dead would pull out of a similar festival near their hometown later in the year. The Altamont Speedway Free Festival at a west coast speedway was to include the Grateful Dead but they refused to play because of increasing violence at the show. The audience outbursts and fighting would rattle but not deter the show’s headlining band The Rolling Stones. The show became the band’s most notorious after a fan was stabbed to death by a member of the Hell’s Angel for brandishing a revolver during Sympathy for the Devil. Much of their performance was captured in the 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter.
Over in England, newcomers Led Zeppelin released their first two albums in 1969. Led Zeppelin I appeared in January with such classics as Communication Breakdown and Dazed and Confused. In October they followed it up with Led Zeppelin II which featured Whole Lotta Love and Heartbreaker among others.
Although it wouldn’t be announced until the following year, The Beatles decided to disband in 1969. In January they performed their last concert on the roof of their Apple headquarters in London. They would also release two classic albums that year: Yellow Submarine and Abbey Road. Most of their final album Let It Be was also recorded in 1969. While still a member of the Beatles, John Lennon traveled to Montreal with his wife Yoko Ono for a Bed-In protest. The couple spent seven days at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and invited their guests to join them for the recording of Give Peace a Chance.
Meanwhile back in England, a musician by the name of David Bowie released his first single which shot to the top of the charts. Space Oddity dealt with, of all things, a spaceman and was used by the BBC during their coverage of the moon landings. Is there a more topical song for the ups and downs of 1969 than a man in space? To commemorate this historic day, why not check out David’s excellent lesson on the R.E.M. song Man on the Moon.
I had to do a little checking, but this week is another Guitar Noise anniversary – somewhere around July 15, 2003, we posted our first (and only!) video lesson! If you’ve ever wanted to see what Nick Torres’ fingers looked like, here’s your chance! Plus we also had a great article on replacing pickups, courtesy of Bill Cozzo:
If you’re like me, you probably think that changing the pickups on your guitar is a thing best left to the pros. But it doesn’t have to be. Bill Cozzo brings the same style that defines his reviews to help us get through the first step in choosing a new set of pickups – deciding what we want in the first place! And then knowing how to get what tone we desire from our guitar.
Hold on to your hats! Don’t try this at home! Amaze your friends and family! Have I missed anything? Nick Torres literally brings another new dimension to Guitar Noise with this lesson on Eruption by Van Halen. Now you can WATCH how to tap, hammer on and pull off while you read a wonderfully enlightening piece on this mysterious combination of techniques.
Reprinted from Volume 3 #94 of the newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Later next week I’m taking a couple flights on United Airlines. But if I had seen this video before buying my ticket, I probably would have chosen a different airline. Let’s face it, flying is expensive for most people. Safety and comfort are the most important things to consider, but once you get the price of the ticket out of the way, you still expect a certain level of customer service.
If you make a mistake it’s up to you to fix things. This is now true for corporations more than ever before. You may spend millions of dollars building a corporate image but most people are going to go along with what they read on Twitter and see on Youtube. Get on the wrong side of a journalist and they’ll probably write about it. In the case of musician Dave Carroll, he wrote a song about how United Airlines broke his guitar and refused to accept resonsibility. It’s too late for me to change my ticket for next week, but at least I know to leave my guitar at home.
If you haven’t seen it already on CNN or elsewhere, here is the video for “United Breaks Guitars” from Dave Carroll.
You might have read about the Next Big Nashville, the huge city-wide music festival that takes place in the fall and includes hundreds of regional bands and musicians in our recent article on America’s great “Music City”
We’ve just gotten the news that the call is out for musician’s interested in submitting their band for consideration in this year’s Next Big Nashville Festival, to be held October 7 through 11. The submission process is open to artists from anywhere.
NBN’s purpose is to celebrate the creative center that is Music City, not just the great artists who call Nashville home. But hurry! They are only accepting submissions until July 13.
Here is the second part of Jamie Andreas’ wonderful video lessons on the Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” In this video, Jamie walks through the verse section of the song, providing detailed step-by-step instruction on how to move effortlessly from one fingering position to the next. By applying many of her Guitar Principles, taken directly from her teachings and her website (Guitar Principles), she helps make the playing of this arrangement quite a bit easier than just going at it alone.
We can’t thank Jamie enough for taking time out of her busy schedule to create these lessons for us. So please take a moment of your time to drop her a line and say thanks, too!
Here’s something I couldn’t believe – Apparently it was only four years ago (July 1, 2005 to be precise) we started “Volume 3” of the Guitar Noise News. It was the start of the “bi-monthly” newsletter format that we currently have today, and it was certainly a bit ambitious. Even Nick had his own little dedicated soapbox.
But since July 1 is also Canada Day, we were fortunate enough to get a nice mini-piece from Guitar Noise’s creator / owner Paul Hackett. It’s certainly worth a second look as we celebrate Canada Day here in 2009:
Canada Rocks
By Paul Hackett
July 1 is Canada Day, Canada’s national holiday. It celebrates the creation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. It is a day generally marked by patriotic celebrations featuring fireworks and entertainment with a Canadian theme. Today being July 1 has got me thinking about some of the more notable rock bands to come out of Canada throughout the years.
Since the emergence of Canada’s first major pop star, Paul Anka in the 1950s, many types of Canadian music have flourished, reflecting the diverse tastes of Canadians. Distinctly Canadian styles of music include French-Canadian music, Maritime music, Native American and Inuit music as well as homegrown folk and country. Some of the more notable singer/songwriters from Canada include Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Bruce Cockburn.
In celebration of Canada Day I want to share my picks for some of the more enduring Canadian rock acts. Rock music in Canada owes a great debt of gratitude to The Guess Who, whose best-known songs (“American Woman”, “These Eyes”, “No Sugar Tonight”, etc.) are among Canada’s most enduring classic rock anthems. Initially the band wanted radio stations and record buyers to believe they were a British Merseybeat band in disguise. So when they released their debut album, it didn’t bear their own name — instead, it was labeled “Guess Who?” The ruse worked, and within a few years The Guess Who were one of Canada’s biggest musical names.
In 1970, the Canadian government introduced Canadian content regulations, requiring radio stations to devote 30 per cent of their musical selections to Canadian content. The most immediate effect of these new regulations was the sudden rise to fame of Anne Murray, whose 1970 “Snowbird” was a multi-million selling record. The rest of the decade proved to be a golden age for Canadian music with the emergence of internationally renowned acts such as Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Rush, Bruce Cockburn, April Wine and Neil Young. Another of this period’s most influential and popular rock bands, Heart, resulted from the collaboration of two sisters from Seattle with a supporting band from Vancouver.
The 1980s produced many mainstream pop-rockers such as Bryan Adams, Tom Cochrane, Platinum Blonde, Honeymoon Suite, Helix, and Corey Hart. This era also produced the country cowpunk of k.d. Lang, who eventually become one of pop music’s biggest names. The late 1980s saw even more popular acts such as Alannah Myles and Jeff Healey (the blind blues guitarist extraordinaire who appeared the film Roadhouse). Alternative rock also emerged as an influential genre, with artists such as 54-40, Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip, Sarah McLachlan, Cowboy Junkies, The Tea Party, and Our Lady Peace all gaining widespread attention during this time.
An unassuming demo tape by the Barenaked Ladies became the hottest item in Canadian record stores in the fall of 1991. Alanis Morissette, who began as a dance-pop artist before transforming into an alternative rocker in 1995, launched an era in which Canadian women ruled the pop charts worldwide. In the late 1990s, Morissette, Shania Twain, Céline Dion and Sarah McLachlan were arguably the four most popular and influential recording artists in the world during this decade.
With such diversity in styles, Canadian rock and pop music has a real staying power. And with a new album by Paul Anka in stores now, there seems to be no end in sight. Hopefully you’ll find some of this music enjoyable, and have a happy Canada Day, eh!
Reprinted from Volume 3 #93 of the newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Welcome back to the One Finger Guitar Chord Primer. We’re going to look at some serious playing around this time out. And we’re going to focus on learning this lesson mostly through sound, through listening. When it comes to learning music, aural explanations are often more effective than textual ones.
The sound file works through several ideas for getting creative and improvising a bit, on just three chords. All those chords are formed on our foundational one-finger shape.
Here are the ideas we’ll work through:
Instead of playing the chords in a certain order each time, change the order. For example, start out with the one-finger shape on frets 2, 7 and 9. Maybe pluck each of those chords twice. Once you can play that smoothly, change the order: play frets 9, 7 and 2. etc.
The next idea is lots of fun, and starts to get us into some melodic stuff. Play on frets 2, 7 and 9 as before, but focus your attention on your right hand and ask “what could I be playing besides plucking all three strings at once?” Listen to the sound file for examples of playing around here.
Next idea: approach chords. That’s a single term, like “ApproachChords.” And the underlying idea is, if you know your ultimate target is playing the one-finger chord on fret 7, try playing on fret 5 or 6 first, and then sliding into fret 7.
Next, we change the tempo, a very natural thing to do. You just slow down or speed up based on your preference and feeling.
Change from a dance-like rhythm or an “Oom-pah-pah,” vibe to a “one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four” thing. And this opens up a big area to play around in, because you can get into all kinds of cool rhythms. One approach to discovering interesting rhythms is realizing that you’re already using them all the time in speech. Listen to the rhythm of in interesting sentence and convert it to “One, ta, two, ta,” etc. or some other syllable that works for you. Then, pick up your guitar and “speak” those rhythmic syllables onto it.
The overriding idea that includes these other ideas is “Be creative. Have fun. Avoid monotony and keep that guitar in your hands.”
