It’s always nice to see your name and picture in the paper. Earlier this week, David Hodge was featured in his town’s local paper, The Berkshire Record. You’ll find the original article by Josh O’Gorman Guitar Guru here. Owing to geography, a lot of us only get to know David through his columns, newsletters and active participation in the forums. This particular article profiles David the local guitar teacher and writer.
EGREMONT- “What’s the difference between a guitarist and a pizza?” asked guitarist David Hodge, posing something between a joke and a riddle.
Hodge paused for a moment before answering, “A pizza can feed a family of four.”
Author, musician and guitar instructor David Hodge has proven wrong the notion that you can’t support yourself while doing something you love.
As a teacher at Berkshire Community College courses and the author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar,” Hodge is in the very enviable position of doing something he loves for a living.
A native of Winthrop, MA, who grew up in New Hampshire, Hodge fled to Northwestern University in Chicago because it was the furthest college from home that had accepted him.
While in Chicago, Hodge taught guitar part-time while working full-time as a media business analyst and a corporate headhunter. Hodge said he differed from other guitar instructors in that most instructors are full time gigging guitarists who instruct to make money when they’re not gigging, while he would rather teach than gig.
It was during his time in Chicago that Hodge began to not just play and instruct guitar, but to write about it as well. Beginning in 1999, Hodge began to write guitar tutorials for the Internet Web site guitarnoise.com.
The Web site is the on-line destination for guitar students wishing to hone their skills, drawing 20,000,000 hits from 2,000,000 unique users every month. The Web site earned high praise from the London newspaper Metro, which voted it the number one tutorial Web site, and Hodge has found his lessons on internet translated into Russian and Chinese.
When asked why he came to the Berkshires, Hodge offers a one-word answer, the simplest and most noble of all, “Love.”
Hodge came to South County on January 1, 2004, to follow his love and his partner Karen Berger. In her youth, Berger had worked at a summer camp just over the border in Connecticut and wanted to return to the area.
For the Hodge, the transition from Chicago to the Berkshires was not just geographical but occupational as well as he abandoned his corporate job to begin instructing full time.
“The idea of teaching full time both appealed to me and frightened me,” Hodge said. “It’s nice to have your career and your hobbies separate,”
Hodge and Berger set up shop teaching music together out of their home, which they call “Andante,” a musical term meaning “at a walking pace.”
Shortly after moving, Hodge was contacted by the editors of Acoustic Guitar Magazine who were creating a new magazine called Play Guitar. The magazine was geared toward new guitar players and the editors, who kept returning to guitarnoise.com for content, decided to cut out the middle man and work with Hodge directly to produce new content.
Berger, in turn, had written “The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Piano Chords” and those editors were looking for someone to write a book teaching bass.
“I could have picked an easier topic for a first book,” Hodge said of his book, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar.” It was quite exhausting to create every single musical lesson, playing all of the musical examples, not to mention the cross-referencing.
While his mind is on a future book - something that merges books that teach scales and notes with books of musical tablature - Hodge is teaching guitar full time, both out of Andante and also teaching five classes at Berkshire Community College.
Hodge teaches children’s classes for youth 6-16 as well as adult classes to students, as he said, “36 to 76.”
“People are looking for something to give them joy,” Hodge said of his students. “Some people paint, some people knit, but playing music is something you can share with others.”
Hodge also hosts an annual event called Riverside Jam for friends and students. Beginning in Westport, Conn., in 2000, the musical showcase has moved between Chicago, Indianapolis and most recently this year was at the bandstand in Great Barrington. “My friends in Chicago ask what it’s like to live out your dream but I didn’t dream this,” Hodge said. “I got up and followed my life to its next step.”
Hodge has similar advice for anyone thinking about learning to play an instrument, no matter how late in life. Currently, he has a 72-year-old student who picked up guitar for the first time two years ago.
“You’re never too old,” Hodge advised. “If you’ve wanted to do this your whole life, then don’t let it be a regret.”
Anyone who has met David personally will tell you that he’s just as nice in person, if not nicer, than he appears to be online. And if you’re lucky enough to have had dinner at his home, you’ll know he’s an even better cook than he is a guitar player.
