Tony's Guitar Blog

Guitar Day

2008-09-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

From Brooks' website:

GUITAR DAY with Brooks Williams
27 SEPTEMBER 2008
@ Artspace 15 Mill St. Greenfield, MA 01301
Teens & Adults - Intermediate to Advanced
10 am - 5 pm Fee: $25
Phone: 413-772-6811 Email: acfc@rcn.com
(Space Is Limited So Reserve Your Spot Early!)

Calling all guitarists! Fingerstyle, bluegrass, blues, rock, jazz, folk.

Come celebrate the guitar by spending a day playing together and making connections with other guitar enthusiasts from around New England. Guitar Day is a daylong guitar workshop that features technique building sessions in fingerstyle guitar, flatpicking guitar, chord wizardry and blues licks and tricks, as well as a duos and trios session where attendees collaborate on a piece of music together. This is a hand's-on workshop with lots of playing and jamming!

Workshops offered:
1. Bach's Cello Suite #1 in DADGAD: presented by Tony Astolfi. Explore an open tuning and try your hand at Tony's sublime fingerstyle arrangement of this beautiful piece!

2. Red-Haired Boy: presented by Gail Wade. Flatpick this traditional fiddle tune in standard tuning, learning both the melody and the bluegrass style chord backup.

3. Key To The Highway: presented by Brooks Williams. Rock out on this classic blues tune, learning bluesy riffs & licks.

4. St. Louis Blues: presented by Brooks Williams. Learn some new jazzy chords and swingin' rhythm to play this well-known W.C. Handy song.

5. Duos and Trios: workshop attendees will divide into groups of two or three and work on a tune together. Bring a favorite tune - or choose a tune from Brooks' extensive library of songs. This Guitar Lab will culminate in a showcase at the end of the afternoon.

The guitarist at DSOTJ

2008-08-31T04:59:00.000-07:00

DSOTJ

2008-06-26T04:04:00.001-07:00

When Less is More

2008-06-23T05:36:00.000-07:00

A killer version of Merrily Kissed the Quaker:

I found this whilst seeking inspiration for the "groove" on this tune (I know the Pierre Bensusan solo guitar arrangement, with Cunla stuck on at the end). These guys rock it way harder than I have been. Why? Well, being a whole rock band helps, but there is another reason. In the Bensusan version (at least the very rigid version I've been rendering), the rhythm is totally straight:

ONE-and-a-TWO-and-a-ONE-and-a-TWO-and-a...

Your basic 6/8 Jig rhythm. But the Brandos put a little twist on it:

ONE-and-a-two-and-a-one-and-a-TWO-and-a-ONE-and-a-two-and-a-ONE-and-a-TWO-and-a-ONE...

And many variations. The 'AHA!' for me is that they get more with less by being more sparing with the rhythmic emphases. And they are always changing it up in suble ways.

Actually, Pierre puts tons of little variations in his rhythm, as well as bass line, harmonies, and ornaments:

Competing with Firetrucks

2008-06-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

From the Amazing Things show

2008-06-19T05:27:00.003-07:00

A photo kindly emailed to me from Al Cath:

Sheesh -- I look so serious! Despite appearances, I really had a lot of fun playing last Saturday. Al also captured an AVI from the show... it is a very big file so I am still downloading it, but maybe it will be of sufficient quality to post here (via YouTube?)

One more chance to see the guitarist this month

2008-06-18T03:43:00.000-07:00

I am going to be playing at a music festival in Fall River, MA called "Dark Side of the June". The date is June 28, and my set will be early to mid afternoon. More details to follow... for now, just mark your calenders!

Manicure virgin no more!

2008-06-10T05:32:00.000-07:00

"Guitar: An American Life" by Tim Brookes contains a hilarious-because-its-true quip about how guys start playing guitar in their teens to be cool and impress girls, and they end up in their 40s with expensive guitars, discussing nail care with other middle-aged men. Let's just say that yesterday afternoon, I took the next step towards this inspiring scenario.

Many very accomplished and respectable guitarists (including Pierre Bensusan, Tony McManus, and Martin Simpson to name a few) use some kind of fake nails on their right (picking) hand. Pierre tells the story, on his instructional videos, of how he went to see a manicurist in Paris after years of messing around with broken nails, superglue, finger picks and other re-inforcement strategies. So I am in good company. Really.

Yesterday I sheepishly walked into a little nail salon not too far from my apartment and explained how I wanted acrylic nails, not too long, no color, oh, and by the way, only on my right hand. Add to this story a very well meaning but heavily-accented non-native-English speaking Asian woman with a wide assortment of tools and chemicals. So, I sat while she filed (quite vigorously at times: "Gentle! It's my first time!"), treated, sculpted, dremeled, trimmed, ... you get the idea. The result afterwards was an odd exhilaration (ha! I finally did it! I feel so alive!), and a sensation not entirely unlike the one you get after visiting the dentist (this part of my body feels sore and oddly foreign to me).

I came home fearing the worst and was pleasantly surprised that my playing was only minimally affected (perhaps even improved -- I feel it is much easier now to play loudly). After sleeping on it (well, not on it...) it is beginning to feel a bit less sore and weird. Overall, I think this experiment is a success... so far.

Oh, yeah and it only cost me $30. And I have to go back in 2-3 weeks from now to have my nails maintained to the tune of who knows how much.

Things are going well for the concert this weekend. I am practicing around 2 hours every day, each song for about 20 minutes. And I am re-reading "The Perfect Wrong Note" by William Westney. Anyone who is serious about advancing on their instrument needs to read this book.

Who is this Tony guy anyhow?

2008-06-08T06:05:00.001-07:00

I started making music late in high school, using the family computer (a Commodore Amiga 500) to compose electronic music in the mold of NiN, Filter, and Tool. My interest in the guitar was sparked by the desire to use higher fidelity samples than the ones I was able to find and rip out of other songs. Around this time I made a new friend, Dave Cox, an extremely talented drummer who had recently picked up guitar. He turned me on to the Allman Brothers, Phish, and Dave Matthews Band. When I went to UMass Amherst, I began to play guitar more and more, first on a Harmony hollow-body borrowed from my father, then on a cheap dreadnought borrowed from a friend. Eventually I bought my own guitar and began to learn more Dave Mathews tunes, as well as songs to play at the Christian fellowship meetings I was attending. My junior year, I upgraded to my first "good" guitar, a Larrivee D03. I was getting into Phil Keaggy (I knew about Phil because my parents listened to him a lot when I was little), and read an interview where Phil credited Michael Hedges as a major inspiration for his (then) recent direction on acoustic guitar.

So I went down to Newbury Comics and picked up two Hedges CDs: Oracle and Live on the Double Planet. I picked Oracle to listen to first. By the time the first track had finished, my mind was completely blown. My entire musical journey up until that point had been a search for a kind of emotional intensity, a deep expression where you could lose yourself in the music. The loudness of rock and metal/industrial music tickled that intensity for me; the freedom of jam bands approached the aspect of being wonderfully lost in sound. But here was one guy with an acoustic guitar doing exactly what I wanted to do. I was floored. I was enraptured. I had to play this music.

I signed up for a classical guitar class at the university, because I read that Hedges was classically trained, and I figured I needed some kind of grounding in a tradition (so many of the artists I admired seemed to follow the pattern of starting in a tradition and innovating from there). My encounters with the world of classical music education have been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I have benefitted tremendously from the rigor and depth of classical technique and method. On the other, I have found it to be a very stuffy, arrogant, snobby, and restrictive culture. What else can I say? This is true. I dropped the class after a few weeks and continued to meander towards Hedges' oracle.

Around the end of my time at university, I met and began to study with a local guitarist of international renown, Brooks Williams. The time I spent learning from him got me unstuck from where I was and opened huge new avenues of playing for me. He is an extremely gracious and humble teacher, and his playing has this silky smooth, virtuosic, contageous quality to it. He is the sort of guy that makes you a better player just by watching him play!

I got married in 2003, and two years later moved from the Pioneer Valley to eastern Massachusetts, where I began to focus more on solo instrumental performing. I began to go to the local folk open mics (not an exact match for acoustic fingerstyle instrumentals, but my music has been well-received nonetheless). Out of this came my first open mic feature, my first opportunity to open for Brooks (at the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham, June 2006), and many ongoing friendships and musical collaborations.

My current focus is on arranging and recording Bach and traditional Irish fiddle music for solo guitar, as well as playing and singing at the local Vineyard Fellowship. I continue to be inspired by sacred and secular music alike, from Bach and O'Carolan to Bensusan and Keaggy. Even though my full-time "day job" is being a software developer at the MathWorks, music remains one of my primary passions.

2008-05-25T06:53:00.000-07:00

The guitarist playing at Birthday Bash. Shannon came up with the idea of an open mic to help celebrate my turning 30. So we posted a sign-up and told everyone to bring songs and instruments. We had six acts, three of which were duos (for at least some part of their set). I played right about in the middle. Matt A. recorded the performances on a digital recorder set up on a tripod across the room. He has sent me the portion of the recording that contains my playing, and I am debating whether to edit and post here.

My impressions on the performance: it was surprising to me how nervous I managed to feel playing for friends in my own living room! I say managed to feel because it was clearly a fair bit of effort put forth to work myself into a state where playing guitar was barely possible. Nonetheless, I managed to get through County Down and the 2nd Law. There is a terrible meme/spirit/dysfunction/sickness lurking about in my brain that comes to the front every once and a while to say: "Ok, now you're on and the stakes are high. Screw this up and you're finished. What people think about you, what you're worth as a person, the validity of all the work you've put in up to now all depend on your performance in this moment. It'd better be good." Imagine for one second that it is my birthday party, and that there were two Tonys up there on the chair at the end of my living room, and one is saying such things to the other. What would any stranger think (much less a friend of Tony)? What a jerk! That guy putting all the pressure on is telling lies, doing something really terrible. Get out of there! Shut up! Take your pressure and your guilt and your high-stakes non-sense and LEAVE.

If only it were that easy. I borrow this little thought experiment from a very good book, "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey. It is full of insight for anyone engaged in any sort of real-time physical activity that requires technique, creativity, and is subject to performance critiques.

Thanks to everyone who came out and played; please come to see me on Saturday June 14 at Amazing Things in Framingham (www.amazingthings.org). Also, come out to the Atwood's Dark Side of the June music festival at their home in Fall River, MA (post here if you need more info).

2008-03-24T06:02:00.000-07:00

My home recording setup has a new component:

shiney new iMac! This was a very good idea, for the following reasons:

The iMac is a really, really nice machine - quiet, fast, compact
GarageBand is way easier (though probably not nearly as powerful) as Cubase, the package that came with my audio interface (a Focusrite Saffire)
The value of being able to leave the whole setup, well, set up and just sit down to use it whenever is hard to exaggerate.

Here's a quick recording I did Tuesday night (there are a couple parts that need a little work, but it is mostly there):

The 2nd Law by Michael Hedges

The quality I'm getting off the pair of SM81's going directly into the Saffire and then into GarageBand is quite good, I think. The whirring noise in the background is the humidifier in my music room.

2008-03-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 3/16/2008

Practiced ~1 hr, Fare thee well (I have been playing this one long enough to know how to play around with it expressively, so that was a lot of fun), Cello suite 1 prelude, Slipper Hornpipe in DADGAD, Merrily/Cunla, and Murtach MacKhan. Overall, very fun, inspired playing, if not technically air-tight.

From working in the software industry, for a rapidly growing company that supplies software to Toyota/Denso, I've been learning in the past year about process-orientation and the "Toyota Way" (often called "Lean" in this country). Standards are used heavily at Toyota, but not in the way one might think: a standard in the Toyota culture is merely a statement of an existing process. It is a snapshot of where you are at a moment. Standards exist to be improved upon. It's viewed as a thought-trap to think of a standard as the right or perfect way to do something. Instead, middle and lower management are expected to constantly improve upon existing standards. This is change-for-the-better or kai-zen.

I read "The Perfect Wrong Note" late last year, and it has greatly influenced my thinking about practice and getting better at playing. The connection I see between this book and the Toyota view of kai-zen and standards, is that both advocate the capture of the current state of affairs into a snapshot or a standard. This is not a judgement nor does it have to be perfect (as if it could be!). It just provides a platform to figure out what needs work and how you can improve.

The problem with practicing a piece of music, mistakes and all, over many months to try to polish it up for performance is that most of the time you are addressing bits that don't require your attention, and the bits that do require attention only get hit once every 4 minutes or so. This makes my old method of learning music extremely inefficient in its use of time. There is no quick and easy way to get better, but in fact there is a quick and very very hard way to get better. The difficulty involves the concentrated application of attention towards solving very specific, scoped technical and musical problems. This requires a lot of energy and discipline. So the problem is not only knowing what to do but having available energy to spend and the will to spend it. One reason this is hard is because you have to say "no" to the fun of playing those parts you don't need to be practicing. Ouch. Practice time is work time. Play time is necessary too, but the two are very very different.

The problem always seems like time, but it most cases, it really isn't. We all have time, and you can't obliterate or create it. It's constant, always there: "what next?" The ability to decisively answer this question is an incredible asset.

2008-02-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

Check out the Guitar Chords Blog: http://ecovers2u.com/guitar-chords/2007/12/

This post is about CAGED, which is a very good paradigm for understanding standard tuning.

Its been a long while since I've posted or played out. I have my recording setup now, and am continuing to work on making a demo.

Last night practiced all in DADGAD on the Froggy (new strings needed!):

Toy for two lutes
Invention 4
The Day after the Feast
Voyage to Ireland/The Orphan Jig
Prelude, Cello Suite 1
Great is Thy Faithfulness

Monday, practiced in standard tuning, flat picking fiddle tunes: the slipper hornpipe and the top of the hill (a nice jig in A dorian). I went to Guitar Center on Monday and picked up some new picks: Dunlap Big Stubby 3mm. They are more comfortable to hold and sound nearly as good as the 1mm (blue) sharp Tortex picks. Guitar Center is always a very unpleasant experience. This time I looked at an Epiphone mandolin. While trying to tune it (limited success), I picked a few strings on surrounding acoustic guitars: each one tuned differently! Service people unhelpful. I had to buy picks on faith because they only come in little bags (no 'loose' picks). And I tried to use a trick I'd learned from a less unhelpful store clerk on a prior visit:

Q: "What is your name in the system?"
A: "Joe Customer"
Q: "Um, Customer... ok... you don't want to be in the system?"
A: "I was told if I did not want to give my real name I could say 'Joe Customer'"
Q: "Right..."

And this is when I am paying in cash, for a few picks! On previous visits, a plain response such as "I don't want to be in your data base, thank you very much" have been unacceptable! They refuse to sell you anything unless you:

A. Divulge personal information that is irrelevant to the sale (I am trying to give you money for goodness sake! Just take it!)
or
B. Lie about your identity.

Maybe some day they will get a clue.

How I Practice Scales

2007-10-06T11:12:00.001-07:00

2:12 pm - practiced scales, C major in DADGAD. The value of practicing scales, as far as I can tell, comes only as you practice them enough so that they are totally automatic - no thinking at all about what note is next. I have the following method for scale practice, keeping this in mind:

Start with 1 octave, and practice ascending and descending that octave, using one of the following techniques:

All fretted strings (good for learning patterns that can move up and down the neck)
Conventional pattern using open & fretted strings (for this technique you are learning a pattern that is specific to a particular key, but it is good to practice this way)
Harp technique (play adjacent notes across different string, letting notes ring out as much as possible)

At first, start with a steady beat and subdivide into two notes: 1 and 1 and 1 and ...
Once you are no longer thinking about what string comes next, and your body is relaxed, then divide that same beat into three: 1 and a 1 and a ...
Once this is comfortable, divide by 4, then 5, then 6, then (if you can) 7, 8...

I usually top out at dividing the beat by 6. It is also fun to emphasize different notes within whatever division you are using.

Once I've got one octave down, say at 4 notes per beat, I go to a different octave in the same key and practice it using the same technique. Then I will practice both octaves together. Then I may learn another octave, only adding it to the first two once I've got it down by itself.

The keys that are best for the second two techniques in DADGAD are: Bflat, F, C, G, and D.

Still good but not ideal are: A, E, and Eflat.

2007-09-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

Up at 3:30am (ouch), left at 4:30 to carpool with a co-worker to Logan Airport, where we caught a 6am shuttle flight to Planet New York. Did some work, then caught a return shuttle at 11am, home by 2pm. Slept for about an hour, then read while listening to Rachmoninov's Vespers (The Robert Shaw Festival Singers recording -- absolutely sublime).

7:49 pm - have practiced one hour: harp-style scales in D minor/F major, G minor/Bb major. Have found a tune from the Real Book in Bb to play during my final 1/2 hour of practicing. Also played Cello Suite 1 Prelude (Bach) for about 2o minutes, then practiced my new arrangement of Father Fielding's Favorite (out of O'Neils).

I have discovered a music notation program that is far superior in terms of output quality, to any other software (certainly free software) I have thus far used. It is called LilyPond, and it works by reading text files in its own text-based markup format and producing PDF, PNG, even MIDI files.

Here is an example of my DADGAD Cello Suite 1 Prelude transcription rendered in LilyPond:

Just gorgeous. The source for this part looks like:


\version "2.10.29"
\header {
 title = "Cello Suite no. 1 - Prelude"
 composer = "J.S. Bach (Arr. Astolfi)"
}
notes = {
% uncomment the temp indication when layout engine is fixed
% \tempo 4=80
\key d \major
\relative c' { d16 a'\3 fis' e fis a,\3 fis' a,\3 }
\relative c' { d16 a'\3 fis' e fis a,\3 fis' a,\3 }
\relative c' { d16 b'\3 g' fis g b,\3 g' b,\3 }
\relative c' { d16 b'\3 g' fis g b,\3 g' b,\3 }
\relative c' { d16 cis'\3 g' fis g cis,\3 g' cis,\3 }
\relative c' { d16 cis'\3 g' fis g cis,\3 g' cis,\3 }
\relative c' { d16 d'\2 fis e fis d\2 fis d\2 }
\relative c' { d16 d'\2 fis e fis d\2 fis cis }
\relative c' { d16 b'\3 fis' e fis d cis d }
\relative c' { b'16\3 d cis d fis, a gis\4 fis\5 }
\relative c' { gis'16\4 d' e\3 d e\3 d e\3 d }
\relative c' { gis'16\4 d' e\3 d e\3 d e\3 d }
\relative c' { cis'16\3 e\2 a gis a e\2 d e\2 cis\3 e\2 d e\2 a,\4 cis\3 b\4 a }
\relative c' { b16\5 fis'\4 d' cis d fis,\4 d' fis,\4 }
\relative c' { b16\5 fis'\4 d' cis d fis,\4 d' fis,\4 }
\relative c' { b16\5 gis' a b\3 a gis fis e d' cis b\3 a' gis fis e\2 d\2 }
\relative c' { cis'16\3 b\3 a a' e\2 a cis,\3 e\2 a,\4 b\4 cis\3 e\2 d cis\3 b\4 a }
}
\score {
\new StaffGroup <<   \new Staff <<    \override Staff.VerticalAxisGroup #'minimum-Y-extent = #'(-10 . 10)    {      \notes     }   >>
 \new TabStaff <<    \set TabStaff.stringTunings = #'(+14 +9 +7 +2 -3 -10)     {     \notes    }   >>
>>
\layout {}
\midi {}
}

Go download it and play around with it!

In my (non-)abundant spare time, I have created a simple web-based front end for LilyPond which I hope to expand upon in the future. I am working with a friend to get that online - I'll repost here when/if that happens.

Two friends' wedding (part I)

2007-07-16T06:01:00.001-07:00

Just got back from Amherst last night after spending the weekend with friends in a frenzy of activities around the wedding of Gary & Elise B. For this joyous event, the bride and groom assembled the old IVCF worship team:

(navigating the chaos of setup and rehearsal -- this really took us back -- notice the Rao's coffee cup in the hand of the guitarist on the left)

(practicing with Sarah)

(during the processional: Come thou fount of every blessing, with Matt)

(The guitars, happily back home!)

The songs:

Prelude - County Down, slow
Processional - Be thou my vision - a new arrangement (as of the Thursday before the wedding) in key of C, played on the DADGAD guitar
Bride's march - Come thou fount of every blessing - I played melody in DADGAD, while Matt strummed chords. Key of D
Special music during ceremony:
Blessed be the name of the Lord (key of A, strumming & singing, standard tuning)
How deep the Father's love for us (key of G, I just soloed tastefully in the background)
Recessional - instrumental reprise of Blessed be

The music went quite well - sound was a bit spotty, but our audience was not picky about this. Now I am looking ahead to the next friends' wedding later this summer.

2007-07-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday A.M., 10:10 - Practiced a little over an hour: cello prelude, a little Sonata VI, the 2nd Law, and some Merrily Kissed the Quaker. Very unfocused - I am quite sleepy still from this week (and last night - it was another ~midnight bedtime). Hands felt moderately achy and swollen this morning when I woke up. I should ice them again today (I also iced them last night).

The cello suite prelude, like many of Bach's compositions, provides a great way to strengthen scales and arpeggios in a very musical way. In DADGAD particularly, it affords an opportunity, mostly towards the end, to practice the harp-style scales that give this tuning its distinctive, piano-like quality.

2007-07-05T05:34:00.001-07:00

8:34 am - Practiced 10 mins x 2: D and G major scales in DADGAD, review of Sonata VI pages 1 & 2, and Toy for Two Lutes.

2007-07-03T05:55:00.000-07:00

We are in our new apartment in Framingham! It is a very open, benevolent space. It welcomes us; more generally, God has gone before us and welcomes us into his world.

My practice space is now set up:

(Enticement:)

(Prospect & Refuge:)

(The Muse:)

Practiced for about an hour yesterday - unfocused. DADGAD - Toy for Two Lutes, Invention #4, County Down, Dance of the Capricorn, Rakkish Paddy, Merrily/Cunla, & a new Jig out of O'Neils. Spontaneously played the first few bars from the Prelude to Bach's first cello suite. DADGAD triumphs again! It is obscenely right for this piece - transposed, of course, so that the first note becomes a D. I am looking forward to adapting the rest of this beautiful piece to DADGAD steel string.

Need to pick up new nylon strings today to begin practicing for weddings. I am going to take at least two days off from playing to let my body recover from the move, all that lifting and such. This is a good (and necessary) discipline, I've found. About a week is the peak interval - after one week of inactivity, I long so much to play music again and the relaxation produces an incredible freshness and energy, so that picking up the guitar at the end becomes a celebration!

2007-06-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Practiced ~1hr in the morning. Our apartment is a chaotic maze of half-packed boxes. The depression associated with moving makes it hard for me to concentrate. Worked on Sonata VI briefly, practiced Toy for Two Lutes, Invention in Dmin, Kadourimdou, a little Last Pint.

Discussion last night about authenticity. What does it mean for a person to be authentic? A: an absence of deceit. In other words, to be authentic is to be neither deceived nor deceiving. What is the way out of the trap of self-deception? There is no internal solution - there must be some external Truth that comes in to the picture and awakens you. So what can one do? Expect a poke or a gentle hand on shoulder: "thou art deceived."

Also talked about hero worship and identity theft. How to be yourself? What does this mean?

God has created each person. We do not know our true Name, but we stumble about trying to live up to the one we give ourselves (or that we are given). Or we try to live up to someone else's name. Of course the person in your head you are trying to be is not even close to the person in reality that you think you are trying to be. Uck. What a mess.

Best to focus on music, not on personality. Our art is not who we imitate - it is the Work to which we are called.

2007-06-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

Found O'Neils free in PDF form: http://www.freesheetmusic.net/oneills.html

Check it out! (of course it is still pretty nice to have it printed out and bound) The nice thing about this collection is that many of the tunes have chords (but strangely, not all of them...)

2007-06-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

A jog and then a new jig this morning: Castle Donovan (key G, played in DADGAD). Used backward learning technique, going one phrase at a time, probably playing each about 10 to 15 times. In 25 minutes, was able to play though the A part, more or less, and then took a five minute break, while taking a look at the B part (only new stuff is the first four measures, the final four, as is typically the case for these tunes, are just a variation on the second half of the A part). 15 minutes spent on the first half of B, then 10 on the whole thing. Wrote out chords, going to play it together with Sh.

Explored possible keys for Come thou fount (G + E's wedding request - this is the processional, a very beautiful choice!) A in DADGAD seems most promising. Will most likely play variations on the melody while M Atwood strums chords (we need to ensure the proper balance so the melody will come through, but as we will both be amplified, this shouldn't pose a problem).

Need to talk with Jerod about duets from the Renbourn renaissance guitar anthology for J + T's wedding (prelude music?)

2007-06-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Back from a three day visit to Planet New York (city - an entirely different version of reality for me). Played for a little over an hour this morning, DADGAD mostly, 2nd law towards the end. Discovered while on Planet NY that I have a co-worker who shares an interest in fingerstyle guitar playing. He is from Australia, and is a big Tommy Emmanuel fan. We hope to meet up at some point and exchange music.

This summer two weddings, both long time friends, who have asked me to play. I am beginning to practice hymns for both: Be thou my vision, Great is thy faithfulness, Come thou fount. Back to practicing soon before (hopefully) a visit to L'Abri for Friday night lecture (it is Dick Keyes tonight -- !!!)

2007-06-17T03:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning: Improvised (and then wrote down) a simple warm-up type exercise in G major. It is basically running up and down the scale in 16th notes with a simple bass line underneath in quarter notes. You can get the transcription here (it doesn't say so on the PDF, but the tab is for DADGAD tuning).

2007-06-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday practiced in evening after work before heading out to L'Abri. Began page 3 of Sonata VI (not IV as I had previously written). I am working backwards on this page as I did for page 2. Starting at the end and working backwards is an interesting method for learning a piece of music. Here are possible positives of this approach:

As you practice, you move from unfamiliarity to familiarity. This sets up a helpful dynamic of the release of tension.
As you learn the measure before (or the phrase before, or page before, whatever) the last one you learned, it changes the measure that comes after. This ties in to a question I have been thinking of lately:

What makes a thing new?

Possible negatives:

It helps to memorize a piece this way, but it does nothing to help with the problem of focusing attention on what is coming around the corner. This quality of attention is absolutely essential, I am learning, in many aspects of music, not the least of which is improvisation. But perhaps I am wrong in saying this - perhaps it is better to envision the end and work backwards? An intersting question...

And problems one deals with in either case:

Fingerings may need to be adjusted in response to what comes (before/after) what is already known.

I would love to hear from any readers (if I still have or ever had any!) your thoughts on learning music backwards, or the problem of learning music in general, what is most effective, what are the tradeoffs, what principles must be upheld.

2007-06-13T16:55:00.000-07:00

Hello after a two month break from posting!

Here are the major happenings for me musically:

Visited my favorite music shop, Fretted Instruments in Amherst, as part of an Amherst birthday trip. Played a surprisingly nice Chinese guitar (only around $1000!) - no match for the Bourgeois or the Froggy, but impressive nonetheless. Picked up a copy of O'Neil's music of Ireland
Embarked on a project of continual challenge: I am endeavoring to play some new piece of music every day I practice. Right now this means working through fiddle tunes in O'Neil's. The rules are:

I have never seen the tune or section of a tune before that day
I will attempt to learn and play it for that day only

Went to afternoon guitar workshop taught by Brooks. Very inspiring time - most of the technical information was not new to me, but I tried to keep things lively by staying in DADGAD and translating what Brooks was showing us. Met a few cool people (not that the people I didn't meet weren't cool, but I didn't actually meet them, so...) and got a chance to talk with Brooks afterward. He has been thinking (as have I) about the problem of the communal needs of the fingerstyle steel-string player. We are going to meet up next month for a lesson.
I have been learning much music with friends. Ben and I have Bach's Invention No. 4 in D minor (his most evil invention ever) and Toy for Two Lutes, a nice Renaissance piece that we both happened to have (my copy is in an anthology of Renaissance music arranged for guitar by John Rehnborn). Ben, Dan, and I are two pages in to Bach's 4th Sonata, and Dan has given me "Trombone Duet #2" (that is literally all we know about the piece!) to work on. No progress so far on Duet #2... hoping to start in this weekend!
I am in touch with Al to get together again to continue work on our second duet, Penny Lane.
I have ordered two sets of strings in gauges suitable for DADGAD tuning. The Froggy stays in DADGAD pretty much continuously at this point (or AADGBD, for Hedges' "The 2nd Law", which is even lower!) so it needs strings that can keep up. The strings are:

Pierre Bensusan signature strings from Wyres - these have a coating on them sort of like Elixirs I think
John Pearse phosphor bronze "New Medium" gauge. John Pearse seems to offer a variety of interesting string gauges, including on for New Standard Tuning (CGDAEG)

Work has begun, inspired my the work of Brad Meldau, to create an arrangement of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android"
I have gotten together twice now with another friend, Joe Renzoni, to create spontaneous improvisational music. This is very scary and fun; I have the feeling it is actually extremely good for me to be leaping into the creative unknown in real time without knowing what will happen.

Tonight I have more time than anticipated for practice, so I am taking advantage of this to practice the Sonata in preparation for (probably after journey group) tomorrow night.

2007-04-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

Morning practiced 20 minutes: 2nd Law, Bourree in Em (in DADGAD)

Goal for May: to perform 2nd Law with quality at some open mic at least once.

Afternoon practiced ~1hr: Bach in DADGAD: Bourree and Invention #4, Kadourimdou, Jigs, Murtach McKann. Part 1 of Bourree is nicely fitted to DADGAD - I will attempt two transcription projects within the next week or two:

Invention #4 tab in DADGAD for both parts
Bourree (at least 1st part) tab in DADGAD

I have an ongoing question regarding efficiency vs technical ability as related to musical interpretation of a piece: When does one say "I must find a way to play this passage more efficiently so it will be within my current technical reach to perform" and when does one say "I must increase my technical abilities in order to play this passage". Is the quest for efficiency sometimes (or even always) at odds with musical expression?

In an attempt to eliminate some personal waste and increase my energy for practice/play, I have begun to investigate the Dvorak keyboard configuration. This was inspired by a particularly lucid moment during which I realized that much more than half of the keystrokes I had just used to type a line of code where typed by my left hand! This could explain why my left (fretting) hand has been very prone to injury during periods of coincident intense computer/guitar use.

2007-03-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

Played in church for the first time in a long time. It was good to do this again. We played four songs in C, one in D. Playing with a band is a more comfortable thing for me at this point than playing solo. I feel much more able to improvise and experiment. Had good conversations with some friends about black Gospel music and modern white church music. We must be true to who we are, but we have much to learn from each other.

Practiced in DADGAD at home this afternoon. A little pyromania, some Merry kissing of the Quaker, and good ol Murtach even made an appearance.

2007-03-11T14:29:00.000-07:00

Monkeyed around a bit with Sentimentales Pyromaniques, played Dance of the Capricorn, re-tuned to play The 2nd Law (my 6th string was really not into going down to that low A), then moved back up to drop-D, played Aguinaldo Jibara, Some other Time, and a little of Kingsfold and Jerusalem. Re-tuned to standard.

Low energy today. Daylight savings time has struck yet again.

2007-03-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

Finished an improved transcription of Michael Hedges' The 2nd Law. One thing I should mention that is not written in the transcription itself, is the tuning (biggest to littlest string): A-A-D-G-B-D. The 6th string is an octave below the usual pitch of the 5th string (yikes!)

Saturday played for ~60 minutes, all DADGAD. County Down, Frenzy at the Feeder, Murtach MacKhan, Merrily Kissed the Quaker/Cunla, Rakkish Paddy, The Day after the Feast, The Voyage to Ireland, The Orphan, The Dance of the Capricorn, and Kadourimdou. Just playing, not so much practicing.

The only thing fast than the fastest thing

2007-02-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite aphorisms was discovered (by me) in an interview with Bjarne Stroustrup (see his website for pronunciation key), and it has to do with computer programming, the writing of 'code':

"The only code faster than the fastest code is no code."

On a similar note, I was reading Robert Fripp's diary this morning and discovered this fascinating account:

[A student] was having difficulty with alternate picking on the third string open: when they reached a certain tempo, moderately fast, their right arm began to get tense. Listening, the up stroke was louder than the down stroke, and this was the clue to the difficulty. The words down stroke & up stroke, although conventional terms for picking, are misleading: they imply that we do something, and this something is two discrete actions: a striking-down followed by a striking-up. The GC terms are release & return: we release the wrist, and then allow the hand to return to the beginning point. Since the hand is holding a pick, when the wrist releases the hand, the pick moves through the string & then returns to its original position. Nothing is done, and while nothing-is-being-done, two notes are struck: effortlessly.

Listening to the [student], it was clear that, in addition to the doing-something of striking down, even more effort was being put into striking up; and that this effort was a result of a particular way of thinking about the action/s. So, we began by thinking there was one action: striking down; the return “stroke” was therefore an inevitable result of striking down, and didn’t count as an action: two notes for one strike, as it were. Then, we moved to thinking of a four-note unit, initiated by the initial down stroke, with the 3 succeeding notes as inevitable results of the beginning down stroke: four notes for one action. Then, to a 6-note unit, then 8 note unit, then a 16-note unit, all generated by one beginning action. Then, by releasing, the initial action becomes a non-action, the doing something becomes doing nothing. The wrist releases the hand, the hand moves with gravity, followed by an inevitable series of notes, and all generated by the initiating release.

Similarly, watching Luciano in t’ai chi, I notice that he doesn’t lift his arms, moving against gravity, to make the form: the form is already there waiting & Luciano allows himself to be drawn into it. When Luciano moves his balance from one leg to another, he doesn’t move his balance from one leg to another: one leg is released & the balance changes as an inevitable result of this. Nothing is done: and while nothing is being done, a form is assumed.

"You've just taken your first step into a larger world" -- Obi-wan Kanobi

2007-02-23T04:58:00.000-08:00

Check out this interview with Pierre Bensusan from Acoustic Guitar magazine. My favorite bit (Pierre speaking):

I have had the great fortune to play with a fantastic improviser, Didier Malherbe, who plays woodwinds. And he taught me two things. He said, “First, you are not here to be unhappy onstage. You are onstage to be happy and to share this happiness. Turn this happiness into music and through the music give it to the people.” The second thing was, “I try to have my head as empty as possible, so that things can come to me, penetrate me.” When you expect something, your head’s busy expecting! You’ve closed the door to something that could happen. So this is the attitude of the great improvisers.

A New Look

2007-02-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

The original idea for the aesthetic of this blog was to make it as stripped-down and simple as possible. While I still put a great value on simplicity in my musical life, I've decided it makes no sense to have a blog essentially about artistic expression (or the development of one particular mode of it), and for that blog to be ugly. And I had to face facts: the old template was pretty ugly. So I picked one of blogger's templates and customized it with a photo of my guitar (tweaked in Paint Shop Pro).

Hope you like it!

The Solution to Stage Fright

2007-01-30T05:03:00.000-08:00

...was discovered simultaneously last night by myself and a friend. He has recently taken over the sound at the TCAN open mike, so he has to get there early on Monday nights. Since we were hanging out before hand, I went early too, to help him set up. We were running around like crazy trying to find where the right cables live, get everything set up and sound-checked, and just right before people got there. As a result, we literally had no time to worry about our performances (we both played acoustic instrumentals at the open mike)! It was one of the best performance experiences yet! I played Frenzy at the Feeder - good groove, not too fast. There were a couple of fudged phrases, but they were lack of practice, not nervousness.

So I will have to try to get to open mike really early all the time and help set up!

2007-01-20T05:58:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning - On Wednesday, I listened to a very good radio interview with Michael Millard of Froggy Bottom Guitars. What a cool guy! Of course it is pretty cool already that he makes superb guitars and lives in VT, but there is much that one would do well to imitate in his personal philosophy towards craftsmanship, service, and life.

Wed, Thur, Fri all very good practice days. Fun, anyhow - it is going to be hard to buckle down at this point and really polish Merrily/Cunla and Murtach. But it is also important to have fun playing (what is the point, otherwise, really?) even if a tune is not 100% perfect yet.

I am going to get some electonics put in the new guitar very soon hopefully (maybe even this afternoon). After that, perhaps I will start going to the TCAN open mic again - I have realized the importance of choosing the right venues to play at. I really wish I didn't have a conflict now with the ATAC open mic on Thursdays. It is by far my favorite place to play, and I miss very much going there.

2007-01-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning - pancakes bacon and coffee springboard me into ~70 mins of practice. Restrung the Bourgeois (I've been playing the Froggy almost exclusively since November) and played it in DADGAD. First 20 - execises, mostly right-hand arpeggio patterns, but some harpisant scales (F major). Practiced Merrily Kissed the Quaker/Cunla and Murtagh MacKhan for ~45 min. Made progress in both.

Spoke on the phone the other night with a friend who is (I think) an audio engineer by trade, and an accomplished woodworker to boot. He is trying his hand at building a few guitars. He was getting ready to cut the top of the first one when he called, and wanted to talk about my experience and preferences in guitars to get a player's perspective before starting. He has researched the topic of guitar building quite extensively and has taught me several interesting things in the process. This first guitar design is based on a Taylor 814ce. I am really looking forward to seeing the end result!

I am conspiring with another audio engineer friend to record a couple videos of my playing for posting on Youtube. I'll be sure to embed them here when they are ready.

Thanksgiving

2006-11-25T05:38:00.000-08:00

Recovering from Thursday feasting. Spent Thanksgiving in Vermont and had a grand time, though the bill arrived late Thursday night. Friday morning acquired new guitar! After many months of deliberation and searching, I've ended up with an absolutely amazing Froggy Bottom "M" model. It is an Indian Rosewood/Adirondack spruce creation, with a small body, curved back, 14-fret neck (no cutout). Tone is perfect - far and away the best I've ever played. Intonation spot on, harmonics are bright and beautiful. I will probably have the action lowered just a hair, but it is still very playable. I am incredibly grateful to be able to play such a great instrument - God willing for many years to come. And it was made in Newfane, VT, just down the road from where my wife's mother grew up!

There is an open mic in Westford tomorrow (Sunday) night where I hope to perform. I will play Capricorn and County Down. I am planning to take the Froggy, though without electronics (yet) it will have to be mic'ed. No problem - this guitar puts out a ton of sound, easily as much as many much larger D or Jumbo style guitars. Speaking of electronics... I am planning on getting a K&K installed some time in the next couple of weeks. From what I hear, K&K make the highest fidelity acoustic pickups, and they happen to be on the low end price wise... a double win! I think the guy at the store quoted about $100 installed. And they supposedly put out enough signal that you don't need to pre-amp before heading into the house system! I will still probably use the Baggs PADI, for the notch filter and XLR out if nothing else.

Looking forward to a nice morning of music - will practice set for tomorrow night (3x each tune), and then just have fun on the new guitar.

Irish music jam and "Get ahold of yourself, man!"

2006-11-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

Just got back from playing some Irish jigs and reels at a friend's house. Lot's of fun - we played a version of Greensleeves and a reel called Dillon Brown. Both are very playable in DADGAD and sound good with guitar + mandolin.

Played a few tunes I've been working on the in traditional Irish vein... Cunla/Merrily Kissed the Quaker, Rakkish Paddy, Murtagh Mckann, the Last Pint, and the Orphan. It is always great to try to perform a tune for someone and then see it fall apart in your hands! Well, I have fresh resolve now to polish up these tunes and make them performable. The big problem is I want to be able to play them all the way through now, which means I sort of fudge-over the bits I can't play right yet when I am by myself practicing. This is unacceptable. Starting Tuesday (remember, marathon schedule...) the metronome is coming out and we are going to burn this music into the muscles deeply and perfectly. Then and only then will the tempo resume.

The search for a new guitar continues, albeit somewhat in the background for now. There is a particular instrument from Newfane, VT which continues to haunt me...

Post Performance Depression

2006-11-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I have not made it out to perform since the feature on 10/19. A similar phenomena occurred after opening for Brooks back in June. Next time I will have to anticipate the PPD and make plans before hand to get back out there.

In my brief sabbatical from performing I've been taking the opportunity to work on new material. I attended the David Surette guitar/mando workshop two weeks ago, which was really excellent. David is a fantastic teacher and a very capable musician, certainly one of the best fingerstyle guitarists I've seen. I picked up some traditional Irish/New England music to work on there, as well as a wonderful book of transcriptions in treble clef and tablature.

I've also started in on Murtagh McKann (Bensusan's arrangement for DADGAD, from the big guitar book). I can read through the first two sections, which are in D, and have started to wander a bit into the next part, which modulates to G. This tune is a fun and lively number. It is not super complex harmonically; rather a single melody line is followed and most of the work of the guitarist goes into making the melody dance while paying attention to all the great ornaments. It will also be a good exercise, I hope, in modulating to a different key in DADGAD.

Work has begun, minimally, on a DADGAD arrangement of Kingsfold (I feel the winds of God today) in the key of A major. This permits some really great moments where the low 4th (D) is played on the open 6th string - an arranging technique I've always enjoyed, that is, playing in a key where the lowest note available is not the tonic.

Visited Maple Leaf Music Co. in Brattleboro, VT last night and played two really amazing guitars: a Indian/Engleman Bourgeois OMC and a Goodall Concert Jumbo (CJ) with the same wood combo. The Bourgeois is certainly the more comfortable to play due to the slimmer body depth. Surprisingly, it holds up quite well against the larger CJ in the bass range. The Goodall certainly has a more complex sound, with lots of beautiful overtones and bright, eager harmonics. The OMC, in great Bourgeois form, has a more balanced sound from high to low, with plenty of warmth. I hope to return to the store today and try out a few other promising-looking guitars, as well as play these two again. The Goodall is, I am guessing, a bit more expensive than the OMC, and I am a bit scared of Goodalls after talking to the sound guy at the Surette workshop/concert. His experience was that, while beautiful in acoustic tone, they tend to be very hard to amplify well, even with K&K pickups (which I am pretty much sold on for the new instrument). Perhaps I will do more internet research on this, because this guitar, whatever it turns out to be, absolutely has to amplify well. Its purpose is to be a solid, reliable, great-sounding soloist instrument for when I perform.

I've also been working pretty hard on Merrily/Cunla. I am now experiencing the 80/20 effect in full force. I am trying to take "the slower you practice, the quicker you'll get there" to heart.

The "Fare thee well" guitar/cello collaboration is also proceeding well. Will hopefully meet again soon for a third rehersal. This duet combination has so much potential, because of the similar range of the instruments and their complementary strengths. But volume balancing is proving a slight problem. Amplification may help, as may a slightly louder, more resonant instrument (SJ anyone?) ;-)

2006-10-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

Thursday 10/19 - Survived first open mic feature. Set list:

County Down
The Dance of the Capricorn
The Day after the Feast/Kadourimdou
Bright Field
Castle's Call/Pilgrims Flight
Fare Thee Well
(encore) A Smile

I put my strongest pieces at the beginning and end, with the dicey stuff in the middle. And was it ever dicey... I am starting to think that Kadourimdou needs to just be reeled in for a while and polished in the shop before I parade it around town any more. It is just too hard for me in front of an audience right now. It is a pretty avant-guard crazy kind of tune anyhow, and when you aren't 100% on top of it, I fear it does not come across at all!

I think that The Day after the Feast would have gone alright, but at that point I was battling heavily with the sound, which was less than ideal. At first, I couldn't hear anything coming from the mains or monitors, which really threw me on Capricorn, because it is such a punchy rhythmically driving piece. THEN, when I turned my preamp up, this buzz appeared everywhere, so I just killed my pickup and used an instrument mic. So, shaken from my second tune, it was very difficult to try to regain composure for Feast, which requires, as I've mentioned before, a high degree of right hand control.

After that, everything went pretty well. I originally had Chasin' the Groove in there, but bailed because I was still feeling a bit freaked about the sound. I think that was the right decision. I worry that it cost me some energy later in the set, but the response from the audience was good.

This experience was a good one also in terms of tuning my expectations for an open mic feature. The key is that people aren't there to see you, by and large - they are there for the open mic. This is a good thing to keep in mind so that a proper set of expectations can be built.

Other things to work on: my interaction with the audience is very sparse, and I would like to talk more to them, and draw them in more.

That's it for now. Thanks to everyone who came out last night... it was great to see you and play for you!

2006-10-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

Thursday 10/12 - Played at Amazing Things. Voyage to Ireland (not a train wreck, but close), Frenzy at the Feeder (best I've played it for an audience, but still needs work), Great is Thy (little mistakes and hesitations, but this was the most together tune I played)

Everyone who reads this blog and is free next week should come out to see me as the feature performer at Amazing Things next Thursday 10/19. Even though the bio is talking about someone else, trust me, I am really the feature!

I am looking forward to participating in a guitar workshop given by David Surette later this month at ArtSpace in Greenfield, MA. It should be good - I've heard David's work on the web and on a CD/Book called Pierre Bensusan presents DADGAD music, which features many great players, including Brooks Williams and Phil Keaggy, two of my personal favorites.

A while back I mentioned working out the diatonic scale patterns in DADGAD tuning. I'll give some of my thoughts and maybe a diagram or two here:

The first thing that sticks out at one when trying to work this out, is the two places where intervals between strings diverge from standard tuning (6->5 and 3->2). The 5th from 6->5 is a difficult problem, since it presents quite a stretch to acheive a half-tone or whole-tone interval especially at the lower frets. This problem is easiest solved through the use of the open 'A' string. This solution is unfortunately specific to key (and not applicable to every key), so I'll circle back at some point to address it. For now, I'll deal with moveable forms where the tonic is located on the 5th ('A') string.

The 3->2 whole-tone is much easier to deal with, and in terms of melody arrangement, is one of the reasons DADGAD is such an interesting tuning to play in. The 3->2 transition sorts the scale patterns into two groups, based on whether there is a half-tone or whole-tone interval at the point in the scale where one crosses from the 3rd to 2nd string.

There are two modes where this transition is a half-tone:

Phrygian mode:

Locrian mode:

The remaining five modes all place a whole-tone interval between the 3 and 2 strings:

Mixolydian: mmmmmmmmmLydian: mmmmmmmmmmAeolian:

Dorian:mmmmmmmmmmm Ionian:

A close inspection reveals there are two approaches present for playing across the third and second strings: the most common taken above is to use adjacent fingers (with a bit of a stretch - if you are serious about DADGAD, get used to it!) to play the interval on the same fret; this is used in all but the Aeolian (or minor) mode where a bar of the first finger is used instead. A quick analysis will reveal that this approach is also valid for the Dorian and Mixolydian modes but will not work with Ionian or Lydian at all. Conversely, the two-finger adjacent string approach used in all the other modes may easily be applied to Aeolian as well.

So, if you're so inclined, play around with these patterns, combine them into Segovia-style scale exercises with one or more position changes, get comfortable with all the modes of a single major key. In a future installment of esoteric DADGAD fretboard analysis I'll delve into the topic of dealing with that nasty 5th between the 6 and 5 strings, and perhaps even go into scales played "harp style" with maximum use of adjacent strings (DADGAD lends itself especially well to this use).

Enjoy! And come out next Thursday to see me play!

2006-10-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

2006-10-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

Wednesday (10/4) - Three 20 min practice sets (all DADGAD):

1. Exercises - right hand, scales (G major, one octave), run from the end of Kadourimdou
2. New tunes - mostly Merrily/Cunla, with a little Hymn 11 at the end
3. Old tunes - Great is Thy, Frenzy at the Feeder, Rakkish Paddy, Voyage to Ireland

Thursday (10/5) - Two 20 min sets, DADGAD:

1. Exercises, scales, and Kadourimdou
2. Merrily/Cunla, The last pint, the day after the feast (just play at end)

2006-10-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

Thursday (9/28) - played at Amazing Things. Fare Thee Well followed by Castle's Call/Pilgrim's flight (a Phil Keaggy night!) Both went pretty well - little mistakes, but overall about as good as I can play them, which feels great. Sound was good; talked to a guy who was at the Pierre show in April at Fall River, which helped a lot to loosen me up and relax. Fare Thee Well is a fun and sort of flashy piece to play, but it has the advantage of not being too demanding on the right hand. Pilgram's is a bit more challenging in this area, especially with the Baroque-sounding movement towards the end. The best strategy is to not rush it, but slow down if need be to gain control on the right hand; use the tempo expressively. It is easier to speed up usually than slow down, though both can be used to good effect.

The feature, Dan Gonzalez, asked if I played any Bensusan, so I stuck around for round 2 to play one for him, even though I had not planned to. I picked the Day after the Feast. It was OK, not what I would have liked. There is a lot of control required in the timing of the right hand, because there are all those arpeggios interspersed with melody/bass in Pierre's arrangment. You need to be relaxed and keep your concentration so that the right hand does not rush or lag behind, either of which will throw things completely off. Somehow, it gets easier in the 'B' section of this tune, because it is more straight-ahead chord+medoly arrangement. So, 'A' section is all right hand, 'B' is all left hand, and guess what, that means the piece actually starts out harder and gets a little easier towards the end!

Saturday (9/30) - Drove down to Acoustic Music in Guilford, CT to look at guitars. It was on the one hand a wonderful experience to play so many great instruments. But after a while it leaves me with a strange feeling - a weariness of trying to judge the flaws and attributes of so many amazingly crafted instruments. At a certain level, you know that any one of these will bring you much joy, and will shape your playing as part of the musician-instrument relationship over time. It is not good or bad, just different. How do you decide what kind of different you want? The practical reality of price is one way... can I really afford a $5000 guitar right now? No... I had an interesting conversation with the shop owner, though, where he was telling me about Pierre Bensusan's guitars and how until the Kevin Ryan that he now plays, he was playing pretty standard factory-production Lowdens. Nothing super fancy... it was his playing that mattered. It is still that way, though one might argue that the Ryan offers a kind of expressive range that is opening new doors in his music.

But it makes me tired thinking of all this... I find I am tired of thinking about things recently. Thinking about my calling as a musician, thinking about what is justified in terms of a second guitar, thinking about stage nervousness, thinking about everything. I was once introduced by a friend as "This is Tony; he thinks more than anyone I know" Ha! Flattering and sad all at once. God has given me this intensity of thought and of feeling, and that translates into an extreme sensitivity in both areas. Sometimes it just makes me totally exhausted.

2006-09-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

Monday - Played for the first time at the TCAN open mic in Natick. I got there right as Oliver, the sound man, was ducking out for a minute to pick up some dinner, and since there was no one else in the building, I had to wait for a few minutes. I was glad to have arrived as early as I did; plenty of time to get acclaimated to the space and warm my fingers up. My guitar strings were a bit dirty from this weekend, so that threw off my right hand a little, but it was mostly fine.

I played County Down and Great is Thy Faithfulness. Oliver did an amazing job on the sound - it was the best I have ever heard from on stage! They have these really nice studio-quality instrument mics, so that certainly helped. My rhythm was a bit off, and I goofed up the descending run with harmonics at the end of Great is Thy, but I was able to carry a good energy for the most part. At least on County Down... one guy I talked to afterwards said he thought the second piece I played was 'too boring' for the open mic crowd, but others said they liked it! I thought it did not 'swing' like I want it to, but I figure, it's ok. Last night was mostly about playing in a new place and working on performance nerves. I was expecting my playing to be a bit sloppy, but I still hate that it was.

The other performers were very good - there were a few other instrumentalists (guitar), both fingerstyle players. TCAN seems like a really good scene and I hope to visit many times again in the near future.

2006-09-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

Sunday - practiced for a long time (1.5~2 hrs) standard tuning, drop-D, DADGAD, the works baby. Tuesday ~40 min DADGAD, Wednesday ~50 min DADGAD, Thursday decided to take off of open mic because tendonitis was getting bad. Then Thursday afternoon, at the gym I overworked my right arm, so it is pretty sore at the moment (like I just got 3 tetanus shots all at once).

While I'm injured and not making much progress at the moment towards acoustic guitar virtuosity, I'll share a few thoughts on sustainable practice and injuries. Turn the clock back about 7 years... college senior Tony has just discovered fingerstyle guitar and alternate tunings and is going nuts practicing Bach, Michael Hedges, Phil Keaggy tunes and all kinds of stuff. But I've got a problem: I want to play this stuff now, and it takes a while to build the technique necessary to play this kind of material. Result: I practiced continually, often way after pain in my wrists and hands has been telling me to take a break. Often, I'd become angry that I couldn't play what I wanted to, and practice through the anger, tensing up and using way more pressure than needed to form chords. As a result, by spring 2000, my wrists were a mess, and I had a deep sense of failure and dissatisfaction with my playing. So, even though I am not Catholic, I decided to fast from all guitar playing for the season of Lent.

A couple of things came out of this fast: first, I had a chance to re-evaluate the maniacal importance I was placing on being an impressive guitar player. It gave me a chance to re-discover music in a sense. And I was surprised by how well my memory and technique survived the six weeks of rest. This was key in allowing my mind to relax a little about keeping up a crazy practice regimen. I read about Segovia, Bensusan, other amazingly great players and how they practice six, seven hours each day. There are a couple of important points to call out here:

1. They don't also work a full time job as a computer programmer (which I do, and which alone and take a real toll on the wrists)
2. They probably didn't wake up one day in college and say, from now on I will play the guitar for seven hours a day (in other words, it was probably not a cold start like I attempted)

As a result of my foolishness and the nature of my day job, I still need to constantly balance my desire to play guitar endlessly and the physical limitations with which I must come to terms.

I never play my guitar when I am angry now. Never. There is no excuse for this; one must have inner peace of mind in order to make music (even angry music), and not injure themselves.

At a party a few years ago, I met a guy who was training to run a marathon. He told me he had a specific schedule that took up him and down on different days in terms of mileage. The schedule also had days of rest. A typical week might look like:

day 1 - 4 miles
day 2 - 6 miles
day 3 - 4 miles
day 4 - rest
day 5 - 5 miles
day 6 - 8 miles
day 7 - rest

Day 6 is always the most mileage - eventually it is a full 23 miles. And the total miles per week goes up and down with a pattern similar to (though not exactly the same as) the pattern within a single week. Fascinating I thought - here is a strategy that exercise science has come up with to deal with the problem of ramping up to an event that requires extreme stamina. So I decided to apply it to guitar practice. I simply multiplied the miles by 10 minutes (or 15 or 20, whatever) and there is how much I practice each day.

Recently (since this August) I have been undisciplined about keeping this schedule, but I have mostly stuck to it for the past several years. I still don't quite know how to integrate performances into it (there is a kind of energy that takes over when you perform that allows you to go much longer, but afterwards I am pretty tapped).

Anyone reading this is welcome to post a comment and share what your practice strategy is.
I look forward to hearing about it!

2006-09-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday 9/7 - played at Amazing Things open mic. There were a lot of people there to perform, so we only got one song a piece. I played a medley of The Voyage to Ireland and the Rakkish Paddy. It was shakey for a number of reasons: 1. I have not played these two for people very much, 2. It was a larger crowd than I've been used to, 3. the stage monitors were really hot, especially in the high end. Dan and I were the only two who played for round two, which meant I closed out the evening to a much smaller crowd with County Down. You need to play a piece 6 times before you own it, supposedly... at any rate, County Down is in that range and it really is starting to feel comfortable, so I guess the key is to keep playing those pieces that give me trouble!

Met an unbelievably good pianist named Don. What fluidity and grace on the keys! I look forward to seeing him play again on Thursday nights.

2006-09-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday - played at Amazing Things open mic. Last two times (this week and two weeks ago) the turn out has been quite small, but the atomosphere has been great; there is a real sense of community and an artistic sensitivity to this crowd. I played Kadourimdou and The Day after the Feast/The Voyage to Ireland medley, plus Frenzy at the Feeder for the bonus round. Here is the breakdown:

Kadourimdou:

Kept messing up the beginning bass riff! The transition between just the bass line and bass+chords continues to give me trouble. It is a much different way to orient the left hand and this definitely needs work
This time the 7/8 section was relatively smooth. Now I just need to work on all the other difficult bits!
The triplet based riff in the transition from the A section to the B section in particular, as well as the two fast descending runs (/6 and /5) need work, as does the fast scale section at the very end
A little bit slower tempo was a great help in establishing and maintaining the groove during this tune. Overall, it seems I am making good progress on this tune.

Feast/Ireland

First of all, good response from the audience I felt on this medley. The first song was rougher than the second, for sure. Much attention and control is needed to maintain the correct timing with all those arpeggiated notes that just sort of hang out there. Practice it slow? I don't know what the correct approach is here. Perhaps the metronome...
Voyage to Ireland came across better than expected for a first time performance. The ornaments need some work, but I think I was struggling with the super-light gauge of my new strings and that did not help. I should study more variations for this tune.

Frenzy at the Feeder

It is hard to tell from behind the main speakers, but this one suffered perhaps most of all from the lack of tone in the lighter strings. The first string was 'thwacking' and 'plinking' a lot. Other than that, the tune went pretty well, certainly much better than the first time I played it at Amazing Things. Parts that need work are the 5 fret pull-off riff that appears before and after the B section, and the section with all the fast four note pull-offs towards the end. I should slow this part down and work on getting all the notes to sound out with clarity.

Not sure what the status of the DADGAD cedar/rw guitar expedition two weeks from today is...

NPR had an interesting piece on designing the space of the home to fit the needs of one's individual personality. It made me think on what makes a space good or bad for practicing, jamming with other musicians, performing... Perhaps I will try to dig up some writing on the net on this subject. I can't be the first one to think about this!

With Cunla/Merrily now committed to memory, my guns are now trained on Hymn 11.

2006-08-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday - 30 min DADGAD, went to music store to find new strings and to poke around. Played Cedar/RW nylon Taylor for a while (30min?) Mostly standard, some drop D. I still think it a very nice instrument. The store was all out of Martin SP (just light gauge!). I bought Marquis and DR lights, which are inexplicibly 0.10 gauge. The store clerk didn't know why DR thinks 10's and not 12's are light either. Looked at many Irish/DADGAD music books. They have four that look interesting. This made it impossible to choose one. The ones that looked the most interesting were a Stefan Grossman books of Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, and Slow Airs for fingerstyle guitar (mostly standard and drop-D tuning), and a book of essential session tunes. But then there was the DADGAD book, and the intro to Irish rhythm playing on guitar (I could use some of the basics here!)

Sunday - played at church, but didn't practice later.

Monday - 20 + 35 min. DADGAD - Frenzy, County Down, Merrily/Cunla, Kadourimdou, Feast/Voyage, Hymn 11, and improvisations around scale/mode patterns. I will post diagrams of mode patterns for DADGAD tuning sometime soon. It is very helpful to have worked them out.

2006-08-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday - played at Sit n Bull pub open mic. Sign up is at 7pm, the performances start at 8pm, so it is pretty easy to get there and have about an hour to settle into the space and warm up. Practiced right hand patterns, two-finger alternations, and string crossing, the Day after the Feast, the Voyage to Ireland, the Rakkish Paddy, Cunla/Merrily, Kadourimdou and County Down. Performed County Down and Kadourimdou. The first went very well, the second lacked groove and slips abounded. It is a very difficult piece, and there is no single place it falls apart for me, it is just shakey throughout. I am not sure what to conclude besides just that I must practice it more, at slower tempos while focusing on the groove. It was commented to me by a friend that this is a nice open mic to play at because most of the people there are not even paying attention! There is some truth to this, though as I proved last night, it is still possible to psyche yourself out.

There appeared to be no (or a very short) feature, so there was time for another round. I had not intended to play, but the open mic host wouldn't let me leave until I had played two more! I should have done this anyhow... I played Capricorn and Great is Thy. Both were played well, though my guitar tone felt weak, and I was a little out of tune (I actually plugged in all my electronics on stage because I wasn't set up ahead of time; this is the solution to not being in tune!) It may just be time for new strings. Interaction with (what was left of) the audience was good during my second (two song) set. Great is Thy seems to be an arrangement people can connect with.

I am hoping to go guitar shopping two weeks from Saturday. I am thinking these days how nice it would be to be able to have a DADGAD and a standard-tuning guitar ready for action!

2006-08-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

35 mins - warmups, Capricorn, Rakkish, Feast/Ireland, Kadourimdou, Cunla/Merrily. Very low energy and bad concentration today. Had to get up early for an 8:30am meeting. Ugh.

2006-08-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

Thursday - another Amazing Things open mic. Played Capricorn and County Down plus Great is thy on the bonus round. Totally lost my place twice on Capricorn! I can't figure it out... I thought that one was as "in the bag" as anything I play. I guess lapses in memory can occur to anyone at just the wrong moment. I remember reading on one of the California Guitar Trio journals about two of the three of them blanking out during a performance of Beethoven's 5th. If it can happen to them sometimes, I guess it is okay if I blank out from time to time. It was good that I had an amnesia story ready to tell... I will have to keep a couple of these up my sleeve (and hope I don't forget them too!)

There is the one about the big mailbox... I can talk about the crazy guy who used to order seeds from huge catalogs so he could scatter them all over the yard at my folks' house. Come see me play and you might just hear it!

Taking today (Friday) off from playing. Headed up to N. Turner Maine tomorrow. Will bring guitar and play much over the weekend.

2006-08-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

Tuesday - 60min DADGAD, Kadourimdou, Merrily/Cunla, Rakkish, Capricorn, The Voyage to Ireland.

Wednesday - 60min + ~20 in Guitar Center. Same stuff as yesterday, pretty much. Some drop-D on a cedar/rw Taylor in Guitar Center (Canarios, Aguinaldo)

Guitar Center is about the most unpleasant music store in the world. Everyone there called me "man" or "dude", there seems to be no policy restricting the disproportionately loud plunking of teenagers on electric guitars and basses, and for some unfathomable reason, you must give your full name to the cashier when attempting to buy a set of strings.

Me: "Is it really necessary that I spell my name out for you?"

Cashier: "Um, sorry dude, but that's sort of like, the rules"

Me: "I don't understand; I don't have to give my name anywhere else when I try to buy something"

Cashier: "Uh..."

Me: "Fine; my name is on my credit card. Here"

Cashier: "Sorry about that dude"

I am hoping sometime this fall to make another trip down to Acoustic Music in CT. It could not be more different. The guy who runs the place is great, the atomosphere is living-room nice, the sympathetic resonances from dozens of hand-built guitars make the one you're playing sound dangerously good (dangerous, because it is not going to sound like that when you bring it home!)

They have a cedar/rw Goodall GC that looks very interesting, and the Dancing Crane, as far as I can tell, is still unclaimed. Perhaps there is hope for my DADGAD guitar aspirations yet...

Back from vacation

2006-08-14T05:58:00.000-07:00

Camping in Maine by a lake. Playing guitar last week was a truly joyful experience. My tuning drifted flat about a quarter tone, which has the effect of making the same strings sound a little new and different, and easing the action just a tad. But in the fresh air, with a gorgeous view of Long Lake in front of me, the smell of the pines and wood fires lazily meandering by, I'm able to relax and concentrate in a way that is very rarely possible at home.

Maybe when I am ready to start recording material, I should go off in the woods somewhere; at least change my surroundings and make sure to be some place where the beauty of creation can soak in. There is no better source of inspiration.

I have decided that Martin SP fingerstyle strings are good, and I am going to keep using them for now. I stayed mostly in DADGAD this week, practicing Cunla/Merrily heavily, as well as County Down, Kadourimdou, The Last Pint, the Rakkish Paddy, and Capricorn. Also worked on Hymn 11 and Sentimentales, though it was a pain to not really be able to spread the whole score out to read through. The Irish jigs are nearing the polishing phase, which means hopefully I can start playing them at open mics maybe next month. I hope to return to open mic playing this week. Rakkish, Capricorn, and Kadourimdou?

Camping also has left me with a strong bump to the head, complete with minor concussion and three stitches. I now have to find a doctor to remove the stitches this Friday. I am doing much better since Friday when it happened, but I am still taking today (Monday) off work to rest before becoming more active once again.

2006-08-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday ~75 min. Chasin the Groove, The Bright Field, some of A Field of Flowers, Aguinaldo Jibara, I feel the winds of God, Far Away, Canarios, Bourree in E minor, a little Be thou my vision, a little Jerusalem, Cunla/Merrily, Kadourimdou, the Voyage to Ireland, a little Sentimentales Pyromaniaques, the Rakkish Paddy (it was hot tonight!)

My mind is super fuzzy because I've broken the cardinal rule of practice by having 2 margaritas with dinner. I think that is why I practiced so many different things... lack of any reasonable attention span!

Will rest Friday (tomorrow) in preparation for travelling to ME, for a week up in the woods by the lake. The forecast is excellent, so I have high hopes. The Bourgeois is coming along, so besides reading, walking, talking, sitting, and sleeping, I will be able to get in much guitarring.

2006-08-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

Wednesday: 25 min in DADGAD, Cunla/Merrily & Kadourimdou, 15min in Drop-D, I feel the winds of God, Canarios, Jerusalem, and a little Aguinaldo Jibara. Full workout at the gym after leaving work, 20 min cardio + weights. Very good energy while practicing. It amazes me how obvious this correlation is now that I'm journalling regularly on practice and exercise. Perhaps a good idea is to plan a workout for the afternoon of nights when I perform... (that and lots of coffee)

2006-08-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 15+25 mins. All Kadourimdou. I generally begin this one at a slow comfortable tempo (when I am warming up with this piece) in the 7/8 section in the middle. I play through that a couple of times at the slow tempo until I've warmed up, then I will go into the slow section and finish up the piece, looping around to the beginning. Then, depending on how in control I am feeling, I will take the tempo up a bit and play though several more times.

2006-07-31T07:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday, no practice - travelling all day, up to ME to see family.

Some first thoughts on recording candidates:

Capricorn
County Down
Fare Thee Well
Great is thy Faithfulness
And did those feet/Canarios medley
Merrily Kissed the Quaker/Cunla
The Rakkish Paddy
The Last Pint
I feel the winds of God today (Kingsfold)
Be thou my vision

As there are no new compositions on this list, it is important for each that a new recording add some distinctive expression or element. For some this will be a more sparse recording than originally rendered (Fare thee); for others it may a new mood or rhythm (Great is thy); for others it will be additional instrumentation to fill out the sound (The Last Pint, County Down). This last category means finding musician friends who would be willing to contribute to such a project, particularly fiddler(s) and percussionist(s) given the general theme I am aiming for.

I seems I know a lot of guitarists but not many other types of musicians... perhaps meeting new people will happen though networking, or getting involved in the kinds of musical communities where I'm likely to meet such folks (did I hear 'Irish pub jam'?)

A cool resource

2006-07-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

A free PDF guide to chords in open tunings.

A good project for me would be to go through the DADGAD section and start identifying the repeating shapes and add arpeggios and scales (diatonic and pentatonic). Perhaps Adam could even be convinced to add these to his guide (if I ever get around to transcribing them!)

2006-07-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

Thursday 7/27, no practice: I spent the day helping my dad dismantle the front deck on my parents' house. It was poorly constructed and as a result the wood where it connects to the house has been rotting for some time now. Hands and arms very tired after all that prying and hammering!

Friday 7/28, 20min right hand warm ups and County Down. Shannon's sister has come to stay with us this weekend. We are going to the Lowell Folk Festival tomorrow. I am really looking forward to seeing some good music and eating some good food!

Saturday 7/29, 40min, Capricorn, Sentimentales Pyromaniaques, Merrily/Cunla. I have begun to think about putting together a recording of some of the music I've been working on these past few years. It would be heavily Irish/Celtic themed, though not exclusively (I would want for Great is thy faithfulness to make an appearance, for example). I am excited by the idea of enlisting a few other musicians to enrich the guitar arrangements. More on this to come...

The folk festival was good, though we were only able to stay for Saturday afternoon. The highlight was seeing Liz Carroll and John Doyle perform together. What a treat! These two are as deeply steeped in Irish music as you can get, and their interplay was truly amazing to watch. I am going to have to get some of their recordings to soak more of this music in...

2006-07-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 30 mins. Cunla/Merrily, Capricorn, The Day after the Feast, The Voyage to Ireland, Kadourimdou. New strings: Martin SP Fingerstyle.

The Martin Fingerstyle strings are a new thing for me. I was offered the option when selecting the strings that would replace the ones that were on the Bourgeois when I took it in to be worked on. Let's go try to find out how they are different and why that is better for fingerstyle players...

According to Todd over at Maury's Music, these strings are designed to be more flexible (easier to press and bend?) and longer lasting. Not sure how they accomplish the latter point (the color of these strings is much more towards yellow/gold than the more bronze/gold of the regular sp's), but the former is served by a thinner solid core and thicker windings. So far, I find them to be very easy to play, but lacking in a certain power and/or brightness, especially on harmonics and when played hard. Todd recommends medium gauge - this sounds scarry to me. I may go back and forth a couple times between regular SP and fingerstyle for comparison's sake before making up my mind.

Tonight, two 25 min sessions and one 20.

1: right-hand warm ups, F major scales (DADGAD) in 2 octaves, Great is Thy, sections of County Down, Frenzy at the Feeder, and The Last Pint.
2: Merrily/Cunla.
3: Capricorn, Kadourimdou, stretches.

2006-07-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

Thursday, practiced ~15min Great is Thy and County Down.

General mental distraction and emotional stress have made the concentration required to practice very difficult this week. I am hoping these factors will subside soon and I can get back to normal.

2006-07-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I have my guitar back, with the neck freshly reset and refretted, and am back to regular practice. Last night (Tuesday) was about 35 mins, all in DADGAD:

Right hand warm ups (four-finger arpeggio patterns, two finger single string picking, two finger string crossing)
County Down
Great is Thy
The Dance of the Capricorn
Rakkish Paddy
The Last Pint
Kadourimdou (cut off partway through on account of supper being ready ;-)

I am very glad to have had the work done on the Bourgeois; playability is much improved, there is no danger of the first string getting pegged behind a fret, intonation is spot-on, and buzzes are gone. Unfortunately, I think I went for too long before having this work done, and am now faced with the challenge of unlearning a few bad habits I had unconsciously gained in order to work around deficiencies in the instrument. But this is a small price to pay.

Here is a good article written by luthier William Cumpiano that offers a thorough discussion of neck angle and playability (among other topics).

Making up missed journal entries...

2006-07-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

Here's the lowdown:

Monday - rested

Tuesday - ~30min, DADGAD: Last Pint and Kadourimdou. Bad concentration, too much Charles Shaw with dinner. It probably merits a mention that alcohol should never be consumed on a practice night (or at least not more than one drink, and not until after practice)

Wednesday - ~25min, Merrily/Cunla - played through several times.

Thursday - nada

Friday - L'Abri lecture night (no guitarring); very good presentation by Matt Dickerson on the writings and influence of George MacDonald.

Saturday - ~25min, Merrily/Cunla + ~30min jamming with a friend up in the woods of Shutesbury. I played Dance of the Capricorn for him, and we jammed for a bit on Zoe, Ten Penny, O Leaozinho, and the opening bars of Field of Flowers. A little over a year ago, we started learning the two part arrangement of "Field of Flowers" that appears on Keaggy's Lights of Madrid album (from the transcription included as a PDF on the CD!). Our running joke has been that I made it about 75% of the way through learning my part, and got no further, while he proceeded to learn the entire piece. Which is funny because the whole project was my idea in the first place! The joke was reversed on him recently when he did the same thing with another friend and a Bach piece. Somehow it is harder to finish a piece when playing it with a friend is your idea!

On Saturday I dropped my Bourgeois off at Fretted Instruments Workshop for a refret and neck reset. Regardless of the possible purchase of a cedar-top guitar in the future, I decided that this work was important for me to have done on the Bourgeois, as I plan to keep it for a good while longer. I am told the work will be done in a couple weeks, so I am going to take a brief sabbatical from guitar playing. Well, maybe I will break out the nylon string a few times... I hope to do some reading as well in the time otherwise spent playing guitar.

2006-06-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

Played Sunday morning, and again in late afternoon ~30-40min. Very disjointed practice; all standard tuning, some Happy Chappy, Chasin', and Ten Penny. Not much accomplished. Felt very tired mentally.

From Object Oriented Design and Analysis course this morning: always find 4 possible solutions to a problem before choosing one. This has very interesting implications for guitar playing. Will begin to apply tomorrow to Cunla/Merrily.

2006-06-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

~55min, some simple arpeggio exercises and cunla/merrily. Played all the way through the arrangement this time.

Interesting essay from Australian Guitar Journal, which appears to be a classically oriented guitar site. Particularly thought provoking are some of the comments about interpretation:

"As soon as [young] players feel equipped to play the standard repertoire pieces, they listen to recordings of famous guitarists and try to copy them, regarding their interpretation as the "right" one. Often the difficulty of the pieces is underestimated and it is also not realised that parroting another's performance can hardly lead to musically convincing playing."

Here, here! The world of classical music continues to surprise me. I like to think there is a general consensus among good musicians independent of particular tradition that true music expression requires freedom within form. Looking in from the outside, classical music often has seemed to me very tightly scoped in its form -- sometimes too much so for my taste. But the first time I actually saw a classical performance (thankfully a good one, though I can't remember exactly what was played or who was playing it... violins were involved, I believe) the freedom aspect was very evident. It is the way such performers play that has inspired and informed my approach to the guitar, much more than the repertoire.

Words of Inspiration

2006-06-23T05:50:00.000-07:00

Few people suspect what the study of an instrument demands. The public watch the music-miracle in comfort, never dreaming of the ascesis and sacrifices which the musician must perform in order to make himself capable of accomplishing it…

Don't you agree with me that there is in the world of Art today a great crisis which threatens the love of work, and that we musicians might set an example of morality in this field? It is impossible to feign mastery unless he who undertakes that adventure supplements the generous gift of the gods by the stern disciplines of lifelong practice.

But as for us pianists, violinists, cellists and guitarists – how many hours of pain and self-abnegation, how many weeks, months and years do we spend polishing a single passage, burnishing it and bringing out its sparkle? And when we consider it 'done to a turn', we spend the rest of our lives persevering so that our fingers shall not forget the lesson or get entangled again in a brambly thicket of arpeggios, scales, trills, chords, accents and grace notes! And if we climb from that region of technique to the more spiritual sphere of interpretation, what anguish we experience in trying to find the soul of a composition behind the inert notation, and how many scruples and repentings we have before we dare to discover what does not lie hidden in the paper!

-Andres Segovia

In some sense this is what I intend for this journal to be about. I want to keep things focused very specifically on my guitar life and those other aspects of life which I feel have some influence therein. It is intended to be both self-reflective, and a public record of the work and striving of a guitarist who is doing music solely for the love of music, and for the sublime satisfaction of perfecting an art (and in so doing to imitate some part of the Creator-image, which gives the Creator both pleasure and glory).

2006-06-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

"Performance is inherently unlikely" - Guitar Craft aphorism

Lackluster renditions last night of Frenzy and Great is Thy. Upon reflection I have discovered the following (possible) explanations:

We arrived at the space about 10 minutes before the open mic began. This was an inadequate amount of time to settle into my surroundings and properly warm up.
I did not take the time to polish these pieces carefully prior to going out last night. In this case, doing this should have required at least 2-4 practice sessions.

Filed nails before leaving... got 'a' a bit too short. Just one more thing. The second comment about polishing a tune before performing it is worth a bit more discussion. It is a worthy and attainable goal, I believe, to achieve a reasonable sized set of pieces that are performance-ready at a moments' notice. There are no shortcuts, however. At this point I really only have a couple tunes like this (Fare Thee Well, Capricorn, ... ?)

Tonight I am taking off of practice. Will resume on Saturday.

2006-06-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

Tuesday: 20 mins scales in F major, one and two octaves (DADGAD). 65 bpm /4 was about the most I could manage. Working on /5

50 mins playing after dinner, all DADGAD. Cunla/Merrily, Last Pint, Kadourimdou, Great is Thy. Much better energy than Sunday. Had coffee around lunch time and green tea when I got home.

Wednesday:

~90 mins total: right-hand four-finger patterns, two finger alternations on single string, string crossing. Worked on F major scales again, not as long this time. No big speed increase. Could divide the beats by five for maybe one or two times up and down, but it would fall apart after that.

Played County Down, Great is Thy, Capricorn, Rakkish Paddy, Cunla/Merrily, Kadourimdou. Pretty good energy. Afternoon coffee helped (~4pm) I think.

New strings (they always feel so good!) ~17mins to change

Thursday (tonight):

Going to Amazing Things. Trisha and Phil from my very first open mic are headlining. They are a terrific combination - beautiful harmonies. Phil is a Keaggy and Brooks Williams fan. So perhaps I will attempt a little Frenzy at the Feeder. Whatever happens, I think I would like to stay in DADGAD at least for my first two songs. Frenzy/Great is Thy + County Down?

2006-06-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

No practice on Saturday. Two 25 min sessions on Sunday (in addition on playing in church). Both DADGAD: merrily/cunla and then The Last Pint. 30 min cardio and weights this morning (but no more practice until tomorrow). The heat and humidity are really aggrevating my tendonitis, esp. today in the left wrist. Will ice it this evening. I am looking forward to next week's training class at work as a welcome break to typing at my desk all day.

Discussion with coworker today: he mentioned athletic training where an athlete's movements are filmed and analyzed in slow motion to identify problems. His comment was that this information is useless to the athlete - there is an intermediary required to prescribe drills and exercises that can correct the flaws in technique. The formation of good exercises is a very significant problem for athletics and music. Perhaps I will try to read more about athletic training techniques like these.

2006-06-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

Last night three 25 min sessions. All DADGAD:

1. Exercises and scales. Practiced all 6 four-finger patterns on open strings 1-4:
1. p-i-m-a
2. p-i-a-m
3. p-m-i-a
4. p-m-a-i
5. p-a-i-m
6. p-a-m-i
As well as 3-octave scales in D major, and single-string right hand alternations: (i-m, i-a, m-a)

2. Merrily Kissed/Cunla - not quite all the way through this one. All but the last page. This is an excellent exercise in hammer-on and not too complicated cross-string melody picking.

3. Kadourimdou - I usually start this one pretty slow and pick the tempo up as I warm up to all the stretches and position changes. Over 25 minutes this means playing it through about 4 times.

Concluded with Bensusan stretching exercise descending from 12th and 11th frets.

I think I will post scale fingerings in DADGAD inspired by Segovia's scales at some point.

2006-06-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

Picked up practice last night after taking Monday off. No playing Saturday, light day on Sunday. Played two 25 min sessions. Standard and dropped-D first one - warm up with Segovia E major scale in 3 octaves, a little Bourree in E minor (JSB), Carcassi first study in C major (scales), then played Chasin' the Groove and the Bright Field. Went to dropped-D and practiced a few I haven't played in a while (they may make an appearence at an upcoming open mic): Far Away, Aguinaldo Jibaro, and Canarios. Nails are getting a little long, but I was getting strong tone from them, so it is a tradeoff I guess. Second session practiced Merrily Kissed the Quaker/Cunla and Kadourimdou about equal parts.

At the show I asked Brooks if he could play "The Drowsy Bee" but it is apparently out of the active repertoire. I want to find out from him (if you read this, Brooks, just post a comment!) how many pieces he is able to keep performance-ready. I have no idea what kind of goals to set in this area. I would love to learn The Drowsy Bee since it is in DADGAD and I have always liked it quite a bit (and hey, no one else is performing it!)

Backstage Pass

2006-06-10T05:43:00.000-07:00

Warming up with Brooks backstage.

Experiencing a Zen moment.

"What is that mop doing behind my head?"

Earth to Tony...

The guitarist hard at work

The student and the master, jammin' it up

2006-06-10T05:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I've survived my first "real" gig - another first out of the way! I was surprised and honored by how many friends and family made it out - some driving quite a distance. Thanks everyone!

Took half the day off yesterday to rest before the show. Pruned the house plants and watched a couple concert videos (Bensusan and Renbourn) for inspiration. It is amazing how as I perform more for an actual audience, I am perceiving more from watching these great players perform (at least I think I am). In particular one thing I have noticed is even guys like Pierre and John aren't playing everything spot-on all the way (which I knew before), but what I notice now is their reaction to little off-balance moments and lapses in concentration or precision. There are many ways to react to such moments. The easiest and most natural for me is to just get flustered and fumble for the last part I felt comfortable with. But these guys have learned (or maybe it is a natural instinct) to react very quickly and just keep going, find your center again, and play on.

My opening set last night seemed to pass by extremely quickly. There were a couple moments, in Great is Thy and County Down I think, where catching my balance again took a bit too long, but things mostly went according to plan. After playing four tunes, I was ready to make an exit, but Michael insisted I play one more! It ended up being the Rakkish Paddy - not one that I had expected to be playing, but it came across alright considering. Lost my place for a second at the end of the first loop in the B section (that little descending run), but otherwise it was ok. The audience seemed really into the material which I am grateful for.

One of my spiritual mentors back in Amherst was really into golf and he used to talk about how golf was 20% physical and 80% mental. I think performance is very much like this - there is a huge mental component in terms of letting go of the ego and not giving in to nerves before all that technique you spend so long building can really come out. Being in a situation like last night is really the best teacher for this. I am slowly "getting it" ;-)

2006-06-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Made the trip down to Virginia last weekend to see Shannon's cousin get married. We were both totally exhausted from all the driving, but I think I am finally making a comeback. Practiced two 25 min sessions on Tuesday, three last night. Tonight is a light night, just one 25 min session, and tomorrow is the big show!

A large number of folks have emailed asking for directions or how to buy tickets, or to say they will actually be there, so I am expecting a good turnout (Brooks alone packed the place out last time).

I am taking as much time off tomorrow as I can manage so as to be fresh for playing. I find that so long as I have been keeping up a regular practice regimen, the single most significant thing I can do to help my playing is just to not play for 2~3 days. Beyond that I think a little technical edge starts to soften. But it is not as bad as I would have thought, and at one time greatly feared. The six weeks I took off of playing during the season of Lent my senior year at Umass had much less of an impact than I had worried it would in terms of technique atrophy. I have found that certain things just take a long time to build up and you don't lose them too quickly. It is usually good to always have a mixture of long term (delayed gratification) and short term (instant gratification) projects (tunes) in the works.

I hope to see you at Amazing Things tomorrow night!

2006-05-31T18:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight two short practice sessions, both about 20~25 minutes. It is a low energy evening. The air is warm and humid, the crickets are gregarious and the beer is tasty. Stayed in DADGAD; all songs, no exercises. This morning 30min on the cardio machine.

Yesterday 80mins, half standard, half DADGAD, weight training and 15 mins cardio. Good practice, good concentration. It is clear something must be done about the guitar situation. The little buzzes, action on the high frets, intonation and whatnot. Whether it is a $500+ fixup of the Bourgeois or a new instrument remains undecided...

Played June 9 set for Shannon on Monday morning. It seems not only is it possible to experience living room relaxation on a stage, but you can get all stage-freaked in the living room, too! Her observation was that Kadourimdou seemed to sap my confidence, and the performance of County Down and Fare Thee Well that followed were uncharacteristically weak. And I went for 30mins (Michael has given me 20 to open the show, maybe one more song if I am hot). So, the obvious decision is to leave Kadourimdou for another time. I have been viewing it as a singular personal challenge to play it at this show. It has indeed gotten much, much better in the time since I resolved to do so, but there are many other challenging aspects to next Friday night, so I feel this is a good decision. Played Fare Thee Well a few times afterward to shake off the post-freaked-out jitters to good effect.

Planning on another light night tomorrow, should stay in standard, Chasin' the Groove a few times and work on Ten Penny and some sort of solo for Zoe. On Friday, it is off to VA to see Shannon's cousin get married. Undecided as to whether the guitar will travel with us. Leaning towards yes, but these long drives can get pretty brutal, so I want to be careful. Still a few days to decide...

2006-05-29T06:15:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day: It feels extremely good to sleep a bit later and take my sweet time drinking coffee and listening to music before getting in a bit of practice. Tony McManus is on the hi-fi. Brooks lent me "Ceol More" after I made a comment about the idiomatic stutter-step triplets that Celtic fiddle players so often use. It is amazing how well Tony has captured not only this but the whole host of fiddle ornaments in his guitar playing. On his website, a quote by John Renborn proclaims him to be the world's best celtic guitarist. He may well be...

Playing with Brooks on Saturday was a bit tense. I played him Great is Thy Faithfulness to start off. Had to retune partway through on account of new strings. Very positive reaction - he responded strongly to how the arrangement moved from darker tone to more confidence and light towards the climax, in order to mirror the ideas in the words to this great old hymn. I was so glad this comes across! It is very gratifying to have someone immediately perceive the intention behind a piece.

We will play three songs together on June 9th: Zoe, Ten Penny Bit, and Chasing the Groove. Chasin' I am especially looking forward to, though some riffs towards the end need work on my part. One of the hardest things about playing with someone as capable and interesting as Brooks is not getting distracted by the cool stuff they are playing!

We briefly discussed live solo performance and the idea of attaining the "living room" level of comfort before an audience. The good news is, Brooks has confirmed it is indeed possible! I believe that greater frequency is necessary in order for the disruptive elements, the sound system and the presence of an audience, to become "normal." Even when one reaches comfort with these, however, there are still disruptions which encroach some nights. Brooks alluded to ways of foreseeing and mitigating against such circumstances. I will have to find out more about this.

It has also occurred to me that my (ADD) ability to tune out my perception of external activity could be of great utility in this matter. If I can only figure out a way to reliably harness it.

Shannon demands I perform my entire set for her so I can begin working out the kinks. We are now in the "end game" and I am happy to oblidge. Looking forward to seeing UMass friends tonight.

2006-05-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

The work day was brought to an unceremonious early end when the fire alarms went off in our building. My ears barely survived the shrieking. Walking out into the rain after a somewhat frustrating day, it was clear that the time had come to depart.

Went to Guitar Center and bought a new metronome. It is a very small BOSS model with a digital display that shows a virtual swinging needle. You can tap in a tempo, and there are a surprising number of settings for time signatures and beat divisions. And it has a volume knob! Overall it is definitely superior to the (now broken) model it replaces. It has assumed a permanent spot clipped onto the new full score music stand that is now sitting in the studio.

Tomorrow travelling out to Amherst to practice with Brooks for the show on June 9. It will be good to play music with Brooks again after so long. I am still conflicted as to the acquision of a second guitar - perhaps he will have some insights to help me process.