Chicken or the Egg Theory The question of “How do you create music if you don’t know music theory?” comes up often. It seems that to some degree we’re fed the notion that we must have a great understanding of the finite technical details of music theory to come up with creative ideas. Truth is, […]
Melodic Pentatonic Shape Shifter When you study melody you start to notice some interesting traits. Some of which seem to go against most instincts of guitarists. What happens when you place a guitar in the hands of a guitarist and ask them to lead? There tends to be a steady stream of notes that run […]
There is a lot of time we’re away from our instruments. Valuable time we wish we could be practicing. Who says we can’t practice when we don’t have our instruments though? I get some of my mot valuable practice time when I don’t have my instrument in my hands. This is partly due to the […]
I’ve talked about chord shapes on Root 5 and Root 6 strings before. Today I want to talk about two basic shapes for Major 7th chords with root 4 voicings. These chords can be really great when you’re playing in a larger band. They’re cleaner then root 5 and root 6 voicings. Plus, they sound […]
The Strummer Guitarists don’t often put a lot of thought into where they strum the guitar. over time players find a spot and generally stick with it. To some degree it becomes more about comfort then sound. I’m lucky enough to live in NYC. I get to go out and watch some of the best […]
There is a common trait amongst the greatest musicians I’ve played with. They all have what I like to call HSP. It stands for Hear Sing Play. It’s the order of actions that lead to playing a note. It requires a healthy imagination which is a crucial part of creativity. All of the theory in […]
Birth of A Bar This week, were going to talk about a very simple concept in music theory : counting bars. Although it appears to be basic, the technique often gets overlooked. I started to touch upon the concept of developing a process for learning music in my last two blogs. There is a […]
For a lot of musicians there is a disconnect between practice and performance. To some it’s as if they’re 2 different players. If you’re feeling this way you’re not alone. There are a lot of factors that make performing and practicing different. The most obvious is the adrenalin you get when playing live. It feels […]
For a lot of private guitar lessons NYC discussing guitar technique can often lead to a heated debate in a similar way to politics. Teachers often pick sides and never cross party lines. If you play enough styles of music you start to discover how technique is not a black or white issue. It’s mostly […]