Mobile Music Man

Today marked the close of one chapter and the beginning of another. I paid my final studio rent check to Tessitura, turned in my keys, and drove around the neighborhood all afternoon giving private lessons. I'm accustomed to planting myself in Tessitura on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, so it felt odd to be driving around. I liked the activity, though, and it won't take long to adjust.

This first week, I'm figuring out where everybody lives and ironing out some wrinkles. For example, one of the parents typed in the wrong street number, which caused me to knock on someone's door a half a block away. Thankfully, nobody was home at that other place, and it didn't take me long to sort things out and get the correct address.

It's a good thing I like dogs, because I met a lot of them today! One of the parents seemed surprised that their dog, who likes to bark and bark, settled down while I was teaching her son. For this particular dog, which looked like a black lab mix, it seemed the best thing to do was make friends while I was alone in the room with her, and then relax and ignore her so that I didn't prompt any more barking. Sure enough, she chilled out, and my student and I had a peaceful lesson with our backs turned to her. (She got plenty of petting before I left, though.)

I scheduled 15 minutes between each lesson, which worked out really well, since everyone was in or around the same neighborhood. As long as I end each lesson on time, it's not a problem getting to the next one.

I enjoyed teaching in the homes today. Students and parents all seemed much more at ease in their own environment. The parents seemed to enjoy the freedom to be at home instead of being stuck in the lobby waiting for their kid to finish a lesson. Many of the kids seemed excited that I was "visiting" their house. I enjoyed meeting the pets and siblings, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed roaming the neighborhood.

I'm grateful for the years I had teaching at Tessitura. Having that studio as a home base provided a great opportunity to establish myself in Oakhurst. Now I'm looking forward to the next chapter as a mobile music man.

New Teaching Situation

A few weeks ago, my friend Lynnette, who owns the Tessitura studio where I teach, told me that she is going to be renting her space to a personal trainer, who will convert Tessitura into a personal training gym. This is an opportunity Lynnette couldn't pass up. She had been advertising Tessitura as a place to rent space for office use, yoga, or whatever when she wasn't teaching. She was hoping for some extra income from some smaller renters, but instead, she was contacted by someone who wants to rent out the space full time. It's a win/win situation for Lynnette. She's leasing her space to the personal trainer and then paying some rent to another landlord two doors away so she can continue her music classes.

While I understood that Lynnette took advantage of a good opportunity, I was a little bummed at the change in my teaching situation. Fortunately, Lynnette gave me plenty warning, so it wasn't like I had to find another place to teach the next day. Being right smack in the middle of the Oakhurst neighborhood, Tessitura has been a good home base. I searched for another neighborhood spot to teach. It looked like I was going to be able to teach at a local church. The music director was excited about the prospect, but it turned out that they have a policy of only renting to non-profits. I suppose it could be argued that, being a musician, I am automatically non-profit.

After the church location fell through, I realized that, since almost all of my Tessitura students live in Oakhurst, I can come to them. Starting in mid-May, I'm going to teach in my students' homes. The reaction from the parents has been unanimously positive – no driving to the studio and sitting around waiting while their kid takes a lesson. On top of that, I'm not increasing the lesson fee. Lessons at Tessitura are higher than my normal rate so I can cover the rental cost. I charge more for home visits, but that price is offset by the fact that I will no longer be paying rent. Even with the cost of driving and the extra buffer time between lessons for travel, I'll be earning half again what I earn at Tessitura. Parents pay exactly the same. I earn more money per lesson. Win/win.

To be honest, I've been lazy about recruiting students at Tessitura. I hate the marketing aspect of the music teaching business. I've been relying on Tessitura's great location, waiting for students to drift in. With no central location, I'm going to have to be more proactive about recruiting students. I've ordered some postcards to sprinkle around the neighborhood. I'll also encourage word of mouth by giving parents some incentive to spread my name around. For example, if a new student comes to me because of a referral from one of my students, that student gets a free lesson. I've managed to build up a respectable roster at Tessitura without trying very hard. Imagine what I can do if I put some effort into it! At first, Lynnette's news about renting her space threw me for a loop, but now it's starting to look like a blessing in disguise.

Starting around the middle of May, I'll be zipping around Oakhurst and the surrounding area, teaching guitar, ukulele, and piano to students of all ages. Have guitar, will travel.

Saying Goodbye and Making Room

Last week, a parent of one of my piano students told me that her son would be "taking a break" from piano lessons. We all know what this really means. A few years ago, this news would have disturbed me on two fronts. I would have found myself wondering what I did wrong that this student would quit, and I would have sorely missed the money! Fortunately, I'm now in a position where losing a single student is not a major financial setback. I've also learned that losing a student isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Some students click with certain teachers, and some don't. I have a fairly regimented approach to lessons, which is well disguised with a laid back teaching style and bad jokes. The basic idea behind my teaching is that if you can master the material I give you, you will be able to teach yourself to play anything. When I was a classical trombonist, I never had to bring an ensemble part to my teacher, because everything I played for lessons was much more difficult than anything I played in band or orchestra.

While this approach works with most of my students, it doesn't work with everyone. Some students (and to be frank, their parents) want me to get right to the "good stuff." They want to be able to play the music from their favorite band right away. I don't play that game. If we jump right to that favorite song, they're going to miss some crucial steps. This isn't to say that we don't explore music from their favorite bands, but I'm not going to let them play it if I don't think they're ready for it yet. If they (or their parents) are patient, they'll eventually be able to play whatever they want.

I have a fifth grade guitar student that I would love to hold up to other students his age as a great example of how to practice. He has been diligently doing everything I tell him to do for the past three years…a rare student! He has worked his way through three levels of method books, and now we're on to more advanced material. He is a good melody reader and has a solid knowledge of open chords. We're working on major scales, the chromatic scale, pentatonic scales, and Barre chords. As soon as he develops enough strength to handle Barre chords, the fretboard is really going to open up to him. He's going to be more than ready to try out for middle school jazz band when it comes time.

Another example is a high school guitar student whom I've been teaching since she was 10. Although she likes to perform Taylor Swift and acoustic/rock/folk songs, she enjoys working on jazz standards with me. She told me that since she started playing the jazz standards, all the other music she's been playing has become easier. She no longer needs my help in learning pop songs.

While I would have liked to continue working with the piano student who is now "taking a break," lessons with him never felt right. I never quite felt like I was getting through. There's nothing quite as painful as watching a student try to fake his way through his lesson material. I could never quite convince him or his mom that practicing the "current thing" would get him to the "next thing," in terms of both physical skill and understanding. While I don't think I was the right teacher for this student, he has musical talent, and I hope that he eventually finds a teacher that can motivate him.

In the meantime, I'm happy to report that I'm going to be working with a brand new student in a couple days. I hope we click.

The Power of Slow

My young guitar and piano students believe everything I tell them…almost. The one thing they never seem to believe is that their playing will improve immensely if they practice slowly. They want to play fast right away.

One of my brightest students is an 8 year old piano player. I lost count of how many times I told her to slow down today, especially when she was sight-reading. I actually got her to slow down once, and – surprise! – she played more accurately. It didn't matter. She just played faster again. I can certainly understand an 8 year old's impatience, so I don't take her resistance personally. I'll just keep reminding her to slow down over and over until I eventually wear her down. In a few years, she'll have progressed enough that I'll have to hand her off to a more advanced piano teacher, and then the new teacher can tell her the same thing.

If there are any young musicians out there reading this (or parents of young musicians), here are some reasons to practice slowly.

• Playing slowly improves accuracy. If you are having trouble playing something quickly, and you continue practicing it that way over and over, you are going to get really good at making the same mistakes. If you slow down, you can pinpoint where you are having problems. Play at a tempo in which it is almost impossible for you to make a mistake, and then gradually speed it up.
• Playing helps you play more relaxed. If you are playing too fast, you build up tension in your fingers, arms, shoulders, and the rest of your body. If you are tense, your body tends to lock up, and you can't play as fast. If you start slowly, within your comfort zone, you will be learn to be more relaxed as you build up speed.
• Playing slowly helps you learn to play expressively. Playing fast is impressive, but if all you can do is play fast, listeners will soon get bored with your playing. You also need to learn how to play with good phrasing, dynamics, and nuance. In playing slowly, you'll learn to develop the power of expression.
• The pros all practice slowly and build up speed. That's one of our big "secrets." If the pros practice slowly, why not you?

I hope that all of my students will be turned on to the power of slow at some point in their development. Until then, I'll keep saying the same things over and over in my lessons…"slow down!"

Lesson #16

This is a recap of my latest jazz guitar lesson with Dave Frackenpohl, who teaches at Georgia State University. This helps me wrap my head around the new assignment, and I hope it also helps others who may be on the same path.

We started with a series of 7th chord arpeggios over the melodic minor scale…1 going up, 2 down, 3 up, etc., and then working our way back down. Dave showed me a more useful fingering for a form that starts on the 6th string, but otherwise, these went pretty smoothly. Then we played through Four. He showed me some different chords to use in the B sections. I've been starting the B section on an E-flat, but Dave told me that it's more common to start on G minor. Next, we moved on to Old Devil Moon. I mainly wanted to work on this so that I could work up a good accompaniment and a chord melody solo. Dave was pleased with the chord melody solo, but noticed that I tended to rush the B section, when I switch from Latin to swing. He also questioned the lead sheet and asked me to double check other sources for the melody and changes in the last 4 measures. Finally, we started looking at When Sunny Gets Blue for the next lesson assignment.

The new assignment:

• Continue Diatonic Arpeggios. I've worked on a series of 7th chord arpeggios over the major, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales. Now I just need to keep at it until I can play them without having to think about them.
• Excerpt from Perpetual Motion. This general technique exercise is from a Paganini piece. To strengthen my up-picking, I'm supposed to play the 8th notes up/down/up/down in addition to the usual down/up/down/up pattern.
• You Took Advantage of Me. This was part of today's assignment, but I didn't work on it. I've had several gigs to prepare, and something had to go! The assignment is to listen to the Joe Pass/Ella Fitgerald recording of this song and steal as many comping licks and ideas as I can. I would eventually like to transcribe the guitar solo, too.
• Four. I had a feeling I'd be working on this one again. I learned the basic melody and chords last time. Now, my assignment is to transcribe a chorus of either Miles Davis or Horace Silver from their recording of the tune.
• Old Devil Moon. There's not much more to do with this song, at least as far as lessons go. I just need to check on the chords and melody at the end and put myself on a metronome to resist the tendency to rush the B section.
• When Sunny Gets Blue. Memorize it.

As usual, I have a mix of old and new assignments to practice for the next lesson. We're getting deeper into the arpeggios and a couple songs, and I have newer material to learn. All of these lessons are paying off. It's nearing Christmas time. I find that holiday music is a good measure stick of yearly progress. You play them for about a month and then put them away until next year. This year, I'm finding many of the Christmas songs easier to play, and I've discovered that I can improvise over several of them unaccompanied, when last year I had to use a looper for nearly everything when I played solo.

Tipping Point

Something very strange has been happening lately. I'm doing what I love, and money is coming in. (Usually I'm doing what I love, OR I'm making money.) Tonight, I realized that I haven't been stressed about paying rent for over a year. For a working musician, that's quite a feat! I'm not sure when it happened, but I feel like I have reached a tipping point in my pursuit of a freelance music career. I'm able to spend more time bettering myself as a musician and less time worrying about making my rent.

It has taken a while to reach this point, and I'm pausing for a moment to appreciate the journey. When I first began playing guitar, I set a goal of becoming a professional guitarist in 10 years. Surprise! Ten years later, here I am.

I'm far from being the best guitar player in town, but I seem to have carved out a place for myself. I have a part time music director job at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, teach guitar lessons at home and at Tessitura, and am landing a fair number of gigs. If I had to rely on just one of these endeavors, I wouldn't subsist, but when you put them all together, it means that rent and bills are being payed, and I even have some cash left over at the end of the month. A miracle!

Things seem to be trending upwards in general. My church job recently expanded from 10 to 15 hours. (I'm hoping that this will grow to 20 hours over time.) I teach a little over a dozen guitar students and enjoy a good rate of retention. (I eventually want to grow the roster to 30 students.) I recently got in good with an event planning company that has already hired me for 3 gigs. (I don't want to be playing every single night, but I would like to eventually play 2-3 of these good gigs per week.)

Without doing something every day to improve my musicianship, all other success is hollow, so first and foremost, I strive to become a better musician. I have a long way to go as a pro guitar player, but, looking back at where I started, I'm pleasantly surprised at where I am today, and I'm excited about what tomorrow will bring.

More Skype Lessons

I just finished a Skype lesson with an old friend, Matt, who is currently deployed in Afghanistan. What a way to reconnect! It's amazing to me to help a beginning guitar player halfway around the world, and I also found it amusing that he had to remove his gun belt at the beginning of his lesson.

Aside from growing up in rural Illinois, Matt and I have a few other things in common. We were both trombone players. I was in the Air Force. Matt is currently in the Air Force. (I left after 4 years, but Matt has made a career of it.) As adults, each of us talked to our wives (now my ex) about how we really wanted to start playing guitar…enough that they got tired of hearing about it and eventually bought guitars for us. Matt is even interested in folk/bluegrass with a possibility of playing jazz at some point.

Today's lesson was lots of fun. It was wonderful to reconnect, and Matt did really well for his first lesson. We began by working on A minor and E chords, and then we progressed to C and G7. Matt did remarkably well in forming the C and G7 chords. He actually played the C chord correctly on the first try, which is rare for a beginner. We decided that this was probably because trombone players are naturally gifted. That's our theory, anyway. Toward the end of the lesson, we began applying the C and G7 chords to Jambalaya. This is always a good song for starters. It's catchy, fun to sing, and only has two chords. I had also forgotten that Matt has a good voice, so it's going to be a lot of fun to help him learn songs.

Matt has ordered a guitar method book. Being inconveniently located in Afghanistan, overnight delivery is out of the question. It'll be a couple weeks before that book arrives, but we have plenty of material in the meantime. Once that book arrives, we'll spend about half the time on chords/songs and the other half in the book.

This was just a fun lesson overall – reconnecting with a friend who has the potential to be a good guitar player. I'm looking forward to our next lesson!

A Good Day

This was a mighty fine day in the life of this working musician.

I started off with a workout, as usual. I cranked out 34 push-ups. Only a few months ago I could only manage two. After a short practice session, I checked my email and found a gig waiting for me, courtesy of an event planner. This is the third gig that this event planner has booked for me, which is a very good sign. She followed that up with an email asking for the different musical configurations I have to offer (solo, duo, trio, vocals, no vocals, instrumentation), saying that she'd like to make me one of her "go to" musicians. That's music to my ears. I've been trying to get my foot in the door with an event player (any event planner) for quite a while, and this is a welcome development.

As I stepped outside to run an errand and grab lunch, it truly felt like autumn, my favorite season. It was sunny but crisp. The wind was blowing, and the leaves were falling like rain. It was beautiful.

In the afternoon, I drove to Northwest UUC, where I am the music director. I planned the evening's choir rehearsal and answered/wrote a few emails before a staff meeting, which started off with celebrating Terry, our minister's, birthday. The meeting was a good one. We spent most of the time discussing issues surrounding our church's upcoming experiment with expanding from one to two services. That's a hot topic, to put it mildly, and will be the topic of another blog article soon to come.

Rainbow Loom Bracelet

After our meeting, I taught a couple guitar lessons. One lesson was with an adult student who is making very good progress. The other lesson was with an 8 year old girl who is a joy to teach. She's so enthusiastic and funny. This week, she had a present for me. She had made a rainbow loom bracelet for me, which I proudly wore for the rest of the day. That small gift really made my day.

We had a good choir rehearsal in the evening. We're all set for Sunday's service, and we made good progress on some November music. I reserved 15 minutes at the end of rehearsal to talk with the choir about the upcoming two-service experiment and how it will affect the music program. Again, this is the topic of a future blog article, but for now, it's enough to say that it was a good discussion. I received a lot of good feedback that will help me decide how to handle scheduling music for two services, and in our general discussion, they brought up a couple issues that I hadn't considered. I'm glad we had the discussion, and I'll be consulting with them again as we get further into planning the church's overall schedule.

As usual, this was a busy day, and because I wear many hats, the day offered a lot of variety. Yup, a good day. I could stand to have more days like this.

Teaching Outside the Box

I often experience a bit of déjà vu when teaching beginning guitar students, because they usually share similar problems. The lessons can blur as I teach one student after another, but there are some lessons that stand out.

Today, I had a delightful lesson with an 8 year old student named Ella. I teach at her home, usually with her mom in the background observing the lesson and her sister, Lane, doing homework. Ella is a fun student. She loves playing the guitar, and she has a lot of personality. She is hilarious, actually. We're at a point in her lesson books where Ella is stuck. We can't go forward in the books, but I don't want to keep reassigning the same pages, because she will get frustrated.

Rather than doggedly trudge through the books, I've veered away a bit. We're still working in her lesson books to some extent, but I've started writing material for Ella to reinforce what she has already learned. For example, last week, I surprised Ella by writing a song for her called Elegy for Ella.

Today's lesson was so fun! We started off by playing a song in one of her lesson books. She had problems in a couple spots. Then I noticed that one of the difficult spots had the same notes that you often hear cheerleaders shouting at games. "Let's go warriors, let's go!"  After I pointed this out to her, she played those two measures more smoothly. Then Ella noticed that the last two measures were the same notes as We Will Rock You. Perfect! We changed a dry lesson song into an interesting song that had two school cheers. I reassigned the song, but wrote in the words to the two school cheers above the usic, and the song suddenly has new life and meaning to Ella.

Ella did a fine job on Elegy for Ella. We took turns playing the melody and chords for each other. It's a pretty long song for her (a whopping 16 measures!), so we're continuing to work on it. Since it's "her" song, Ella doesn't seem to mind working on it some more.

Last week, I wrote out a "mystery song" for Ella. She was supposed to learn it and figure out what it was. She solved the mystery. (It was Jingle Bells.) She asked for a Halloween song. There aren't a whole lot of Halloween carols, so I wracked my brains and finally came up with Have You Seen the Ghost of John. I wrote out the first four measures of that, and now Ella has a Halloween song to practice.

It was wonderful to see the spark come back in Ella's eyes as we modified her lesson material to suit her needs, and I think we're sparking some creativity, too. I sent a PDF of music manuscript paper to her mom to print out, suggesting that Ella might try writing a song. Instead of notes, Ella came up with lyrics. Next week, I'll help her write some notes and chords to go with her lyrics. This will be a fun long-term project.

As if the lesson wasn't fun enough, I had a delightful time with the family afterwards. Her older sister came in and showed me an instrument that she built for a class project. It was two boards held together at a 90 degree angle. Seven strings of various lengths were attached, and you could pluck them to produce different notes.

And as if THAT wasn't fun enough, while Ella was having her lesson, Lane was busy in the kitchen making a treat for everyone. She had squeezed out some clementines, added a little water, and made little glasses of clementine juice for everyone. She had set out paper plates and written our names on the plates so we'd know which one was ours. Added to each plate was a little piece of clementine with a toothpick stuck in it. It was so cute!

And I get paid for this!

Little Composer

I just returned from a fun lesson with Joel, an eight year old guitar student who is exploring his creative side. He has written two melodies, complete with chords, and tells me that he is halfway finished with writing another one. I'm super thrilled about this!

It's exciting to see a young student find a creative voice through composition. As a bonus, Joel's general note-reading ability has skyrocketed. In writing out his melodies, Joel has to think about the notes he is writing, the rhythms, and how he is going to play them. By doing this, he is processing and internalizing a lot of information. Today, Joel read two new lesson assignments nearly perfectly the first time, and I believe this is due in no small part to his endeavors in composition.

Joel doesn't have any idea what chords to write for his melodies yet. His chords are quite random, and so I edit those pretty heavily. For his next lesson, I'll bring in a chart with the chords he knows, spelling them out note by note so that he starts to get an idea of which chords may go with his melodies. I'll also suggest chord groups that often go together (G/C/D7, Am/E/C, etc.). Joel is quite the explorer on the guitar. He likes to know how things work, and so I think we'll be getting into the rudiments of music theory pretty soon.

I see some of myself in young Joel. When I was around 12 years old, I began writing music. It wasn't great, but I enjoyed it, and the writing made me eager to learn music theory, because it helped in my writing.

After having this experience with teaching Joel and seeing his note reading accelerate, I'm going to encourage other young students to begin writing. I'm not going to make it a requirement, but I will give them some staff paper and gently encourage them.

Lesson 13

As usual, I'm summarizing my latest jazz guitar lesson with Dave Frackenpohl, who teaches at Georgia State University. This helps me process each new assignment, and I hope it helps others who are on a similar path.

We started off with an arpeggio exercise based on the major scale, outlining the I–maj7 going up, the ii–m7 going down, etc., and we followed that with the drop 2 chord exercise on a Maj7 chord, playing all four drop 2 voicings ascending, then taking it through the cycle of 4ths, ascending in one key, descending in the next, etc. Those went well. Dave suggested some more efficient fingerings for the arpeggio exercise.

We then played through the changes and soloed over Blues for Alice. I never got very creative with this part of my assignment. With so many 2-5's, I treated this more as a chance to practice various 2-5 licks. After Blues for Alice, we played through There Will Never Be Another You. I was pretty comfortable with this. Dave suggested exploring the Lydian Dominant scale over the Db9 chord. I also played through the classic Kenny Burrell Chitlins con Carne solo, playing all five choruses from memory and adding the guitar self-comping between phrases that Kenny does so well.

The new assignment:

• Harmonic Minor Arpeggio Exercise: The same arpeggio pattern as before…outlining 7th chords, ascending on I, descending on iim7b5, etc. There are some tricky fingerings to work out here!
• Drop 2 Exercise on 7 and m7: Use the same approach as we did with Maj7 drop 2's. Follow the cycle of fourths. Play through all four drop 2 forms in one key, ascending, descend on the next key in the cycle, wash, rinse, repeat.
• Galbraith's Guitar Comping: Add another page from the Blues in 12 Keys exercise. We didn't get to this book in today's lesson, but I'll add another page anyway.
• 'Tis Autumn: Transcribe the Joe Pass solo from the classic recording on the Fitzgerald and Pass…Again album. I'm super excited about this assignment! I love this version, and the guitar solo seems very approachable. I also plan to steal as many of Joe's comping ideas as possible.
• Blues for Alice: I've learned the changes. Now I need to learn this awkward melody.
• There Will Never Be Another You: Continue working on this song, and focus especially on using the Lydian Dominant scale over the Db9 chord. As a bonus, Dave showed me an exercise I can use to develop ideas from the Lydian Dominant scale. Using F7 as an example, he's having me outline F and G major triads in different inversions.

I'm very grateful for these lessons with Dave, and they're really paying off. I have a solo guitar gig next weekend. I haven't played pure solo guitar in quite a while, so I've been brushing up on my old arrangements, adding new ones, and improvising (unaccompanied) for a chorus or two. I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I've progressed since I last played so much solo guitar. My old arrangements sound better, I've been able to add several new songs that I couldn't play before, and I'm holding my own as I improvise unaccompanied. I spend most of my practice time pushing myself to work on new things. I rarely look back, but it's kind of nice to look back and compare myself to the player I was a couple years ago. My nose will soon be to the grindstone again as I work on my new lesson assignment, so my self-congratulation won't last long. Still, I've enjoyed looking back, and it makes me wish I could look ahead to see the player I will be in another 5-10 years.

Lesson #9

I'm continuing to summarize my lessons with Dave Frackenpohl at GSU to absorb the new lesson assignment and help others who may be on the same path.

After a short warm-up, Dave had me play Wes Montgomery's solo from his recording of Gone with the Wind. In our last lesson, I had to play it very slowly to get through it. Dave asked me to keep working on it and build up speed. I managed to increase the tempo from quarter = 80 to quarter = 110. I didn't play it well at this lesson. I probably counted it off too fast. Dave suggested some fingerings to help get through the more challenging licks.

Next, I requested that we work on It's Only a Paper Moon, specifically for unaccompanied improvisation. We worked through it, not just for soloing, but for comping styles. There's more on this below, where I write out my new assignment.

Then we turned to The Brazilian Guitar Book, where I'm working through the "Samba" chapter. We didn't do much with this. I'm learning the patterns pretty well, and he assigned a few more pages.

Toward the end of the lesson, I played Joe Pass' solo in the Ella/Joe Pass recording of I'm Beginning to See the Light. I had to play it very slowly, and so my next assignment is to work it up to speed.

The new assignment:

• Whole Tone Licks: Dave assigned three different whole tone scale fingers a few weeks ago, which I've been practicing daily. Now he's given me a sheet of whole tone licks to incorporate into my improvisation. Learning a scale is like learning the letters of the alphabet. Learning a lick is like forming those letters into a word. Incorporating that lick into your playing is like learning to use that word in a sentence. It takes time, but that lick eventually becomes part of your vocabulary. I'll focus two or three of these licks at a time.
• It's Only a Paper Moon: Part of this assignment is to find a solo that I like and to transcribe it. For unaccompanied soloing, Dave has given me a few options to try. There's his 2/2 plan, where you comp for two measures and then solo for two measures (or vice versa). Comping works particularly well in this song, because there are usually two chords in every measure. With so much harmonic activity, you can just comp and it still sounds like you're doing something. For soloing, he suggested arpeggiating chords. For comping behind a singer, he showed me a couple common Joe Pass arpeggio patterns, and then there's the classic Freddie Green comping that always works so well. Sometimes all you need to do is play quarter notes to lay down a nice groove for the singer.
• The Brazilian Guitar Book: I'm continuing to work through the "Samba" chapter. The last two assignments have been page after page of short samba patterns. Dave has given me a choice between a long comping etude or a chord/melody solo. I'll check them both out today to see which one seems more manageable.
• I'm Beginning to See the Light: I'll continue working on the Joe Pass solo, gradually bringing it up to speed.

As usual, I'm excited to be working on unaccompanied soloing. I'm also enjoying The Brazilian Guitar Book. I've worked through a lot of fun patterns. Now I need to start applying them to my own repertoire. To do this, I'll pull out some Latin songs in my book and sketch out some rhythmic patterns. Eventually, I'll be able to play these Latin grooves at will, but for now I need to write them out so that I can remember them.

No Show

A new student didn't show up to his lesson today. It comes with the territory. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last. I had a feeling he wasn't going to be here. This was an adult student – a really good blues player who wanted to play jazz standards. In our first lesson, he seemed resistant to improving his music reading abilities, which is a problem. He told me that he wants to be able to do what I do. Now, a big part of my rapid progress as a guitarist is my ability to read music. If you want to be able to do what I do, but you're not willing to improve your reading, then you're not going to be able to do what I do, period.

Many self taught guitarists seem to think that being able to read music is a secondary skill. They point to this guitar player or that guitar player as an example of a successful musician who doesn't read music. These are guitarists who have so much inborn talent and drive that they would have found a way to succeed whether the could read or not. Believe me, those players are the exceptions. I don't know of a single musician who wishes he could give up his reading skills.

Losing this student is my fault. I should never have accepted him in the first place. From now on, when an adult intermediate contacts me about jazz guitar lessons, I will make it abundantly clear that if they want to take lessons from me, they will be learning to read.

Lesson #8

Continuing my practice of writing about each lesson with Dave Frackenpohl at GSU to help wrap my head around each new assignment and help other jazz guitarists who may be on the same path.

These past couple weeks have not been ideal for practicing my lesson material. I took a last minute gig a couple weeks ago, I've been doing the usual busywork that accompanies the end of a church year, and I've been preparing for a wedding gig by assembling a book for the bass player, writing up set lists, and a host of other niggling details that go into putting together a successful gig.

In spite of all that, I managed to make some progress on my lesson material. I didn't have time for every part of the assignments, but I worked up more than I thought I could.

We began with the three whole tone scale forms that Dave assigned and then went into the assignment from the new Brazilian Guitar Book. Then we played through I'm Beginning to See the Light. After that, we worked on Gone with the Wind, focusing especially on a Wes Montgomery solo that I just finished transcribing. That pretty much exhausted the material that I had prepared, but we still had plenty to work on.

We spent time talking about improvising without any back-up. It looks like we're going to be spending some lesson time on this for the foreseeable future, and I couldn't be happier! Dave gave me a sheet of ideas and strategies for pure solo improvising called Unaccompanied Jazz Guitar – Making It Manageable. This one page sheet is an absolute gold mine of ideas! We're going to focus on just one or two ideas at a time, which is good, because I think my brain would overload if I tried everything at once.

Here's my new assignment:

• Continue the "Samba" section of The Brazilian Guitar Book, pages 30-36. These are all four-measure examples of samba groove variations.
• Finish the transcription of a Joe Pass solo over I'm Beginning to See the Light. I had started this for this week's lesson but hadn't had time to finish it.
• Increase the tempo of the Wes Montgomery Gone with the Wind solo that I transcribed. I was happy just to memorize it for today. Now I just need to get it closer to tempo.
• Memorize Summertime and Corcovado. I already have Summertime memorized. I kinda sorta know Corcovado by memory just because I've performed it a number of times. We are using these two practice unaccompanied improvising. I'll be using two strategies for this. One is what Dave called the "2+2" plan: 2 bars of comping/2 bars of soloing and vice versa. The other is also a "2+2" plan: 2 bars of comping or solo/2 bars of melody or vice versa. I thought I knew the melody of Fly Me to the Moon pretty well until Dave had me try this approach! It was awfully tricky to jump from comping or soloing and pick up the melody in the middle. Back to the woodshed!

Unaccompanied soloing is one of the major skills I want to possess, so I'm super excited about this new direction!

A Class of One

I've been very happy with my teaching practice lately. First of all, I'm enjoying private teaching more and more. I tried teaching privately a few years ago, but in spite of my music education degree, I just hadn't spent enough time playing guitar to speak with any kind of authority. Now that I have more playing under my belt, I can combine my playing experience with my education degree to become an effective teacher.

I recently began teaching beginning guitar classes at Tessitura – one for adults and one for youngsters. Each class is eight weeks. So far, each class has exactly one student! I'm not worried about the numbers, though. I'd rather teach a class of one than a class of none. It's a start. I only began teaching privately at Tessitura five or six months ago, and this is the first time we are offering guitar classes. I am confident that the next round of classes will be larger. Until recently, Tessitura focused exclusively on early childhood music classes and keyboard classes. Guitar is a new thing at the studio. We held a recital at Tessitura last week, and one of my beginning students performed. After the recital, one of the parents approached me about guitar lessons for him and his son. As the guitar students become more visible at Tessitura, my student roster will grow.

Lynnette, Tessitura's owner, had a great idea that we're going to pursue: family guitar lessons. Tessitura is such a family oriented studio that this makes a lot of sense. I think it would be a lot of fun to teach a family, and with parents taking part, the family would be able to help each other practice at home.

Overall, I'm super excited about my prospects as a guitar teacher in Atlanta. My goal in the next 2-3 years is to develop a thriving studio filled with excited young (and not so young) guitar students.

Online Guitar Lessons

I'm pleased to announce that I am now offering online guitar lessons via Skype! I've been teaching a beginning student online, and I'm finding that it's a lot of fun for both of us. We're halfway across the country, but once a week, we log onto Skype and enjoy a guitar lesson together. I love guitar, and I like working on the computer, so I'm having a blast teaching online. I enjoy it so much that I've decided to hang out my virtual shingle and search for other online students.

Lessons are for beginners of all styles or intermediate students interested in learning to play jazz guitar.

If you or someone you know is interested in Skype guitar lessons, please email me for more information or to schedule some lessons! You can visit my website for general information.

Lesson #7

Continuing the practice of writing about my jazz guitar lessons with Dave Frackenpohl at GSU to get a handle on my latest assignment and hopefully pass on some wisdom to other developing jazz guitarists.

We started off running through three different chromatic scale fingerings that Dave assigned last time. I played them easily enough, but Dave noticed that my left hand was tense. From now on, I'll be focusing more on relaxing my left hand.

Next, we looked at I'm Beginning to See the Light. This wasn't part of my assignment, but I wrote to Dave yesterday, asking that we begin working on this song. It's a well known standard, and I should be able to improvise on it more easily than I do. We worked through it, and by the time we were finished, I was feeling more more comfortable with the tune.

Then we played through Girl from Ipanema. Dave specifically suggested that I experiment with some Mixolydian #11 licks to fit over the dominant chords in the bridge. This went pretty well. I had stolen a lick from the classic Stan Getz solo, and Dave showed me a few more. With a little more practiced, I'll be well armed the next time I play this tune.

Finally, we played through Gone with the Wind. This tune offers plenty of chances to play ii-V licks, which I've been working on quite a bit. Part of my assignment was to transcribe the first chorus of Wes Montgomery's solo over these chord changes. This was a difficult assignment. I've completed most of the transcription, and I've learned the first half of the solo. This solo is loaded with tasty licks, and I'll steal as many as I can! One thing that strikes me about Wes Montgomery's solo playing is how bluesy everything sounds. Gone with the Wind isn't even close to being a blues tune, yet Wes manages to infuse his solos with blues sounds. It works so well! I'll be studying Wes for a long time to come.

Here's the new assignment:

• The "Samba Intro" from The Brazilian Guitar Book by Nelson Faria. We're going to be alternating between this book and Galbraith's Guitar Comping. I'm really looking forward to expanding my range of Brazilian guitar styles.
• Whole Tone Scales. Yes, another scale to learn. This is jazz, after all! Dave showed me three fingerings for a whole tone scale. I had already figured out two of them on my own, so it's just a matter of learning the third form. Again, we're also using scales to focus on relaxing my left hand.
• I'm Beginning to See the Light. In addition to learning the song in greater depth, I'll be transcribing a Joe Pass solo from an Ella Fitzgerald/Joe Pass duo. I'm very much looking forward to this part of the assignment. When I perform in a voice/guitar duo setting, I will often loop the chords and then solo over the looper. Sometimes I will get brave, skip the looper, and "solo out of thin air," as Dave puts it. It's much more difficult, but I think the solos "out of thin air" sound better than the solos with the looper. Someday, I would like to leave the looper at home and solo out of thin air all the time, a la Joe Pass.
• Gone with the Wind. I'll finish transcribing and learning the Wes Montgomery solo.

Toward the end of the lesson, I commented on an observation that I blogged about a few days ago. Through much of our lessons, we hardly ever take music out and read it. There's a big emphasis on memorizing and listening. As we worked through I'm Beginning to See the Light, I improvised better than I ever have, mainly due to the fact that I wasn't reading music. I was listening very intently. When I'm reading chord changes and improvising, I tend to get too focused on the written chords, worrying about how I'm going to navigate from one chord to the next. When I take my attention away from the page, I play more musically. I still need to know the chord changes, but taking away the written music helps me calm my analytical voice and play more intuitively. I'm assigning myself is to memorize the repertoire for Tea for Two and Godfrey and Guy. This is going to be a major undertaking, but it's going to make me a better musician in so many ways. I'll have a host of standards in my head, I'll play more musically, and I'll be really good at memorizing!

Listening and Memorizing

When I was a classical trombone player, I was blessed with excellent teachers. I feel equally lucky to have hooked up with a terrific jazz guitar teacher. It's been interesting to experience high level teachers in two different genres and instruments. As you might imagine, jazz guitar lessons are quite different from classical trombone lessons.

The biggest difference between classical trombone and jazz guitar lessons seems to be the emphasis on listening and memorization as a jazz player. There was certainly emphasis on listening as a classical musician, particularly in ensemble playing. In my jazz guitar lessons, however, there is a heavy emphasis in playing by ear versus reading as a classical trombonist.

Reading is still important as a jazz guitarist. We usually spend some time sight-reading lead sheets or duets, but for the most part, we aren't even looking at music. It's assumed that I will memorize my assignments, and I always have an "ear assignment": transcribing an improvised solo, learning to play it, and stealing licks to apply to my own improvisations.

I take a lesson every other week. A little while ago, I realized that by the time I start my second week of practicing, I'm no longer using music. It's all memorized. Through memorization, I'm internalizing the music more than I ever did as a classical player – which makes me wish I had spent more time memorizing when I was a trombone player! It's also fun to be able to practice anywhere, anytime, because the music is all in my head.

The heavy emphasis on listening has been an overall benefit. When playing gigs, I'm more attuned to what is going on around me, and I find it easier to interact with the other players.

Since memorizing the music for my lessons is so beneficial, the next logical step is to memorize the music in my own book, especially the Tea for Two and Godfrey and Guy repertoire. That's a lot of music, but with practice, I'm finding that it's becoming easier to memorize new songs. I would love to someday show up to a gig with one of my groups and not have to pull out a single sheet of music!

Lesson #6

Continuing the practice of summarizing each lesson with Dave Frackenpohl and outlining each new assignment…

We usually start off playing whatever new scale has been assigned. This time, we skipped over the new scale (mixolydian bebop). I'll continue to practice this scale, along with the others Dave has assigned. We started off this lesson playing Jobim's Wave. I showed Dave an intro that he hadn't seen before. He's going to steal that from me. Dave showed me a way to play the bridge that I hadn't thought of. I'm going to steal that from him.

Then we moved on to The Girl from Ipanema. We first played it in the standard key of F, taking turns playing the melody, improvising, and comping for each other. Part of my assignment was to transcribe a solo from a recording of this tune. I had transcribed the classic Stan Getz solo, which was in the key of D-flat, which meant that I had to learn this tune in both F and D-flat. That was a good exercise!

We then went on to finish up the F Blues exercise in Barry Galbraith's Guitar Comping book. That was a long project. It took me six weeks to work my way through it, but the rewards were great. Thanks to this particular exercise, I have a lot of new chord voicings under my fingers.

Here's the new assignment:

• Three different chromatic scale fingerings. I'm already familiar with one of them. The others aren't too tricky. These are great warm-up and technique exercises.
• The Girl from Ipanema: We will continue to work through this song, focusing heavily on the bridge so that I can try out yet another new scale.
• Mixolydian #11 scale: This is the new scale to try out in Girl from Ipanema's bridge. Dave gave me a sheet of different ways to use the melodic minor scale. One way to think of the myxolydian #11 is a melodic minor scale starting on the 4th scale degree. The easier way to think of it is as a myxolydian scale with a raised 4.
• Gone with the Wind: I'll be doing quite a bit with this song! I'll be learning the Gone with the Wind comping exercise in the Galbraith Jazz Comping book. I'm also supposed to learn the melody, memorize the chords, and be able to improvise over the changes. Finally, Dave wants me to transcribe a Wes Montgomery solo from his recording of the song. Whew!

Since we were working on some Latin songs, Dave recommended The Brazilian Guitar Book by Nelson Faria. This book outlines authentic guitar comps for several Latin styles. I just ordered it and can't wait to work through it and put it to use in my gigs!

Lesson #5

Continuing with my practice of summarizing my guitar lessons with Dave Frackenpohl and outlining my next assignment…

Today's lesson went well. We warmed up on the major bebop scale, and then we played Nostalgia, which is a bebop tuned based on the chord changes from Out of Nowhere. When it came time to improvise, I did a pretty decent job of throwing in some ii-V licks that I've been learning. I had some trouble improvising over these changes last week, but the new ii-V licks really helped out. I actually sounded like I knew what I was doing this time! Next, we played Bags' Groove, and before improvising my own solo, I played the two Miles Davis choruses that I had transcribed. Next, I played through my F Blues assignment from Galbraith's Guitar Comping. Finally, Dave had me sight-read Fools Rush In, which is a tasty standard that I hadn't played before.

Dave commented that my work with the Miles Davis transcription paid dividends, telling me that I was starting to phrase more like a jazz player…more laid back and in the pocket, even when I'm playing faster phrases. It felt really good to hear that from him. I've been working diligently on my time and feel. I have a long way to go, but it's nice to know that I'm making progress.

Here's my next assignment.

• Mixolydian Bebop Scale. Learn this scale, and also practice starting at the top of the scale and descending. We always practice our scales from bottom to top and then down again, but we need to be comfortable playing the other way. I'm going to apply this to my other scales, too.
• Diminished Scale. I already know one form of diminished scale. Dave showed me a very easy diminished form that I hadn't thought of before…and that's why I'm taking lessons!
• Girl from Ipanema. I kind of know this already, but this is a tune that I should have cemented in my memory. It will be by the next lesson! In addition to memorizing the melody and chords, I also will be transcribing a solo of my choice.
• Wave. Here's another great Jobim song. I know the melody quite well, but I'm iffy on the chords. Again, in another two weeks, the chords will be solid. I'm very happy to be working on this song. I find it difficult to solo over these chord changes, so it'll be good to focus on this one for a couple weeks.
• Galbraith Guitar Comping. I have the final two choruses from the F Blues exercise to learn. I've picked up a lot of useful ideas from this book. It's a tremendous resource.
• ii-V Project. Although Dave didn't give me an assignment, it is my assumption that I am supposed to continue learning ii-V licks from the the sheet he gave me last time. I'm not in a hurry to learn all of these at once. I'll pick one or two more licks and drill them to death so that I can incorporate them into my vocabulary.
• Bag's Groove. I'll be transcribing two more choruses from a Miles Davis solo. For learning good jazz phrasing, you can't do much better than play along with Miles Davis solos!

I'm enjoying my lessons. My favorite part is solo transcription. It's challenging, but it's incredibly rewarding. You get to see how the great players put their solos together, and you have the opportunity to steal some of their licks. In addition to the great ear training, it's beneficial to play along with the recording so that you not only learn the notes, but you get a real sense of style and phrasing.