Hey gang! Unusual Friday post because I have a bunch of bits of business for you.
Thing #1: There's a discount code out for next session. Let's keep these bands together! Current Guitar 3 students--I'm teaching 3Rep same night/same time! Current Guitar 2Reppers -- It's time to make the jump to INTERMEDIATE! I'm teaching Guitar 3 on Saturdays at 11am! Let's stay together and make barre chords our bit--let's tackle barre chords! Current Guitar 1Reppers -- How's about Guitar 2? Ready for a couple of new chords and some new techniques? Join me for that Sundays at noon. Use code PICKNGRIN14 online or mention the code when you register by phone or in person--but only through February 9th at midnight so don't delay!
Thing #3: FOR SATURDAY'S GUITAR 2 REP CLASS!!! Due to a student in a wheelchair, our class will henceforth be relocating to room 210. We'll meet there starting tomorrow and for the rest of the session.
Thing #4: Here's a clip of the 50th anniversary gala show in 2007 when teachers performed Turn Turn Turn with Roger McGuinn of The Byrds--who was an Old Town School student. I'll talk more about this in my weekend classes: http://youtu.be/0c0UaxT-Xs0
Folks, I hope you're surviving Polar Vortex Redux. The museum was closed yesterday and today, so I've been at home playing guitar and watching Netflix. I am ready to rejoin the world tomorrow.
Last week in Guitar 3 we talked again about the science of barre chords. Once you know the names of the notes on the bottom two strings, you can play any chord. To figure this out, remember that you have HOMEWORK! Fill in the names of the notes on the worksheet in your coursepack. You only have to do the 6th and 5th strings. (if you want to do the rest...you'll be a better musician for it!) We also went into some more detail in the chorus of Ziggy Stardust. Check out the third line of "goodies" on the Ziggy handout. That'll give you the rhythm of the strums on the barred Am, G, and F--but remember we only strum the F chord once, and then we pluck the bass note, alternating the first fret and open string as shown on that sheet. Snag the G once on your way back up to the Am when you loop the pattern. We also got a quick start on The Killing Moon. Play the G and Cm in the chorus both as barre chords. You can leave your index finger down on the 3rd fret, while you move an E shape (or an Am shape! Same thing!) back and forth. Conceptually, it's easy, but it's physically difficult--and it's a great way to build up your hand strength. We'll put the rest of the song together in class this week.
In Guitar 2 Rep, we kept working on that modified Golden Strum that works so well with The Shirelles tune. You could start calling that the Calypso strum if you want. That's how a lot of musicians refer to it. Then we tackled Heart of Gold--which we absolutely zoomed through! Kudos to all of you for that. Your hammer-ons are sounding great, and you seem to have the choppy rhythms down as well. When in doubt, just consult the counts written out under the tableture at the bottom (or e-mail m with questions). I'm looking forward to hitting that one again next week. Larry was kind enough to send along the Johnny Cash cover he talked about. Enjoy! And in Guitar 1 Rep we learned "The Golden Strum," aka the Tequila Sunrise strum, aka the folk strum. It'll become an old friend soon enough! We broke it down into a couple of steps. For starters, we down-strummed just once on beat one (a quarter note), and then down-up down-up down-up (eighth notes) on beats 2 & 3 & 4. You can stay at that stage if that's where you're comfortable, but when you're ready, try dropping the downstrum on beat three. You'll still play the upstrum on the "and" of three. It feels pretty funny at first to skip a main beat like that, but the secret it to keep your hand moving as if you were still strumming, just don't make contact with the strings. Written with arrows, it looks like this: V V^ ^ V^ You could also think of it like this: D DU U DU
I know it's a little herky-jerky at first, but work hard at it because it'll sort of become our default strumming pattern in 4/4 time from now on. Next week, we'll revisit Under the Boardwalk and work out the two-part vocals to put it all together.
The co-founder of the Old Town School, Frank Hamilton, was a friend and collaborator of Seeger's, who performed alongside him in The Weavers. Our school owes a lot to Seeger and the faculty has spent most of today exchanging remembrances and telling stories about how our lives were touched by the music.
When we all get together in a room and play music as a group, we are part of an age old tradition that Pete fought his whole life to preserve. Music is our shared humanity, and the simplest songs can change the world. Listen to the voices joining together to sing "We Shall Overcome" -- a traditional song which Pete modified and wrote new verses to -- during the March on Washington. Flip through the Old Town School Songbook and see the stories of oppression, injustice, hardship, and loss that have painted the history of the country in blood--and through which we have endured thanks in no small part to the hymns and traditional songs that bring us together to heal.
Make no mistake, we have fun and play pop songs together, but when you pick up a guitar and strum a song with your friends, you are doing something powerful and profoundly political. When Pete was summoned before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee for his alleged communist ties, he was accused of being a rebel rouser and an anarchist--because he played a banjo and sang songs about peace. He was sentenced to prison (later overturned), and blacklisted. It was 20 years before he was heard on TV or the radio again. BECAUSE HE SANG FOLK SONGS.
He was a radical and a revolutionary to be sure, but the only weapon he wielded was music. Woody Guthrie famously wrote "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar. And in homage to his friend, Seeger wrote something on his banjo too. "This Machine Surrounds Hate And Forces It To Surrender." To understand the depth of the difference between those two messages is to begin to understand what a loss we experienced today upon Pete's death.
There's an outstanding documentary called "Pete Seeger: The Power of Song" that I highly recommend you rent and watch. It'll inspire you to keep playing guitar and keep singing until the world looks brighter for your children.
Thank you, Pete! Thank you for leaving the world brighter for us.
Hi gang! Sorry for the delay. Yours truly has been busy prepping a couple of major suit-and-tie presentations to give to executives at the day job this week, so I haven't had as much time for music as I'd like (not that I EVER do!).
Of course, I do have another more musical excuse for my tardiness, which is that I've been prepping for a gig this Sunday, and I'd love to see you there! My fellow teachers and some students will perform Beck's Song Reader in its entirety. That's the "album" that has no recorded component--just sheet music. It's up to the audience to make the songs, and so that's what we're going to do! It's been really fun to interpret a song from scratch like that, and I'll be fronting an extremely talented house band--with a cello!--for one tune. Here are the details: https://www.oldtownschool.org/concerts/2014/01-26-2014-becks-song-reader-7pm/
Ok, back you YOU ('cause it's not about me). Last Thursday--can you remember that far?--Guitar 3 tackled the all-powerful F barre chord. It's just an E shape with your second, third and fourth fingers, played above a barre at the 2nd fret. It's mean and it hurts, but once you've mastered it, you can move that shape up and down the neck to any position. If you know the name of the note you're barring on the low-E string, you know the name of the chord you're playing! Wanna make it minor? Use the E-minor shape instead.
Same rules apply to the Am and A shapes played with a root note barred on the 5th string. If that doesn't quite make sense, don't worry. It'll sink in and we'll work on it each week.
Practice the Otis Redding tune to get that F chord into your fingers. (and perfect your whistlin' skills!)
In Guitar 2 Rep on Saturday, we dove a little deeper into The Shirelles tune we started last week, and got a little more comfy with that root-drag version of "The Golden Strum." We also put together the rest of "Picture Book" by The Kinks. Just repeat after me: 0 0 2 4. Remember that sequence of numbers and you're most of the way through the riff because you play those frets on the 6th, 5th, and 4th strings in that order. Once you've gone up the 4th string, come back down with 5 5 4 3--remember those are fret numbers, not string or finger numbers. I recommend "the zone" strategy with your fingers: assign a single finger to each fret and use that finger each time you're called upon to play a note on that zone.
Next week we're going to get into something called a hammer-on! It's gonna be great.
And in Guitar 1 Rep, we talked a little more about swinging your strum, and about how in any given key, you're likely to use the I, IV, an V chords in combination to play most simple pop and rock songs. That's why you've gotten so much mileage out of A, D, and E in your guitar career so far--those are the I, IV, and V chords, respectively, in the key of A.
We also tackled 3/4 time, which is a waltz. You're subdividing the measure into thirds instead of quarters, and giving the first beat a little more emphasis. ONE two three. You'll wanna use all downstrums or you'll get tangled up. For added fun and complexity to the sound, pick the root note all by itself on the first beat. The root note is (usually) the lowest note in the chord, so just figure out which string your pick comes into contact with first when strumming the chord. For E, it's the open E string. For A, it's the open A string, and for D it's--well you figure it out. :)
Thanks to TJ, here's the slightly cheesey clip of Evangeline from The Last Waltz. Great song, great performance. Just a little too much fog for my taste.
And finally, for those keeping score, Kill Your Idols ensemble worked on another tune by The Replacements, called "I Will Dare."
It's a new year, a new session, and we learned a whole bunch of new songs in class this week!
[Aside: I've decided that 2014 is my "year of music." I'm going to play everyday, sign on to as many gigs as I can (look for future self-promoting posts! I've got 4 shows lined up already!), and challenge myself to do things I've never done before--like lead an Ensemble class, write and play lead guitar parts (gulp!), and play the bass guitar. Whew! Those are my goals...what are yours?]
To those of you who've signed onto this blog for the first time--WELCOME! I try to update once a week, usually on Tuesdays. I post all of my class updates in one place so that you can get a peek at what some of your fellow students are working on at different levels. It's a way to reflect on where you've been, where you are, and where you're going!
Thursday night's Guitar 3 class proudly cut the ribbon on the "intermediate" level, by diving head first into barre chords. Everyone in the (rather crowded) room can now play a B minor by mashing the outside edge of their index finger across 5 strings at the same time--egads!--and dropping an A minor shape over the bar using the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers. Ta-da! It'll sound funky and have weird thuds in it for a looooong time. Never fear. Be patient and practice, and your hands will get stronger every day. Relax, unglue your arm from your side, and drop your wrist so that you can get your thumb on the back of the neck running parallel to your barre finger in a solid clamp. We will get by with a little help from our friends--which is also the tune you can use to practice B minor. Note: my chart is transposed to a different key so you won't really be able to play along with the boys from Liverpool--unless you get crafty with your capo and figure out their key. (yes, you CAN use barre chords with a capo! Double whoa!)
Remember to try muting each of your strums with a combination of techniques. Palm mute with your strumming hand by lightly laying the squishy part of your hand across the strings near the bridge; also unsqueeze the fretting hand a little. That'll give this tune its distinctive choppiness.
Saturday's Guitar 2 Rep class started off strong with some Shirelles (and, by extension, Carole King). We refreshed our skills with the little F chord--that dickens!--and learned a cool new strumming pattern. Pick the root note all by itself on the one, then really drag out your strum on the two, and finish with a "golden strum" pattern (upstrum on the and of two, skip beat three, upstrum on the and of three, and down-up on the four and). Put another way: Root DRAG-up up-down-up
This live version is a somewhat different rhythm, but...how cool is this clip?! I couldn't resist. We also took a brief sneak peek at next week's tune: Picture Book. It has a deceptively simple riff that we can play by repeating the fret pattern 0024 on three consecutive strings, followed by 5543 on the last string. It's so easy and so satisfying! We'll nail it down next week, and add a few other fun filigree things to that song.
Finally, Sunday's Guitar 1 Rep also got cozy in the basement with a nice big group of students with diverse backgrounds. Some of us are fresh off Guitar 1, some of us are used to private lessons, some of us are self-taught, and some of us are a little rusty! I'm excited to see how we all come together as a band--and we will! We started off with our old friends A, D, and E. Those three chords are often found hanging out together, because they're what's known as the I, IV, V chords in the key of A. (those are Roman numerals, not letters there folks!) We'll talk more about musical keys and what the heck I mean with my fancy numerals in the coming weeks.
We played the Everly Brother's When Will I Be Loved? (look at baby Dick Clark in that video!) and learned about swing strumming. As opposed to a marching rhythm, swinging means that you put a bit more emphasis on the down strums. Keep your wrist nice and loosey-goosey, and think of it as kind of a gallop. BAH-dum-BAH-dum-BAH-dum-BAH-dum. This gentleman from down-under has an interesting spin on it using a more visual technique that you may find helpful. Check it out!
And finally, for something completely different, here's what the Kill Your Idols ensemble worked on this week. Those kids don't know about this blog, but I thought the rest of you (Ahem, Mick M, Mary B!) might be curious what goes on in there:
E-mail me with questions! And keep on a-strummin'!
Hey gang!
I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and a nice couple of weeks off. (I know I did!)
I'm excited to share with you the graduation videos from last session, which I think are the very best batch yet!
Here's Thursday Guitar 2 Rep's Satellite of Love in Szold Hall: http://youtu.be/-8n9Z9uB9jI
AND a bonus!!! Your triumphant non-graduation GIG debut from Friday the 20th at the Armitage location's Lou Reed tribute. I have not stopped getting compliments about this for 2 weeks, guys. No joke. You really nailed it! http://youtu.be/XJhSUPzoyT0
Saturday's Guitar 2 class aka Team Mary & Larry did an equally awesome job with The Old Country Waltz--and big thanks to Mrs. Larry for once again serving as camerawoman! http://youtu.be/enObblny1ls
And last but CERTAINLY not least, Guitar 1 on Sunday had the hardest job to do, and really pulled it off despite choosing a song they'd only learned in the 20 minutes before showtime AND my technical difficulties with accessory percussion. Now THAT is how you rock and roll (or jingle, as the case may be). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GyYD3jS7hM
It was truly a pleasure to be your teacher this past session, and I look forward to seeing many of you again this week!
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