TG Newsletter - October 9, 2009
What’s Going On?
Archive for the ‘Random Ramblings’ Category
2 great new songs added, pentatonic Vs Blues scales and…
Monday, October 5th, 2009 by TGJIMAloha…
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 by NeilHi Gang,
It has been a very interesting week and I hope to get you more of the details soon. As many of you know, I have been on the Big Island (Hawaii) on a mission that is very hard for parents. I was delivering my 18 year old daughter Rebecca, to college in Hilo. Now there are many reasons to be thankful for being able to spend time in such a beautiful place but this was a different kind of trip. I am still sorting out the details and emotions but I do have some news that should be of interest to our TG members.
First, to follow a saying and take some advice such as, “When in Rome…” I can let you know that there are some musical opportunities available here that are not really happening anywhere else in the world. And since I rarely travel anywhere without my guitar and camera, much of the adventure will be appearing here soon.
I have been able (occasionally) to check in on the Forum and am thrilled by some of the cool happenings here. I also realized that I need to address a concern that keeps coming up regarding improvised play through segments. Here is a short video I though might express my feelings and plans on the subject.
Improvised Play Through
The Rest of the Trip
Saturday, August 1st, 2009 by NeilIt is now about 9:00 PM and I am back at home with a really anti-climactic story, which means good news.
I mentioned that for as empty as the short flight to Minneapolis was, the flight to SF was overbooked and we didn’t have seats yet. The agent in Sioux Falls thought he could get us exit row seats but it turned out he couldn’t. He said we would be at the mercy of the agents in Minneapolis. He did say there were plenty of seats in first class but the upgrade was a lot of money.
Lizzie pointed out that her sister had been on a first class flight once and that if I really loved her I would spring for it… Funny kid.
We arrived at the gate only to be told that they weren’t ready to assign us seats but they would call us when they could. Lizzie decided to head off to Starbucks for some tea and a snack. A few minutes later, as I was catching up with one of my TG cohorts about recent developments, they called me up and handed me new boarding passes. Without looking at them I asked again about exit row seats and that I had a big carry on. I probably mentioned that the guitar is in a Calton case, which is big and heavy, as well as a padded bag from the Colorado Case Company. The bag is mostly to protect the nice case from being scratched- something that I still occasionally scratch my head over.
The agent must have seen me walk away from the counter earlier because she said, “I know, I moved you two into first class, where there will be plenty of room.”
I was a little stunned with this great stroke of fortune. Not only would the guitar be fine, but Lizzie might think I loved her as much as her siblings! Needless to say she was thrilled. I never did get around to telling her that the upgrade was probably just a karmic coincidence and I don’t think we ever need to go there. As it is, I should be able to parlay this into a few months of good behavior… Dream on dad.
So as uneventful as it turned out, I certainly feel a great sense of relief being home with the guitar. I wonder what the ratio of good stories to horror stories in the traveling with a guitar series might be. Somehow I think the horror stories always get a lot of press and the good ones don’t. As a matter of fact, I saw 2 or 3 other guitars on board and I certainly would like to commend and thank Northwest Airlines for a job well done.
Until the next adventure-
Stay tuned and in touch,
Neil
Traveling Home With My Guitar
Saturday, August 1st, 2009 by NeilHi Gang,
Today is Saturday and I am embarking on the 2nd half of the adventure. Right now I am sitting in the Sioux Falls airport, having moved to an earlier flight on a different airlines, Northwest.
The first difference in a small town airport is how friendly and helpful everybody is. I just booked the flight this morning and figured I try the same approach. I asked the agent who was helping us at the kiosk if I could carry the guitar on board. He said, “I certainly would.”
Now, this is a short flight with not many passengers on its way to Minneapolis where we connect with a packed flight to San Francisco. We don’t even have assigned seats on that flight yet.
In any case, so far so good. I will try to check in from Minneapolis but I think it’s a quick turnover. i just hope I can sweet talk somebody into finding room in the cabin.
Stay tuned…
Neil
Arrival in Sioux Falls
Monday, July 27th, 2009 by NeilSorry this post is a little late…
I have to admit I was a little nervous as I waited for the luggage in Sioux Falls. There was a bin that seemed to be used for oversized and unusual items. I hoped my guitar would be hand delivered there, especially when I saw a nice Fender electrice case in the bin. As I kind of kept an eye on both the belt and the bin (partly wondering where the heck the Fender owner was!), I was surprised to look back at our pile of bags and see my guitar. Apparently it had come out on the belt and Lizzie had grabbed it.
I took it over to another carousel and, with a bit of trepidation, unzipped the cover and opened the latches to find everything apparently in good order. I did have a bit of a doubting Thomas moment and grabbed the headstock to make sure it was still intact and all was well.
I am now half way through the adventure, at least as far as the airlines are concerned, and am breathing a sigh of relief. Now I just hope I can find, or make the time to play the darned thing, maybe even get to some video lessons on the road. I will keep you posted.
Stay tuned & in touch,
Neil
On The Road With My Guitar… Part 1
Saturday, July 25th, 2009 by NeilHi Gang,
After seeing the video about United Airlines and having traveled with a guitar a few times, I thought I would keep a little journal about taking my guitar on a trip this week. I am off to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with my daughter who is playing in a softball tournament. I don’t often take a guitar to these tournaments but this one will last all week and I figured I might get some time to play, and even PRACTICE a little.
I should mention that we are taking United Airlines. I figure they might be on their best behavior due to recent events and publicity.
We arrived at the San Jose airport around 6:00 AM and headed to the counter to check our bags. I was hoping to carry it on board but the Claxton is in a Calton case and a Colorado Case Company padded bag, making it probably too big for the overhead bin. I went ahead and paid the fees for bags, including some surcharge for special handling and asked the agent about insurance, or the best plan for carrying a pretty expensive instrument.
She told me that I should carry it to the gate and see what the agents there say, but that they might make me check it. I didn’t really have a problem checking the guitar but the main thing to avoid is putting it on a conveyor belt and letting it disappear into the dark abyss behind sinister rubber flaps.
Not surprisingly, I was told that I would need to check the guitar at the gate. They printed up a tag and told me to carry it to the end of the ramp and put it on a cart that already had a guitar and a few other oversized bags. I did ask the handler at the cart to please hand check the bag and he said to me, “Oh, we hand check everything anyway.” This didn’t leave me with a strong feeling of confidence as I walked away from the cart and headed up the ramp.
I was also a little concerned about the fact that now the guitar would have to make the same connection we were, transferring in Denver, knowing that this was possibly a cause for concern as well.
On a side note, I have taken guitars on board in a gig bag before as well as checking them and frankly, there is a certain sense of probably false security with the “out of site, out of mind” philosophy.
As I write this, we have made it in Denver and I find myself a little concerned, but probably only because we have a couple hours layover and not much else to do. I just hope the guitar is being gently carried from baggage hold to baggage hold.
Anybody seen the flying pig lately?
I’ll try to get back to you in a few hours after we get settled in Sioux Falls.
Neil
TG Live & After Hours, Modern Songs?
Saturday, July 11th, 2009 by NeilHi Gang,
We had a lot of fun last night here at TG Central. My friend, Bruce joined Matt and me in our high tech studio that my wife still thinks is a living room. We talked about some upcoming lessons for the TARGET Program and had a couple of play along segments on Brown Eyed Girl. The 3-part video is now up in the TARGET section for those who couldn’t join us live.
After the broadcast Matt picked up a guitar and started a little jam session that mostly revolved around Southern Man. As he got comfortable with the chords, Bruce took the lead, improvising in the key of D minor. It reminded me of my musical childhood when, as a teenager, I would experiment in the same way with my buddy Mike Mullins. It turned into a long night and slightly delayed this week’s newsletter, which I think Big Jim has just gotten out. It also made Matt suggest that I put up a lesson on Southern Man where I play the rhythm and our viewers could solo along. It was a little awkward pointing out that we already had that.
After the jam session, Matt and I picked up again on a topic that came up during the broadcast and has made its rounds on the Forum lately- is TARGET permanently entrenched in the 60s and 70s? As Matt dragged me through video after video of contemporary bands looking for potential lessons, I realized that I need to define the types of songs I am looking for, or like to use as instructional material.
Many songs, not just contemporary ones but classic as well, do not have much to offer in the way of techniques that will carry over into multiple applications. One of my main criteria for a good lesson is a song that teaches new techniques or concepts. There are thousands of songs that are simple rearrangements of chord progressions or strumming patterns that I expect my students to know because we had already worked on a song that taught that particular technique or concept.
As Matt popped from favorite to favorite, my repsonses of, “too basic, we’ve already done something just like that”, seemed to be get uncomfortably redundant. After about 10 songs, I didn’t even have to say anything. Matt would listen to 15 seconds and say, “too basic…”
Now in the big scheme of things, there is nothing that is too basic, but when I am looking for new songs to add to the 45,213 or so that I have taught over the years, I am looking for something that is challenging and introduces something new that is important to a guitar students’ evolution. Here is where you come in- help me find those songs. I need suggestions from the last 5 (OK, maybe 10) years that either have melodies picked out like in My My Hey Hey (or almost any Neil Young song for that matter), interesting and unusual chord progressions (a la the Beatles or Al Stewart), some intricate picking or cross picking like in I’d Love To Change The World or Behind Blue Eyes (which I will probably get to soon), or something as complex and cool as From The Beginning (probably not going to happen). All this, without even talking about fingerpicking or instrumental solos.
Does anybody see the dilemma? I don’t think it’s that I don’t want to teach modern songs, it’s just that I am not familar enough with them to find good instructional opportunities in them. Part of this is that nowadays there are about a million times more bands and even genres than there were when I was growing up. On one hand I hate to sound like an old fogey, as almost everybody has a special fondness in their heart (ears?) for music they listened to during their “formative” years (read that as “what I listened to in high school”).
I do want you to know that just about every suggestion that has crossed my path, in the Forum and elsewhere, has led me to check out the song and consider adding it to the list of potential lessons. I also want to tell you that last night we stumbled onto something that almost piqued an interest, Lifehouse, I think it was, can’t remember the song.
So here is my outcry- help me find that elusive modern song that will take a beginning guitar student and turn them into an intermediate player, or an intermediate student into an advanced player, or an advanced student into an extreme player… wait, never mind, there is no room left in the world for any more extreme guitar players!
This is the official opening of a thread looking for modern songs, let’s try not to have anybody hurt…
Stay tuned and in touch,
Neil
Mom’s Side of the Story
Sunday, May 10th, 2009 by NeilHi Gang,
In the name of Hallmark, I would like to share a little personal stuff with you. A few months ago, as I was heavily engaged in creating lessons for TotallyGuitars, I took a few minutes to show my mom what I had been working on. We got to reminiscing about when I started playing the guitar. I had the camera nearby so on it went. This video is the 1st part of a candid conversation with my mom, Lucille Hogan and is posted in the Video section under More Of The Story. I hope you enjoy it.
Stay tuned and in touch,
Neil
New Content Added and TG Live! Update
Thursday, May 7th, 2009 by NeilHi Gang,
I hope all our TARGET members are having fun exploring the Song Library. I have added some info in the Members Forum about the relative difficulty of the songs.
We have also made a lot of progress in adding Normal Quality videos to the Library, to go along with High Quality videos already there. We are continuing to add new lessons everyday and the update is posted on the TARGET Support page. Keep an eye on that page. As of yesterday, the following lessons were available-
Angie
Blackbird
Cinammon Girl
From The Beginning
Green River
Landslide
Stairway To heaven
Teach Your Children
The Needle And The Damage Done
Truckin’
Ventura Highway
Beginning Lesson 1
Beginning Lesson 2
Beginning Lesson 3
Beginning Lesson 4
Beginning Lesson 5
I have posted the video from last Sunday’s episode of TotallyGuitars Live! The 2 and 1/2 hour broadcast is split into 3 parts and posted in the TG Videos section.
Advanced Players Update
The lessons for you are under construction and the 1st should be ready in a few days. I am starting at the top of the list, as far as I’m concerned, with Classical Gas. I would have to say that this classic by Mason Williams is one of the most important and influential pieces in the history of our favorite instrument. It is relatively difficult (probably an 8 on the Fluctuating Neil Scale) and very few people play it correctly, let alone teach it properly. I have refined my version over 35 years and I’m sure it measures up to Mason’s standards. Enough rambling, back into production…
Stay tuned and touch,
Neil
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