Guitar Lessons & …

Thank you to everyone who participated in this year of guitar lessons.
Members of the 2007-2008 Brendan Burns GUITARMY:
Austin Cohen
Myra Johnson
Helen Huang
Coco Wallace
Parker Wallace
Charlie Guerra
Neil Jones
Kavoi Mutisya
Christopher Zarins
Shaan Shivdasani
Sam Roffman
Masaki Norton
Isabel Wallace
Hadassah Stanhill
Olivia Siegal
Max Josef
Gabriel Mininberg
Daniel Getz
Nick Page
Alvin Taylor
Sarah Simon
Shani Breiman
Nico Jochnick
Claire Chin
Keir Shields
Elana Shlosman
Sophia Spirounis
Sam Mills
Aaron Corn
Micaela Corn
Greg Smith
Abby Fink
Maria Meletlidis
Vincent Webster
Eleni Papadopoulos
Yanni Papadopoulos
David Cohen
Tommy […]

This is an unusual post for this blog, but I think this is pretty cool. From the iTunes website:
“With the new iTunes “Complete My Album” service, music fans can now upgrade their singles into complete albums and get full credit for the songs they have previously purchased from iTunes. “Complete My Album” is a […]

Some good intro note reading exercises: The Dreidel Song & Jingle Bells. They also flow nice together when you play them back to back.

The 4th Annual Brendan Burns Student Concert was a lot of fun and a big sucess. Thanks to everyone for participating:

Thomas Rothman - “These Boots Were Made For Walking,” by Lee Hazlewood
Steve & Thomas Rothman -”The Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot
Laurens Schalekamp - “Eight Days A Week,” by The Beatles & “By Yourself,” […]

I was cleaning out some files this weekend and found an old page from my website back in the day (2001). It’s a bunch of quotes from Phillip Tosido’s book: Zen Guitar, Mick Goodrick’s: The Advancing Guitarist & other miscellaneous sources:

“Combat discouragement with your desire to learn.”
Poetic imperfection
A bird does not ask, “Is my […]

Back in February of this year, I posted a transcription of Keith Jarrett’s Radiance #8 on my practice blog. Shortly after posting it I realized I’d written the rhythms out wrong. I’ve been receiving some mail about it recently and decided it was time to go back and draft a correction.

I should have more to say about this than I do.  It’s just an amazing lick.  Charlie plays it so effortlessly on “Blues For Alice.”  Check it out.  I’ve been working on it for two days now, I’ve just about got it at half-speed.  whoo!

It's been my experience that most guitarists (including myself at one time) do not know how to string their instruments properly. There is a lot of interpretation involved in playing guitar, but that should not carry over into maintenence and structural issues relating to the instrument.To educate the masses, Taylor Guitars took the time […]

Bach's Prelude No.1 of the Well Tempered Clavier is a beautiful piece.  It illustrates his mastery of harmony, development and suspense.  It's like a well written thriller. 
I was working on this with a student this morning, and was so inspired, that I had to put it in my book.  Rather than photocopying the piece and […]

 
Today's lick is from my Joe Pass book.  It's a nice bebop(py) lick outlining a Dom 7 chord.  I included it in two octaves so it could be associated with the two basic types of the Dom 7 chord (5th & 6th string rooted).
Now that I think of it, I think I've heard Charlie Parker […]