Currently, I’m focusing on two major projects in my practice time. The first is a Ralph Towner tune titled “Oleander Etude” from his new Album: Time Line (and his transcription book: Solo Guitar Works – Volume 1). It’s a technically challenging piece that works on the left hand & descending pull-offs, and when brought up [...]

Saturdays start early for me and I usually stay up too late the night before, so after my morning and afternoon lessons, I’m ready for a nap. Last night, I took that nap during the World Series around 8:30pm. I set my timer for 10 minutes and let the words of Joe Buck lull me [...]

A tune snapped into place this weekend. Well, at least some of it did.  It’s a simple progression that came out of my “spread-voiced” triads practice, and resides in sort of a big “4″ groove with atypical rhythmic hits. Now comes the hard part: development. I don’t have a melody yet and I don’t have [...]

I’ve been looking at Spread-Voiced Triads for the past couple weeks. They are a little trickier than regular triad inversions, but they have such a delightful sound that the extra work is worth it. Right now, I feel comfortable with root & 1st inversion voicings based off the E, A & D strings. I know [...]

Ray Bradbury writes in the Afterword of his novel Fahrenheit 451: “I didn’t know it, but I was literally writing a dime novel. In the spring of 1950 it cost me nine dollars and eighty cents in dimes to write and finish the first draft of The Fire Man which later became Fahrenheit 451. In [...]