“If it works, it’s obsolete.” – Marshall McCluhan Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian social scientist/prophet who lived from 1911 to 1980 and published most of his work from 1950 to 1970. He once famously said, “The medium is the message.” Gallons of ink have been spilled about what he really meant, but if you have […]

Podcasts – Twilight Guitar

Marshall McLuhan and the Sounds of a Generation

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. ” Joseph Campbell In the basement of my childhood home there was a big, dusty, menacing piece of furniture that nobody ever went near. My first memory of it was being warned to stay away from the “monster” because it would crush my […]

Myth, Music and Monsters

  “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson The musical instruction “adagio” comes from the Italian phrase “a dagio” which means “at ease”. It’s a good word, and it got me thinking. The question always comes up: “How long will it take me to learn to play guitar?” as […]

Adagio: At the Speed of Nature

This article is about how you can maximize your productivity during practice sessions. It is also about rediscovering how to enjoy practicing again. We all know that having clear goals is the most important thing you can do to accelerate your rate of learning. But what exactly does it mean to say that we should […]

The 8 Ways We Practice

We can thank the Internet; it is now possible to listen to nearly every piece of music ever recorded. This is staggering to think about, but it is true. Today, there are millions if not billions of recordings available for download or streaming over the Internet. I haven’t done the math, but it’s a fair […]

A Music Fan in the Age of Overload

“The true art of memory is the art of attention.” — Samuel Johnson A good memory is the single most important skill a musician can have. If you haven’t been blessed with a great memory, don’t worry, it is something that can be improved and enhanced. Memories are like muscles and they can be developed […]

Music and Memory: Raising the Bar

“When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.” – Yo Yo Ma A few years ago I attended a cello concerto by Yo Yo Ma at Powell Hall in Saint Louis, Missouri. At the […]

Music, Across Time and Space

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson If you are reading this, it is likely that you play music at some level. Maybe you’re a solo performer, maybe you’re in a band, or used to be in a band, or maybe you are practicing hard and […]

Enter Stage Right – For Those About to Gig

“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” – Albert Einstein [/caption] Mention “classical guitar” to many beginning guitarists and you will get a whole host of reactions, from “what’s that?” to “do you mean classic rock?” to “why would you want to play that on guitar?”. Despite a […]

Why Classical Guitar?

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery For those brave, maybe crazy people we call explorers, the best part of the map is where […]

Music and Mind Mapping

“The whole problem can be stated by asking, ‘Is there a meaning to music?’ My answer would be, ‘Yes.’ And ‘Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?’ My answer to that would be, ‘No.'” -Aaron Copland This post is partly in words, and partly in music because it is about my […]

Winter’s Promise – Music for Christmas

“The gate is straight, deep and wide break on through to the other side” – Jim Morrison Anyone who has ever attempted to play a musical instrument will eventually reach a phase we like to call a “plateau.” The place where progress seems to stop dead in its tracks. This is a useful metaphor because […]

The Musical Plateau: Just a Phase

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist There are three definitions of Alchemy in Webster’s Dictionary, the second one is my favorite: “A power or process of transforming something common into something special.” The first definition is longer […]

The Alchemy of Rock

“I wish they’d had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would’ve been straightened out.” -Jimi Hendrix Nikola Tesla’s laboratory in Colorado Springs circa 1900. Public Domain photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Nikola Tesla, great scientist, inventor of alternating current (AC), bringer of man-made lightning, pioneer […]

Guitars, Distortion & Tesla’s Cat

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo This is an excerpt from the ebook, “Midnight Arpeggios”. Did you ever notice how right everything seems when you are busy doing something you love to do? At those times it doesn’t matter how much money, power or status […]