Welcome to a new Monday email with 3 random thoughts on all things guitar, music, and life, including ear training fun, cassettes, and more…
I hope you had a great Easter. It is not exactly an Easter special, but in the spirit of the holiday, it is slightly retrospective.
Here it goes…
Each Monday I write a post with 3 random thoughts on all things guitar, music, and life. Here is this week’s including the inspiring Pam, guitar performing tips, and more…
‘Twas the Night before Christmas and this being the case, I decided to do a special version of my 3 random weekly thoughts, including some Christmas guitar tips …
Here is another of the weekly posts with 3 thoughts about guitar, music, and life, including tips on muscle memory, celebrating tiny wins, and more.
I’m not sure how much I have written about this before, but it is a popular idea with my one-to-one students.
…And it is a simple one too.
It involves learning the most popular melody of all time…
…Taking a quick video of yourself playing it
…and sending it to a loved one on their birthday.
The melody, of course, is “Happy birthday”.
Following on from last week’s post about Tommy Emmanuel, which a lot of you said you enjoyed, I wanted to give you some insight into the mindset of the guy.
On the surface, it might appear to be advice for those advanced players who can do loads of cool things on the guitar.
In reality though, this little tip is immensely powerful.
One of the things he says is that no matter how good you get, guitar playing is music and music is storytelling.
Jamming, Kidapalooza, Lollapalooza 2013 by Eric Gravengaard, licensed under (CC BY-SA 2.0)
I have a rule that I enforce on myself and which I encourage students to adhere to. That rule is, for every 10 hours I practice, I must spend at least 1 hour jamming with others.
Jamming with others is not only good for your musical soul, but will make you a better all round guitarist, and it feels damn great too.