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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/10/2018 in all areas

  1. Tuesday April 10th, 2018 Topic: Jazz Guitar Mastery with Howard Alden! 7pm Central Time US You can watch the lesson HERE. Tremendously excited to announce the great New York Jazz guitarist, Howard Alden will be joining us for this live lesson! Howard is one of the best jazz guitarists on the scene today. One of DownBeat Magazine's "Top 75 Guitarists", Howard is one of the most respected jazz guitarists in the world. Here are a few clips... Great Music, laughs, giveaways and more! Watch on our Guitar Gathering YouTube Channel HERE - Steve
    2 points
  2. WOW Really looking forward to this one! I well remember Howard who was on the LL program a couple of years back (woah I cant believe it was almost 5 yrs ago!) ... a great artist and gentleman. (If you think 6 strings is enough, watch Howard play 7 strings :-) Thank you Steve for bringing us superb guest artists!
    2 points
  3. When? Live Lessons are held on Tuesday evenings, approximately every other week, at 7:00 pm Central Time (UTC-5). Fifteen minutes before broadcast a countdown screen will appear and the chat will be available. When they go on the air you will see the live broadcast. It will run about an hour. When they are off the air you can view previous Live Lessons. Where? You can watch on the Guitar Gathering YouTube channel here or by clicking the header at the top of this discussion forum. Steve officially transitioned to YouTube from Ustream on February 6, 2018. Is the topic announced in advance? Steve usually will post a thread in advance letting us know the topic of the upcoming lesson, posting any necessary resources (sheet music, audio tracks, links, videos) or if it will be cancelled or rescheduled. Do they cost anything? No. Live Lessons are free. How do I ask a question or chat with other students? Anyone can view the Live Lesson. If you wish to chat with Steve, the guests, or other students, or have a chance to win the various items in giveaways, you must register for a free Google account. You can register for a Google account here. Once you have registered, you can log in and participate. To help distinguish questions directed to Steve or his guests from the online chat, type your question in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Which browser works best? That's difficult to say. Experiment with various browsers to find which works best for you. How do I watch past Live Lessons? 
You can view the most recent Live Lessons (2015 to present) at the same site as the live broadcast. How can I sign up for the giveaways? Each lesson usually has a few giveaways. These range from helpful books, CDs from guests, apparel, pedals, and (rarely) even guitars. Giveaway winners are selected at random from those logged in during the Live Lesson. You don't need to chat, but you do need to be logged in through Google/YouTube as described above. I won a giveaway! What do I do now? Congratulations! You need to e-mail Steve at Service[at]GuitarGathering.com. Include your mailing address, YouTube screen name, what you won, and size when necessary. Giveaways are usually mailed out within a few days after the broadcast. Shipping times vary depending on where you live. Some items can not be shipped outside the continental US. Items that aren't claimed will be awarded to someone else. What is YouTube SuperChat? For our purposes, it is a way viewers can donate to support Live Lessons and the discussion board. More broadly, it is a mechanism for YouTube viewers to pay for greater attention, as their comments are pinned and highlighted at the top of the live chat and more characters are permitted. It is accessed by the $ icon below the chat window. It has been reported that YouTube retains 30% of the donation. An alternative, direct way to support Guitar Gathering is via this PayPal link. How do I suggest a topic or guest? Just start a thread in this Live Lesson section of this discussion board.
    1 point
  4. I was just looking at the Google Play store on my Android phone. They have an app “96 Free Blues Guitar Licks”. I had to download immediately. Sure enough 96 licks with tab and it plays for you too so you know what it sounds like. You know what to do!
    1 point
  5. I’ve watched the previous LL with Howard Alden more than once. I’ll gladly watch tonight’s show as well. I don’t really have any questions, but I thought Steve’s tips might go well with tonight’s live lesson. I got them from the old forum some time ago. They may prompt more questions from the viewers. @Steve Krenz, you may want to put these up on your new blog. SK’s Tips For Learning Jazz Standards “Jazz music has a core group of common songs called “standards” that all Jazz musicians need to be familiar with. These are the songs you’ll hear when you go to listen to Jazz at a club or restaurant. As a player, these are also the songs that you will play all the time. Most of these standards can be easily found in songbooks like “The Real Book”. Here are a few tips for learning these classic Jazz standards. These songs are more than simply catchy melodies. If you pay attention, they can also be the best learning tools you will find for understanding how Jazz works and how you can create great sounding improvised solos. 1) Start by Focusing on Three Classic Jazz Standards – a Medium-Tempo Classic, a Slow Ballad, and an Up-Tempo Tune. Eventually, you will know dozens of songs but the thought of this can be intimidating at first. So, start by learning three. Great medium tempo Jazz songs to start with would be songs like “Autumn Leaves” by Johnny Mercer or “Satin Doll” by Duke Ellington. Some good ballads to learn are “Misty” by Erroll Garner or “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” by David Mann. “I’ve Got Rhythm” by George Gershwin or “There Will Never Be Another You” by Harry Warren are great up-tempo songs to know. 2) Think About How the Chords Move. Jazz standards aren’t just random songs – they are classic studies in what makes a great chord progression. Analyze the chords that are used. What chord does it start out with? What chord does it end with and how is that ending approached by the chords that precede it? Identify the ii-V changes used to resolve to various chords within the song. Think carefully about how each chord is working within the song. In Jazz, every chord means something – it is either leading to another chord or being resolved to by something else. Understanding how these chords are functioning is a major step in knowing how to solo over them. 3) Learn the Melody. Be able to play the melody stylistically correct without much embellishment. Too often, inexperienced Jazz players treat the melody as a mere “suggestion” as a platform for their solo rather than giving it the importance it deserves as a melodic line that has stood the test of time. Notice how the melody moves and where it peaks in the phrase. Knowing the words of the song will help you to phrase the melody more musically. 4) When Soloing, View the Chords in Four Measure Segments. Most Jazz standards can be broken down into four measure phrases. Chords within these four measure segments are often relating to each other. Many times, players will solo based on one chord as it comes by, then solo over the next chord as it comes by rather then looking at a group of chords and trying to weave a line through each of the chords. As you solo, think of lines that weave in-between the changing notes of the chords in a phrase. This will create a much more musical solo. Learning Jazz standards is the core activity of the Jazz musician. As the great guitarist Tommy Emmanuel says, “People don’t want to hear you play scales or exercises, they want to hear songs.” If you’re familiar with and can play these timeless melodies then you’ll never be out of demand as a player.” SK’s Tips For Understanding The Real Book Volume 1 Play Along Tracks “The Real Book Play-Alongs are formatted a bit differently from standard play-alongs. They are designed to be a bit more like backing tracks to perform with. So often times there is an intro and a few variation in the chords from what is strictly notated in the written music. There doesn't seem to be a standard number of times that it goes through the song but they do follow a typical jazz form. INTRO (they may or may not have a 2 or 4 measure intro) MELODY OF THE SONG (Here you would play the melody of the song completely through the form. Typically this is an AABA form.) SOLO SECTION (Here you would solo over the chord changes for the entire form of the song. The background accompaniment gets a bit looser to feel more like a solo. This section, still over the entire AABA form, can be repeated several times.) MELODY OF THE SONG AGAIN (Then you go back to the main melody of the song - again, through the entire AABA form.) OUTRO/VAMP (The song might just end, or they may include a short outro or vamp section to the song.)”
    1 point
  6. Rock isn’t dead. Old people generally just can’t be bothered to listen to it. A few days on Pandora with an open mind is all anyone needs to know there are plenty of youngsters out there putting out killer rock and roll. The self indulgent 64 bar guitar solos may be absent, but it’s rock and roll never the less. The business has changed and these bands will likely not have auditorium shows, but rock has always been on the fringes of popular music and few acts of any genre reach that level. Swap “disco” for hip hop and this article could be from 40 years ago. Maybe Gibson, Fender and PRS are in trouble because they have gotten stupid with their product and are pushing products that few can afford and serve to convince potential customers of the inferiority of their lesser product lines. Maybe Guitar Center is in trouble because most of their stores are in slum malls, they are often staffed by uninformed and or rude/disinterested people, they carry a ton of junk no one wants and occasionally use bait and switch advertising.
    1 point
  7. It seems to me that a lot of the great music out there is more local now. With streaming and everything else, people aren't actually buying albums anymore, which takes away what used to be one of a musician's potential revenue streams. Now you have to make all your money by performing live, it would seem, unless you're the type who's going to get millions of plays on Spotify. It must be getting harder and harder to make a living as a musician. Not that I would know, since I'm only a hobbyist, just reading the tea leaves. So I agree with what someone said above, there's still lots of good music being made out there but fewer people know about each artist. There are many more small time artists and few big ones, except for the prefabricated pop stars who are more of a brand than a music act. But I think things will bounce back. The pendulum moves in every generation and eventually people will want to hear real music again.
    1 point
  8. Eagles documentary is really great @Randy120. So is Muscle Shoals.
    1 point
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  10. @Blue Dog About the four chords that killed the Pop music. I totally get it, but let’s not forget that from the functional harmony standpoint in tonal music, that’s all there’s to it. Yes, the 1-4-5-6 will get boring quickly if that’s all you play, but any progression no matter how sophisticated, at its core, boils down to the three basic functional elements: tonic, subdominant, and dominant: the 1-4-5. The other chords in a key function as either 1, 4, or 5. You can reharmonize the 1-4-5 by including the relative minor or vice versa, add passing and approach chords, using modal interchange (borrowing chords from parallel minor or vice versa), using secondary dominants, substitution chords, modulate to another key, use inversions, but at its core the progression pertaining to any specific key will be some combination of the 1-4-5. Bottom line: we can scoff at the simplicity of 1-4-5-6 as long as we understand it. A newbie might think they should avoid the progression altogether and wonder why every teacher begins the harmony lesson with the 1-4-5 progression.
    1 point
  11. This will be my first Guitar Gathering also! I have to admit that I'm not really a beginner but then again I'm not really an intermediate. Not sure how I will fit in but I'm looking forward to the experience. Thanks Diane for the info, it helped me a lot! Dale
    1 point
  12. Actually I have observed with interest the "Millennials" . My daughters are Millennials. I have found them to be the product of a very Liberal educational system, probably more Liberal indoctrination. I kept hearing some pretty far left philosophies coming home from schools. Even our TV shows are being censored now. Right wing leaning family shows like Last Man Standing are being removed from the air even though they have respectable ratings. While we are buried with Social Comments on Gender Benders and liberal talking points ad nauseum. Gave up TV myself as a waste of time. Millennials really are lacking in creativity today. Amazing, the education system is just cookie cutting out their grads who need Community College at the least to really say they are educated and ready to work. And their music is beyond the putrid. They demonstrate for women's rights and gender neutrality, all the while being indoctrinated by their rapcrap to listen to women being called "Hoes" and "B******" and useful for one thing. Rapcrap and Hip Hop should have their own awards so that real people can avoid it. I find it an infringement of parental authority and I am actually dead centre of the political spectrum.
    1 point

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