June 2011 Blog Posts (21)

Jackie (my wife) and I went to Larry's (the drummer for the band) wake today. It started at 2 P.M. and we were one of the first ones there. In the lobby there were several posters filled with photos. I saw a part of Larry's life that I'd never seen before.

He and his wire Donna looked so young and attractive in the photos of their early married years.The photos of their son, Larry III now 28, as an infant and adolescent were eye openers as well. This part of Larry I never knew. When…

Today, at the end of my weekly guitar lesson, my teacher told me that he'd like to present me for an audition next year. So I'll choose, or we'll choose together, a solo piece on steel string guitar or classical guitar, no matter the style of music. Then I'll study within a year and I'll go to the audition. I take it as a nice challenge, but I'm also a bit nervous - already! - about it. Indeed, I guess playing at an audition isn't like playing in front of a regular audience. There may be…

Last week I blogged on how I was working on an arrangement of the classic song Misty. Click the link below to go to a performance of my arrangement

http://www.fingerpickingguitar.org/category/guitar-blog/

Practice is really worth it. Today I can finally play bossa nova standard Samba De Uma Nota So (One-Note Samba) almost well. The transciption I've got has a part featuring a classic bossa chord-melody progression (with 4-string chord patterns), with a bossa…

Stringletter, the company that publishes Acoustic Guitar and Strings, lost a dear friend and long-time board member this week, A. Whitney Ellsworth, who died in his home in Salisbury, Connecticut on June 18.  He was 75 years old; the immediate cause was pancreatic cancer.…

Tomorrow here in France, it'll be music day, as it's always been on every June 21 since 1981. It's a big celebration all over the country, with many free gigs everywhere on the streets. Here in Tours, there are a lot of amateur and pro musician (Mick Jagger even owns a mansion nearby!!). I'm posting this message today because, obviously, I'll be wandering around downtown tomorrow evening!!! ^^ Do you guys have same kind of celebration in your countries?

Here are some exerpts…

I've been slowly but surely losing my enthusiasm for guitar. I still have the desire to play, but I don't pick it up nearly as often as I used to. I used to play hours a day at a time, but in the last few months, I just haven't been picking it up too often.

I was going to major in music education for guitar, like my father had. I got accepted to Musician's Institute in California. I wanted to go there for a year of playing with some of the greatest teachers out there. I was…

I couldn't resist doing a little shameless bragging here.  "A Time Of Innocence" ranked #1 for May on the Zone Music Reporter World Top 100 Radio Chart.  Many thanks to Ed Bonk for his promotional expertise, to everyone that has given so much airplay support, and to all those who reported to ZMR.

Many thanks too for the wonderful reviews from…

I’m currently working an arrangement of the song Misty. It was written in 1954 by the pianist Errol Garner, originally as an instrumental. However, it’s always good to get familiar with a vocal version of a song before starting an arrangement and I particularly like the version by Ella Fitzgerald in the songbook pages. As for a guitar instrumental version, Joe Pass’s version on his album Vituoso #2 in the …

Some very cool history here.

He talks in detail about all the musicians he played with during the International Harvesters period (1984-1985). I was lucky enough to see one of their shows in 1984. They announced the show earlier that day and I had to rush to get tickets.

They played a small country western bar so got to see them up…

Jackie, my wife, and I went to visit Larry today. Larry is the drummer I've made reference to in my other posts.



He is in very bad shape having lost a lot of weight. His face is drawn and he is rail thin, This was a 6' 3", 230 lb. framed guy. Sitting before me was a skeleton of the man I knew.

He was having a "good" day and that was less than perfect. He was obviously in a lot of pain but had only taken Tylenol so he wouldn't be in a stupor or fall asleep while we…

(« Emanation of light » by Limonc)

Back in 1998, I underwent a very peculiar experience, indeed, thus far at least, a once-in-a-lifetime event, which opened many doors for me and confirmed some of the directions I had previously chosen.

In time, I came to consider this occurrence as an instance of satori, a sudden…

So I started working on my new album.  I'm calling it "Alive".  I started writing and arranging pieces for it over two years ago.  I've got my new home studio built and set up.  I've already started working on the first piece.  

I've always wondered what the recording process of some of my favorite musicians was like or any behind the scenes videos of how they do things.  I get really excited when I see a video like Pat Metheny talking about how he uses the Bose L1 system or…

(« Glass of Beer and Playing Cards » by Juan Gris)