Skype/Gmail/Facetime video guitar lessons now available. FREE INTRO LESSON! PAYPAL now accepted. International customers welcome.
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Guitarist Karl Straub ("a world class original on electric guitar"-- CD BABY) can now do SKYPE lessons in various styles-- COUNTRY, FLATPICKING, WESTERN SWING, BLUES, ROCKABILLY, ETC.
The Ink Spots were a pre-rock vocal group. Along with great harmonies and amusingly ponderous recitations (which probably influenced Elvis), their records featured classic single-note riffs plus chord-melody guitar intros. (Huey Long, a guy who played some of these intros, just died at 105. I don't think he played on this cut, but I'm not sure.) Usually, the guitar intro arrangement was the same one they used on every other record; sometimes with a slight variation. (One of my first experiences with a compact disc was listening to each successive intro on an Ink Spots collection; with the new technology, it was now possible to hear twenty Ink Spots guitar intros in about a minute. They were almost all the same.)
This is "Java Jive," more of a fun novelty than their typical material, most of which is in a ballad vein. Classic!
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I'm listening to some solo "experimental" music by guitarist Anthony Pirog. It's excellent. Anthony is using a pretty broad palette here. Many sounds on here have wandered far away from traditional notions of what "music" is; lack of clear pitch identity and use of unorthodox sonic sources (plus no doubt some other things I didn't notice yet!) Many would hear this recording and dismiss it as bullshit for these reasons. I wouldn't, though; nor do I dismiss music as "not music" if it doesn't check every box on the list of what music "should be."
On the other hand, I don't question the idea of a check list of desirable musical elements. I use one myself when evaluating music. Everyone does this, including people who say they don't. It's just that different people have dramatically different checklists. Most people have a fairly short list, I imagine, but the crucial difference between mine and those of "most people" (an assumption, of course, but it's definitely based on data I've observed), is that we weight certain items very differently.
For instance, traditional indicators of competence such as intonation and tuning have remained in place in the culture regardless of certain significant factors. These factors include the shading and blurring of intonation used in African-American blues idioms (in fact, a highly complex, if mostly intuitive, system of expressive devices) and the reality of keeping stringed instruments in tune in weather-affected environmental conditions.
Whether you're talking about the blues (with its unorthodox use of rough timbre, between-the-cracks intonation, etc.) or "twentieth-century classical" compositional innovations (unorthodox musical sources such as devices not designed to produce music, alteration of traditional instruments such as Cage's prepared piano, etc.) it should be clear that music has been made that deviates from long-established norms. The only real issue is how to evaluate this music. I argue that music avoiding "standard practice" in some areas should be evaluated on its achievement in other areas. I would further argue that, in many cases, inability to evaluate music this way reflects a lack of knowledge of the other areas.
has a large variety of timbral mixtures and dynamics. It's an example of my view that music trafficking in so-called "avant-garde" sound should demonstrate mastery of other musical and structural elements. The balance of colors and textures here is complex. There is a variety of register as well, and dynamics shift from one color to another quite often. It seems to me that much "avant-garde" music is, once you can accept radical notions of the use of sonic textures, actually pretty bland and dull. When formal considerations are ignored, even the craziest use of sound can be as boring as beer-commercial music.
In short, I am happy to listen to music both traditional and not; this is because, for me, an ability to play traditional instruments with some basic level of competence is not, in fact, directly connected to a mastery of music itself. There is a difference between a writer and a typist; an orator and an auctioneer are masters of unrelated arts. The issue is your material, not your instrument. I admire techical mastery of any instrument, but it's a non-musical achievement; it's more like learning to climb a ladder without falling off, or driving a stick shift. Technique should always be in service of the idea. When technique is allowed to dictate musical decisions, artistry flags.
GEORGE BARNES, complete transcription "CHICKEN IN THE ROUGH."
This is Barnes's jazz version of the fiddle tune Chicken Reel, a traditional piece heard in many cartoons and movies, Foghorn Leghorn, etc. It's three minutes of Barnes soloing, from his rare-as-hen's-teeth "COUNTRY JAZZ" album. It's pretty much a guitar lesson in every bar. D.C picker Jim Stephanson told me that Danny Gatton learned every lick on this record years ago. I sell this transcription for $15.00. Email me for info, karlstraub@hotmail.com.
SKYPE/GMAIL/FACETIME VIDEO LESSONS AND TRANSCRIPTIONS. INTERNATIONAL ORDERS WELCOME.
"Cool Blues," by Charlie Parker. live Combo with Jim Stephanson.
"In a Mellow Tone," by Duke Ellington. live Chicken Fried Swing, with Ira Gitlin.
"Stone's Rag," traditional fiddle tune, solo acoustic demo.
Karl Straub teaches guitar privately in Arlington, Virginia. For information about lessons, go to guitarteacherkarlstraub.blogspot.com You can email Karl for additional information at karlstraub@hotmail.com. For those who live elsewhere, Karl can also do "virtual lessons", where he answers questions and provides transcriptions and guitar exercises tailored to the individual player. If there's a guitar lick, solo, fill, chord, etc. that you can't figure out, email Karl and he can help. It's now possible for Karl to record a video of himself playing and explaining musical examples. These can be sent to the student in email, and even put on an Ipod/Iphone. If you are interested in doing a lesson this way, please email Karl with an explanation of what music you want to work on, and he can give you a cost estimate.
I encourage people to print out the musical notation examples as a single copy for personal use. Other use is forbidden without written permission of Karl Straub. Feel free to link to my material.
HOW TO USE THESE LESSONS
Transcribing has its limitations, and even to get an incomplete representation of what someone played can take tons of time. I've noticed that when I make transcriptions for my students, they often ignore a lot of the articulation suggestions I put in, because they are struggling just to read the notes. For these reasons, I've decided to streamline my transcriptions, leaving out some of the fussier and more obsessive details. In spite of this, I still feel they are among the more accurate ones you'll find on the net. Please feel free to email me (karlstraub@hotmail.com) or post comments about any mistakes you find, along with questions or suggestions. I suggest you use the transcriptions as a rough guide to the recordings, and do plenty of listening to the originals. Sometimes I'll record my versions, usually I suggest you listen to the originals.
USING THE LESSON MATERIAL in some cases, I offer specific suggestions about how to use the material in a lesson. In the absence of anything specific to a particular lesson, here are my general recommendations.
1. If it's at all possible, work through an entire lesson. When your schedule makes it impossible for you to do this, there's a lot of value in taking small pieces (even just a couple bars) and practicing them repetitively. I recommend practicing things in sets of ten. This means picking out some amount of material that you can play correctly ten times in a row. In some cases, you'll get a technique exercise. In others, you may hear an idea that you can use to expand your vocabulary. 2. If reading is frustrating for you, even tablature-- keep these ideas in mind. Even a good reader is going to fumble reading some parts; reading is just plain hard sometimes. Try to use your reading skills in conjunction with listening-- reading becomes more fun when you can look at notation and hear it in your head. When necessary, use the notation more as a doublecheck reference than your primary source. Just make sure that you doublecheck to make sure you're playing something as written. No doubt most of what I've come up with can be improved upon, but the key is to clarify your musical thought by forcing yourself to play what is written. When you can do that, feel free to embellish what I have here. It's fun playing what another great guitarist played-- but it's only an interim step.
My name is Karl Straub. My training is in music education, but I am also a member of that most admired of all categories, the self-appointed Internet pundit and radio host. If you need someone to play Telecaster, or to bloviate, or both, I'm your man!