The School of Feedback Guitar LLC
The mission of the School of Feedback Guitar is to offer the most awesome guitar lessons in Austin, TX. The sole intention of the school is to enhance the musical creativity, maturity, and internal satisfaction of any person and musician who is chasing them. This is a place where the term "School" (and all that it traditionally signifies) is playfully tossed aside. Click Here to find out about taking guitar lessons at the School of Feedback Guitar
Blog and News
8-17-08'
Gonzalez is AWESOME!
OMG he is so awesome!
OMG He's Really Awesome! Here's Gonzalez and Feist dancing!
Waterloo Records has this record for like 18 Bucks! It's usually more! Listen to it, because it is a steal. It's the kind of record that keeps on giving back. It will pay for itself. Click on the picture to hear some!
8-13-08'
I was not looking forward to this.
So, my ipod finally died. No fun. I don't have any backups of my music either, which really sucks. This really could have happened at a better time. Eh. Whatever. But at least I have the protection plan. 1-2 weeks without an ipod? Silly technology. I've had compulsions to throw my cell phone into town lake once before. I want to at least bust it open and stomp on it sometime. Tempted to do this now with the ipod! Oh well.
Dave
8-8-08'
I think I am on to something
The last blog post that I did was on wrist position. Since understanding the concept of pulling the fingertips in a bit better, it has forced me to re-examine technical aspects of wrist position. With a student last night, we worked on an Arcade Fire song (Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)). It's a great song, but it is in the key of F Major. Anyone who has played guitar knows how difficult it is to play an F Major chord. My hand still cramps up from it, and worse- the wrist has to bend in order to play it. It's a nightmare chord. However, last night- this student and I both experimented with pulling our fingertips toward the center of our palms while we were fretting the chord. The result? Much diminished amount of hand-cramping. Pretty cool.
In totally un-related news, The Nasty Rumors, the band that I play in, is going to be playing a show at Beerland this evening at 10:00 pm. It would be swell to see you.
Dave
8-3-08'
One "hmmmmm..." and one "AHA!"
"hmmmmm..."
I took a Yoga class this morning. One of the positions was to balance on my hands while my shins rested on my triceps. I couldn't do it, obviously. But the instructor said something cool. "When your hands are on the floor, pull your fingertips toward the center of your palm. In Yoga, we need to do this to avoid injury in the wrists." So that got me wondering about wrist position. If the wrist is bent, then it's not in the strongest place it can be (imagine professional boxers with their wrists best and trying to punch eachother).
It has always bugged me about barre chords that I had to watch my wrists bend just to make the chord sound ok. Usually I try to adjust my own posture to make up for it. Now I wonder if either my attention should be focused on pulling the fingertips toward the center of the palm. More on this later.
"AHA!"
An excerpt from the book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards:
"Learning to draw, therefore, turns out not to be 'learning to draw.' Paradoxically, learning to draw means learning to access at will that system in the brain that is the appropriate one for drawing. Putting it another way, accessing the visual mode of the brain-the appropriate mode for drawing-causes you to see in the special way an artist sees. The artist's way of seeing is different from ordinary seeing and requires an ability to make mental shifts at concious level. Put another way and perhaps more accurately, the artist is able to set up conditions that cause a cognitive shift to 'happen.'" (italics added)
I knew it! Playing guitar is the same. For example, if I were to teach a new student who is starting from absolute scratch, I probably would start off with just learning basic chords, finding the wrist position that works best for them, getting a tone they like, and being comfortable. The very next thing I do is work on rhythm.
It's a common thing that I have noticed that people mess up doing rhythm when they think about it. Learning guitar is all about a correct balance of intellectual stimulation and playing. The more correct the balance, the better and faster the student learns. After the student has a lot of knowledge about the guitar, it becomes a game of how well the student can "give up." The more a student learns to set aside notions of what is right or wrong, if they are good or not, and even the state of thinking about theory while playing (in short, conciously switching to the "right-brain" mode of perceiving) the more fun they have.
Yeah!
Dave
7-14-08
Quote of the Year
From the book, "This is your Brain on Music," by Daniel J. Levitin
"It's a shame that many people are intimidated by the jargon musicians, music theorists, and cognitive scientists throw around. There is specialized vocabulary in every field of inquiry (try to make sense of a full blood-analysis from your doctor). But in the case of music, music experts and scientists could do a better job of making their work accessible." (italics added).
7-6-08
No rest.
The type of tired I am feeling right now goes like this: No matter what my hands are doing, what my brain is thinking, my conciousness is about a year away from recognizing it. It's crazy.
For starters, The Nasty Rumors spent 2 full days in Sweatbox Studios, tracking for our debut record. It's been a tough process. I spent nearly 2 hours yesterday tracking the guitar along for one song, and today was about the same deal. You should have seen it though. I had these amps lined up, and at my disposal:
- Ampeg Gemeni (mid 1960's)
- Star Amp (it's this little green amp that has amazing tone)
- Fender Blues Junior
- Vox (this amp was used by Minor Threat AND Fugazi. Crazy)
- Legend
- Ernie Ball Music Man
- Leslie
It seems like everything I have been doing has no previous precedent in my personal life. Like accepting resumes for teachers; I am going to expand the school very soon. Soon enough, this school will be serving more of the Austin community. Wild. To top it all off, my new personal site for music (diehipsterdie.com) is nearing completion, and looks pretty cool. It won't be long.
I'm really looking forward to when I can sit down, and look at the amount of stuff I have accomplished, merely in the past 2 weeks. It's been a little too crazy to even take a moment.
Dave
6-17-08
Nice Teaching
It is always a trip to see teachers doing work on their own curricula. I believe that doing any work on the presentation of one's material couldn't be better for one's students. It may mean putting a different picture here, a different sized font there, or it could mean making a major change in the order or presentation. Ultimately, these changes keep the curriculum fresh for them to teach (A happy and engaged teacher usually teaches happy and engaged students). But what if the curriculum doesn't get worked on? What if it becomes stagnant? It is my belief that the curriculum then becomes an slightly-navigatable mine-pool of frustration.
For example, I am currently learning to play jazz drums. It's been something I've fantasized about doing for years, and now that I have the chance to be loud and practice in a house, I am doing it. Of course, I am stumbling around with my frustration, but I am learning because I tend to be tenacious. If I were to go to a teacher, the relationship that this person and I would develop would bypass any frustrations that I would have in regards to my lack of ability to play. They would likely be supportive like, "Cmon Dave, you know you are better than that. You can play it! Just do it!" (are there any other teachers out there who consider themselves professional cheerleaders?!?) Unfortunately, because I'm not working with a teacher, the best I can do is work out of a book. I like the book. It's ok. There is a wealth of info in it. The problem is the book is layed out such that the challenges are often not commiserate with my ability to push through them. In other words, there are points in this book where the challenge of completing a particular excersize is too high, especially for my beginning ability. Thus, frustration.
Private lesson teachers often develop their personality to help students cope with inevitable frustration. They might become very exciting dynamic persons to work with, fun supportive. The danger of developing one's personality to help students is that they might get burnt out. They might begin to subscribe to the cynical idea that none of their students have any talent. A safe middle point between becoming a jerk and being superman (or wonder-woman) often means modifying, updating, and re-organizing curriculum to make it easier to learn. It is my opinion that a well developed but flexible curriculum is the hallmark of a good and happy teacher. The teacher sits down with any student, presents the material to work with the student's strengths and weaknesses, and voila- the student learns much faster. Sold yet? Well, the bad news is that any curriculum is far from perfect, and updating them takes more of our attention often than we are likely to want to give to it. A teacher has to battle their own frustrations and fatigue. The good news is that we, as music teachers, can reach more people and stay professional musicians longer if we work on how we teach just as much as what we teach.
I consider it great fun to teach. It isn't what I was born to do admittantly, but I like doing it. What is bad about playing guitar all day? If I teach less frustrated persons, that is a load off of my back. I like working with happy people anyways.
Dave
---------------------------
Older Blogs
