philosophy of guitar

Doing original pieces like this is what gives me great satisfaction: Having a conversation (although you won’t hear me in these videos) with folks who are passionate about the same things I am - then share it with you.

I was honored that Paul agreed to be my first video interviewee. He has always been supportive of my work, no matter how ambitious the ventures have been, and indeed was the first major contributor to my now defunct blogs, The Words Palette and The Sound Palette.

When I’d mapped out the mission of Guitarkadia (back in July when it wasn’t called that) I knew I wanted Paul’s take on the effect of guitar on American culture. More specifically, how had the sound, look, and feel of guitar influenced the latter part of 20th Century American culture. If you’ve browsed through the list of books he’s written, you’d know he’s the person to talk to.

Part Two and Three of this conversation will go up tomorrow and Friday. Be sure to visit and subscribe to Paul’s excellent blog, Infinite Regress.

Paul Levinson [Bio] [Books] [MySpace] [Facebook] [Blog] [Twitter]

Watch Part Two of Conversation with Paul Levinson.

Coming Soon: Interviews with - Iron Horse, Benji Rogers, Jeremiah Furr of The Relyx, and many more.

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Give music you don’t often listen to, or don’t listen to at all, a try. It might have more in common with what you’ve been trying to say with yours more than you think it does.

Music is music is music. Defining genre and style to music will only minimize your learning experience. When you say ‘I don’t like country music’ it might just be that you don’t the word ‘country.’ It is possible. Classical music has similar connotations. It brings to mind suits, monocles, hand fans, and overweight, sweaty singers. Don’t blame you.

But those images are maybe what keeps you from giving classical music a try. If you’re a guitar player, you’d be losing out by only listening to guitar. Guitar is just one voice. There are many other voices that have similar feelings, similar heartache, similar dreams your voice - the guitar - does. Listening to what they have to say just may be what you need…to ’speak’ clearly and have meaning.

Classical music is just music with a three syllable identifier. It reeks of ‘Do Not Trespass’ a sign. Fuck that. Let it introduce itself to you the way it knows best - without human-made definitions and without rules that shouldn’t have been attached to it in the first place. But if you must require a person to introduce you to classical music - music - let it be someone like Ben Zander.

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I put Part 1 in the title because there is no one way to listen to music. Periodically I’ll share stuff like this about how people listen. You see, we tend to forget that what we don’t listen to won’t be there when we need inspiration to write. Makes sense?

Once in a while you need to put aside your guitar and walk away from the piece of music you’ve been sweating over to learn. Then you need to kick back, close your eyes and listen to the same music. You’ll notice there were so many elements of the piece you hadn’t heard of when you were just focused on learning it.

Side tip: this may be obvious to most but if you’re having problems learning a phrase, try to hum it. If you’re stumbling you need to listen to the piece again and hum along to it until you get it. Once you’ve done it, give those finger on those strings a try. It will work.

Listening is an art. It’s more physical and touch-sensitive than you could’ve ever imagined. Evelyn Glennie’s presentaion will open the eyes of your ears. She’s amazing!

Enjoy!

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I swear - only if I knew why it is taking me so long to edit and post these videos. I do know - the medical term is ‘laziness’.

Some of the catchiest melodies of that day came from Habib Koite’s performance. People tried, but weren’t able to stand still; the rhythm was just too infectious! Go over to his MySpace page and check out ‘Africa.’ Mm mm.

HABIB KOITE and BAMADA: [Bio] [Albums] [Tour] [Site] [MySpace]

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