News 2022
December 19, 2022: Future of Music: Interview with Ted Gioia: To try and describe all the dimensions and history of this guy is futile.
December 14: 2022: Free Lesson, Blog Links & More! December Newsletter: FREE lesson on Cowboy C, Blog Links and Tune-of-the-Month!
November 28, 2022: Henriksen Bud SIX: It’s the size of a freakin’ toaster! It weighs 13 pounds!
November 21, 2022: Memorable Bar Fights: The first few bar fights I witnessed I was shocked and traumatized. However, I quickly developed a detachment and learned to appreciate them for their drama and entertainment value.
November 20, 2022: Republished: The Harmonic Minor Distinctive: The concept is that we’re starting from the most commonly-known scale among guitarists, the Minor Pentatonic, and altering or adding a single note to get the distinctive sound of whatever scale/mode we’re after.
November 16, 2022: Cowboy Chords, Blog Links & More! November newsletter: FREE lesson, blog links & more!
November 1, 2022: Role Reversal: "We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters." - Yoda
October 24, 2022: Easy Lesson: The Aeolian/Dorian Distinction: Rather than go through a lengthy explanation of what modes are and where they come from, I'm going to approach this from a more limited and practical viewpoint. I am starting from something simple and easy to understand, the Minor Pentatonic Scale.
October 22, 2022: Republished: How I Play Songs I Don't Know: It has been a very common experience of mine that the organist will throw curve balls just to test me. For instance, he'll start a song, not tell me the name of the song or the key it's in and simply expect me to pick it up. Most of the time I can do that even if I don't know the song and have never even heard it before. "How?" you may ask? Well, I'll tell you.
October 12, 2022: Free Lesson, Blog Links, Tune of the Month! October Newsletter.
September 19, 2022: Stumbling into the Spanish 8-Tone Scale: During my solo, I stumbled around for a second and, totally by chance/intuition hit upon a symmetrical pattern on the fretboard that worked.
September 14, 2022: New Lesson Series, Blog Links & More! September Newsletter: New Lesson Series, Blog Links, Tune of the Month & More!
September 5, 2022: To Loop or not to Loop?: I'm getting paid to have fun; you can't argue with that.
August 22, 2022: Crafter SA-TMVS Hybrid Acoustic-Electric: This guitar is well-put together.
August 15-19: Launched Going Modal: An Alternative Approach to Modes for the Guitar.
August 10, 2022: Going Modal! The Spanish 8-Tone Scale: August Newsletter: FREE lesson on the Spanish 8-Tone Scale, new product announcement, blog links and more!
August 1, 2022: Jim Dandy to the Rescue!: In September of 2008 I was playing in a band that opened for Black Oak Arkansas in Platte City, Missouri. The event was a motorcycle rally. “This could be cool!” I thought. Well…
July 27, 2022: Republished: Blues Plus (1): I took a phone call at my teaching studio one day that went something like this; "I’m new in town, I recently moved here from Austin. I got your number from the guitar player at the jam at Jimmy’s Jigger last night. They called a Blues in Bb. I’ve been playing guitar professionally for over 20 years and what we call a Blues in Austin ain’t what you Kansas City guys are doing! There were tons of chords! I was totally lost! It was humbling. I need you to show me what y'all are doing.” I'm going to give you what I gave him; I call it, "Blues Plus."
July 13, 2022: Going Modal! Chromatic Scale: FREE lesson on the Chromatic Scale, Blog links, Tune-of-the -Month and more!
July 4, 2022: Republished Quick & Dirty Altered Dominants: A quick primer on altered dominant chords: 15 fretboard diagrams, 5 exercises and links to free downloads!
June 20, 2022: 2-Note Jazz Chords: When comping behind a vocalist or a soloist, playing these 2-note chords leaves space for the bass player and the keyboardist to do their thing. Trust me, they'll appreciate you for it!
June 15, 2022: Going Modal! Diminished: Going Modal! FREE lesson on the Diminished scale, plus blog links & Tune of the Month (Jeannine)!
June 6, 2022: Pretending to be Danny: "This," I said to myself, "is the guy!"
May 30, 2022: How I Sabotage My Music Career - And Why
May 23,2022: Integrity & the Music Biz: The agent told me the concept was to be that of “a kick-ass band of superior musicians who don’t care what they look like." So...not caring about what we looked like was because we cared about not caring about what we looked like! The concept was right down my alley because caring about what I looked like was just an act I put on so I could get gigs; I really didn’t care about what I looked like. So for this agent I had to pretend to care about what I looked like so I could act like I didn’t care about what I looked like…all the while really not caring about what I looked like. Stupid shit like that happens all the time in the music business when you care about what you look like. Now I’m getting kind of old so how good could I look…really?!
May 16, 2022: 2-Note Blues Chords: If you play through the 12-bar Blues form using just these 2-note chords, you should be able to "hear" the form. You'll be staying out of the keyboard players' way and you'll be staying out of the bass player's way. They will appreciate that!
May 10, 2022: Going Modal! The Augmented Scale: FREE lesson on the Whole-Tone Scale, blog links, Tune of the Month and more!
May 2, 2022: The Norvells: The backstory on the Norvells and how they wound up in the club that night will take some telling that involves the Kansas City mob, a porno movie theater, a massage parlor and the band, "Cloud".
April 25, 2022: Jam Tales: Marilyn Maye: "Well, I can never do that song again, it's been ruined for me forever!"
April 18, 2022: The Harmonic Minor Distinctive: The basic concept of this "Modal Distinctives" series is that you can get to the distinctive sound of a mode without learning the whole mode, or getting all confused by modal theory, but by adding, or altering, a single note of the most commonly-known scale among guitarists; the Minor Pentatonic.
April 13, 2022: Going Modal: Lydian Dominant: FREE lesson on the Lydian Lydian Dominant scale, blog links, Tune of the Month and more!
April 4, 2022: Jam Tales: Off Broadway: This is the true story of singer Jim LaFortes’ infamous jump from the Broadway Bridge into the Missouri River.
March 28, 2022: Picking Peril: “Dude! Did I see you give Mama Ray the finger on live TV?”
March 21, 2022: You Just Have To Laugh: David wanted to talk about my history, my family and how I’ve maintained healthy relationships with my wife, kids and grandchildren AND maintained a successful music career. So there’s more personal stuff than I usually share publicly. I wanted to talk about what I’m focused on now - MasterGuitarSchool.com and the conversion of my teaching method to the internet environment. We covered it all, and more on Davids’ podcast!\
March 14, 2022: Jam Tales: Roland Allen: I thought he was an interesting guitarist/singer – very soulful.
March 9, 2022: Going Modal: Melodic Minor! Free lesson on the Melodic Minor Scale, blog links and Tune of the Month!
February 28, 2022: Into the Mystic: There is something very deep and primal about music. Beyond the industry, beyond all the theory, beyond the feeling, beyond the physics, beyond everything you can say or think about it, there is something deep and mysterious about it.
February 21, 2022: Jam Tales: Don Warner: He was turd-plated gold.
February 14, 2022: Blues Plus (4): Bop Blues, A.K.A. the Charlie Parker Changes, with variations
February 8, 2022: Going Modal! Harmonic Minor!: FREE lesson on the Harmonic Minor Scale, blog links, podcast and more!
January 31, 2022: Blues Plus (3): Walkdown, the Walkup & Stormy Monday.
January 28, 2022: Jay on David Naster's podcast, You Just Have To Laugh. David wanted to talk about my family and how I’ve maintained healthy relationships with my wife, kids and grandchildren AND maintained a successful music career. So there’s more personal stuff than I usually share publicly. I wanted to talk about what I’m focused on now - MasterGuitarSchool.com and the conversion of my teaching method to the internet environment. We covered it all on Davids’ podcast.
January 27, 2022: Blues Plus (2): The I-VI-II-V Turnaround and Tritone Substitutions!
January 17, 2022: Blues Plus (1): I took a phone call at my teaching studio one day that went something like this; "I’m new in town, I recently moved here from Austin. I got your number from the guitar player at the jam at Jimmy’s Jigger last night. They called a Blues in Bb. I’ve been playing guitar professionally for over 20 years and what we call a Blues in Austin ain’t what you Kansas City guys are doing! There were tons of chords! I was totally lost! It was humbling. I need you to show me what y'all are doing.” I'm going to give you what I gave him; I call it, "Blues Plus."
January 12, 2022: Going Modal! The Money Note (Part 2): Monthly Newsletter: FREE lesson on modes, blog links, new product launches and more!
January 3, 2022: Jam Tales: 14 Rookie Mistakes: Things that go wrong at jams, and what we do to compensate.