Goals and Education
NEW CLASS! Music Crew plays The 90s UNPLUGGED
Play the music from the legendary MTV live sessions.
Play the music from the legendary MTV live sessions.
Four of my pieces up at FUSION until June 22, 2025.
Four of my pieces up at FUSION until June 22, 2025.
How cool is this? Jonas asked me to make a guest post for Banjo After Dark!
In the previous post I wrote a about recording recording Little Birdie with puja and maria. That got me thinking about Frank Hamilton who taught me that song when I went to visit him in 2010.
This video is our first take of the song. It isn’t the one that made the album, but I love this version just the same.
Eventually, something inside me clicked and I thought, “Oh. The kids don’t have school. We should go visit Ella!”
Jess Baldissero is not only a good friend, she is one of my favorite songwriters. I was honored that she sat with me earlier in the week to discuss the discoveries and accidents of the creative process. We shared some laughs, talked about good times and hard times and we each played a few songs. Audio and Video Audio Only Getting to Know Trees knowingtrees.com · Songwriters' Exchange with Jason McInnes and Jess Baldissero Three tracks from The Hermit, my debut solo album are streaming during the pre-order period. The full album will be released June 28, 2024 on Bandcamp. http://joybird.bandcamp.comPick up Jess’s music, featuring her band Joybird, at Bandcamp also.
Musical Dreaming – it’s a practice that I took part in, but had never really considered until some great chats with my old friend John Donahue. I think about John and his musical dreaming a lot when I meet with frustrated students. https://vimeo.com/949795666?share=copy Dreaming with Your Guitar .pdf They wanted to play more. They’re just too busy. They’re frustrated with the pace of their progress. They’re overwhelmed and don’t know what to practice. I get it. I feel that way about music all the time. Thankfully, I’ve developed some strategies to get me out of such a funk and this is one of them. Next time you don’t know what to play, or are bored or frustrated with the same old songs, try some dreaming. The video is the best description I can make of this process. I’ve also made a .pdf that has some drawings that can be useful, but there’s very little instruction on it. I hope you find this useful.
“This is a great solo to start on—it’s simple, clear, and articulate; it will teach you how to hear clear phrases and how to hear bends (which make up a significant part of the solo). It will teach you a couple of fairly sophisticated ideas while being very simple and satisfying to play.” John Mead We’ve been working on Dead Flowers in some recent Guitar Crew meetups and recently a student asked “Do you know how to play the guitar solo?” I thought, I don’t but I know EXACTLY who does. Check out this killer lesson from one of my very closest friends, and a truly gifted educator, John Mead. Sure missing hanging out with this guy! Download the pdf. You’ll notice that John makes the point that, “THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a ‘pentatonic major scale.’ Now, if you know me and my teaching, you’ll know that soloing with the major pentatonic scale is a core skill of my introductory improvising lessons. Ha!But, I totally get where he’s coming from and there’s a lot of truth to it. If you’ve had those introductory lessons from my, I highly recommend digging into this lesson to put some of those concepts into practice and to take you’re playing to a new space. John is an incredible teacher, player and music philospher. Give him a shout if you’re looking to turn up your guitar playing. John’s there to help you make that happen. Contact John
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