Cape Cod Acoustics
  • Home
  • Your Lessons
  • Performance services offered
  • About Gene
  • Contact
  • Guitars, Ukes & Accessories
  • Acoustic Guitar Blog
  • Tips for guitarists
  • Guitar Gallery
  • More...

My Wish

8/13/2016

0 Comments

 
Time marches on. We get reminded of that more and more as our years pass by. This is not news but how we deal with it makes all the difference. I was reminded of this a few times in the last few weeks. No more than a few days ago when my first grandchild, Clara Mae Juliette Winkel came into the world.
 
Here another cliché. No matter how well prepared you are for this reality of a grand child’s arrival you surely cannot predict the depth of emotion when you first hold that tiny person in your arms. A friend of mine who has two grandchildren said, it is the ultimate do-over. I suspect he is right. As I made the long four-hour drive back to the Cape from my daughter and her husband’s home in western Connecticut I had time to reflect on many things and I made a point to stop at the cemetery in Mystic to tell my parents about their new great grandchild. I also wanted them to know I was finally beginning to understand their unconditional love of my own children. I think they heard me.
 
As I drove along and listened to “My Girl” and Tom Rush’s wonderful “Lullaby” I began thinking about how music is so vital to our very souls. I see it just about every Sunday when I play at the Daily Brew café and even infants are drawn to the sound of the guitar. More than a few times I’ve watched as cranky young children suddenly go silent and stare in wonder at the sound. I absolutely believe the music is part of our genetic make-up and a person actually creating music versus a recording goes to the deepest place. I can’t wait to play for Clara, which will happen soon I hope.
 
That led me to wondering about just what music will be like when she is older. I hope that there will be more than the machine-generated electronica and repetitive, mind numbing rumble that seems to dominate much of popular music today. But I probably waste too much worrying about that. There is a reason that the music of the great classical composers has survived for hundreds of years. Also, the organic nature of producing instrumental and vocal music rather than just creating it on a computer will still speak to that deeper place.
 
It is impossible to predict exactly what will be popular in 20 or 30 years of course. I can only hope that the young songwriters and performers of today who ARE creating organic – dare I say, real music? – will then be the established voices of that music as we of the Old Guard become less relevant. And that they, too, will feel the need to perpetuate the respect for the simplicity of one person making music on a real instrument.
 
Welcome to the world, little Clara. My deepest wish is that the love that surrounds you will be nourished by beautiful music.
 
Peace & good music,
Gene

0 Comments

Questions...we get questions....

8/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Some interesting, thoughtful and sometimes downright bizarre questions I’ve heard from students over the years.
 
“Is there anything I can do to make my fingertips stop hurting? Can I put something on them that will help?”
 
Well, maybe. Or not. I would say this is the single most common question I hear from beginning guitarists. I’ve noticed some strange looking little finger condom thingies in my wholesale catalogs that are supposedly good for this purpose but I have no experience with them, nor have any of my guitarist friends. One student told me recently that he’d read about using Super Glue on fingertips to tough them up and reduce the pain. Maybe that works but being a fisherman who has used the stuff on broken lures I know it is a major pain to remove from fingers and you certainly wouldn’t want it on your guitar neck. Plus if it is not totally dry I would guess that chord changes would be suddenly very, very difficult – ha!
 
The truth is, nothing but playing and building up calluses is the best course of action. An added bonus is that this gives you a good excuse to avoid doing the dishes.
 
“Sorry honey, I just can’t do the dishes, my calluses with get all soft and I won’t be able to play!”  You may be able to get away with that one a time or two. But don’t count on it! Works for me from time to time. Shhhh!!!
 
“Why doesn’t my guitar sound as good as yours?”
 
Hoo boy, that is a delicate one. I usually gently explain that my $2000+ Martin had BETTER sound better than your $150 Yamaha or I definitely was ripped off! But the student almost always knows that the bottom line is experience. The trick for me is to frame that without implying that my ability is based on anything other than decades of hard work. I often relate the great little story I’ve mentioned here before about a show some years ago by the great Chet Atkins. Someone walked up to Chet during a break and said, wow Chet, that is a great sounding guitar. Yeah? said Chet. How does it sound now?
 
And on a somewhat related note….
 
“I just don’t feel like I’m making much progress. When will I be able to play well?”
 
The cynic in me wants to say, hey, I buy lottery tickets. When do you think I will win? But it’s much more complicated than that of course. Usually I relate it to the most basic element of playing, which is the fact that playing the guitar is on its most basic level a physical endeavor. The more you exercise, the more stamina and strength you develop. Doing moderate exercise on a frequent basis is much more effective that trying to do a lot on an infrequent basis. What goes hand-in-hand with that (sorry for the pun!) is being analytical about your playing. WHY is that chord change difficult? Pure repetition without careful examination hardly ever leads to success. And it’s all held together with rhythm, the most basic and essential musical concept.
 
And what is “playing well” anyway? Temper your expectations and celebrate small victories. A simple song played well is ultimately much more gratifying than playing a complex song poorly. Your listeners feel the same way. Trust me on that.
 
And finally, for today anyway…..
 
“I really like (fill in the blank…artist…style…). When will I be able to play like that?”
 
We all have musicians we admire and wish we could play like them or at least in their style. I sure do! I do try very hard in my weekly lesson planning session to think about each individual student’s interests, ability, progress and potential. I can use almost any style of music to demonstrate the basic concepts and I know that a student will be much more likely to practice a style that interests them. This is why I don’t use the standard guitar courses such as Mel Bay, Alfred’s or much of the Berklee course, although I sometimes use parts of all those. All I ask of my students is that they try to keep an open mind. They must have faith that what I’m giving them has value not just in terms of learning one particular song but in how that song demonstrates techniques that will be found in many other songs. The best part is that you may discover an artist or style that you really come to like and appreciate.
 
My wife Kathy spent all her entire career as a public school teacher and one thing I learned from her is the value of problem-solving and especially, unbiased critical thinking, things that are sadly lacking in many aspects of our modern world (witness the presidential election if you doubt this!).  Although I encourage and welcome questions from my students I can’t help but wonder if a bit more of those things would have value to a few of them. But I also realize that they are complimenting me when they ask those questions and for that I am grateful.
 
Peace & good music,
Gene
 
 

 

0 Comments

    Author

    Gene Bourque

    Archives

    November 2024
    September 2024
    July 2024
    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed