Finger Nails

Most guitar and ukulele musicians realize that nail care is a part of being a good musician.  However, very few of us play often enough to need to think beyond just keeping yourself well groomed.  I know of a several musicians that keep a nail care kit that has a clipper and a file in their case or gig bag.

But what happens when you play a lot?

Well, by a lot I mean two or more hours a day, every day.  That is close to what I average.  Some days, it seems more like I will get a four hour day in.  This can be rough on your nails.

The way I strum ukuleles is by using the top of my index finger for down strums (and the pad for up). Even on nylon strings this can wear down a finger nail quickly.  In addition, I noticed recently that when I play guitar, I tend to graze that same nail across the top of the strings even when I am using a pick!

It is because of this that I started asking the wonderful ladies in my life about nail care.  Guys, you won't believe the amount of good info the ladies have on nail care.  It's kind of impressive!  After this "research", I've come up with a few habits that guitarists and ukuleleists should have when it comes to nail care:

The 4 Nail Care Habits of Effective Musicians

1. 1. Moisturize - You'd be surprised how much just keeping your hands well moisturized will help with your nail health.  
2. 2. Vitamin E - Using a nail specific vitamin E application will keep the nail bed healthy and strong.
3. 3. Trim Them Often - Everyone's nails grow at different speeds.  If you are like me, you should plan on trimming them weekly, not just when the "need it".
4. 4. Hard as Nails - Lastly, when you find out that you have a nail that gets worn more than the others, use a product called Sally Hansen Hard as Nails with Nylon. It will keep them hard and won't wear off near as much as the nail itself.

Other Tips

A lot of players use the press on type of acrylic nails.  Everything I have read about them makes me cringe.  The talk is that your nail will eventually get a fungus and fall off.  I'm guessing you don't want that.

If you really need the longer finger nails for picking (and some do), my advice is to go to a salon and tell them you are a guitarist/ukuleleist and that you need only one hand (or so many fingers) done with gels.  Gels will last a while.  Once you are used to them, you can probably invest in the equipment (lamp, applicator, etc) to do them at home.

Of course, all of this is for your right (picking) hand.  For your left hand, the best thing is to keep them short and clean.  I've had students before who had longer finger nails and liked getting them done up.  Hell, Dolly Parton performed with strangely long nails!  But, you aren't Dolly Parton.  Odds are, if you have longer nails, they are getting in the way.  Make the sacrifice and cut 'em down.  You'll thank me later.

~Danny

Folk Alliance Music Camp: Getting Closer

As I've been getting closer to the February Music Camp, I've been refining my Swing Guitar Lesson and getting more and more excited.  Then, the other day I get in contact with one of the organizers and discover that not only will I be giving a workshop on Swing Guitar, but I will also be doing one on Swing Ukulele (as well as leading a few Ukulele jams).

No details are set yet, but I've already had to send in a synopsis of each lesson.  The trick was, I'm don't really have the Ukulele workshop written yet!!!


Now, I'm scrambling a little to get my draft finished so I can iron it out.

The cool thing is, I've never really thought about Swing Ukulele the same way I do Swing Guitar.  Because of the regular repertoire inherent in the Ukulele culture, which is very saturated with swing tunes as much as it is with folk and classic rock, I've always felt Swing Ukulele was sort of a natural part of any Ukulele player's repertoire.

But, now I'm really looking at it.  I'm breaking down what I do already and what I find myself working on in this genre.  What I'm finding is that there really are some differences between just playing Ukulele and playing Swing Ukulele.  What is even more astounding to me is the amount of differences I've finding between Swing Guitar and Swing Ukulele!

Eventually, I'll post a lot of my findings and ultimately my lesson here.  But for now, I think I need to concentrate on writing and polishing both lessons and getting ready for the upcoming awesomeness of the Folk Alliance Music Camp!

~Danny

Practice Log: Day 1

All together, I only got about 2 hours of practice yesterday.  Usually, on Wednesdays I get an extra hour and a half of work with my praise band.  But, due to incoming weather, we chose to cancel the worship service and rehearsal.  But, I'm not counting it as one less than my goal.  I'm counting it as two more towards my goal.

Finding the time is going to be a challenge.  Three hours of playing when there isn't a gig or a group rehearsal can be daunting.  I'm betting on the key being setting up specific amounts of time to work on different concepts and tunes.  Also, focusing on getting 2 hours daily of practice each day and them gleaning the extra time from gigs and performances will grow me towards my goal rather quickly (seeing as gigs can be as much as three hours long by themselves).

A good breakdown right now might look like this:

1. Warm up (15 min)
1. Finger Exercises (5 min)
2. Scales/Shapes (5 min)
3. Arpeggios (5 min)
2. Chord and Harmony Exercises (30 min)
3. Tunes (60 min)
1. 10 to 15 minutes per tune
2. Focus on Harmony, Melody (single note), bass lines, and lyrics
3. Make sure to put it all together at the end
4. Warm down (15 min)
1. Same as warmup at a lower speed.

I'll try to have some tunes and exercise examples in the coming days to illustrate better what I am working on.

~Danny

2014 and New Years Goals

So, at the beginning of the year I'm wrestling with new goals and looking ahead to what is to come (which is a lot).  Last year I was successful at cultivating a beginning solo career, starting a new worship at my home church, and making a name for myself as a teacher and performer of swing music (in my town at least).  For the next year, I've got a tall hill to climb if I am to really "make it" as a musician.

2014 Music Goals

• Planning:  Stay ahead of my planning for worship service(s) <- I may have as many as four total by the end of the year to plan for!
• Practicing and playing: 1,000 total hours logged
• Professional development: Find a mentor to help me better understand the local musician market.
• Blog more about music.

I've got a few more personal goals too, but these are my big music ones.  In particular, the goal of 1,000 hours of total practicing and playing time is a big one.  That is just under 3 hours per day!  Which can get very grueling very quickly. 

Incidentally, if you have an 8 hour job, this may not seem like much.  But, consider the physical, emotional, and intellectual cost of each of those hours in addition to the hours of planning and preparation that come before each.  Being a musician is like being a fighter jet.  For every hour of flying (playing), you have to put in close to ten hours of maintenance (planning).  Maybe not one to ten literally, but there is a lot of off fretboard time to playing guitar professionally.

Breaking it Down

So, estimating 3 hours a day is rather generic for this.  But, as I've often learned, every day is different.  A better way to look at the amount of time is how much per week I should look at.

1,000 hrs / 52 weeks = 19.2307...

So, we could say about 20 hours a week either practicing or playing.  That seems reasonable.

Just to keep it clear, I'll define practicing or playing as the time actually connected with the guitar and working either on technique, tunes, etc or playing gigs, jam sessions, bar mitzis, etc.  I won't include planning worship, setting up gear, running a sound system, or other non fretboard stuff.

However, there is a lot of music practice that happens away from the fretboard.  Things like building scale knowledge or reading books/articles about technique and developing the drills and exercises to teach them to yourself.  That stuff definitely counts!  And song writing!  Don't for get songwriting!

Blogging More

I'll probably use the blog to track myself through this process along with an overall progress bar.  Plus, this will give me a spring board to bounce ideas on practice regimes and exercises to maybe help others get a good idea of ways to better themselves on guitar and ukulele.

In addition to that, I have a big series of lessons coming up for the Nukesters and I'll be blogging that lesson along as well.

Over all, this will likely be a post heavy year.  I hope you enjoy every minute of it!

~Danny

Swing Guitar - Part Nine

The Soloing primer

As an additional appendix to the swing guitar workshop, I wanted to provide students with the bare bones approach to soloing so they would have a jumping off point.  That being said, the truth is sort of grim:  There is no easy method to soloing.  Every method I have ever seen or studied takes time and effort to master.  That said, when I got started in soloing (which wasn't long ago) I found a few things pushed me ahead further than others.  Here are a few of those techniques.

First and foremost, I can't recommend enough that you learn the melody (also referred to as the head) to any song you are soloing over.  The melody is full of every element that will make a solo sound good and should NOT be overlooked as a starting place.  In fact, in many styles of music (i.e.: bluegrass, swing) playing the "head" of the song perfectly is considered to be the best solo you could possibly do.

In order to get the dexterity up and muscle memory to really make learning melodies easy and then creating solos, the best place I know to start is the major scale and its modes.  Now, I'm not going to advocate that you spend hours and hours trying to remember and play each of the modes by name.  However, I do advocate learning to see the major scale in five positions on the neck.  This is how I approach it and it has done me a ton of good.

Basically, we are playing the major scale and extending it across the finger board both up and down as far as we can while staying within a given position.  Each of the positions is named for the degree of the scale which they start on.  So, for shape 5, we start on G since G is the 5th degree of the C major scale.

After you have mastered the five positions, a good next step is to work through arpeggios within those shapes.  Arpeggios are another lesson altogether so we won't get too much into it here.  But, they are incredibly useful as a soloing tool since they will basically outline the chord changes in a tune as you play!

But don't stop there!  As you go, you should look for other scales to build solos from as well.  Scales like minor and major pentatonics, harmonic minors, whole tones, and blues scales just to name a few.  With each new scale, try to play solos using only those scales and really work it up in the woodshed.

Another key part of soloing is building speed.  The best way I know to do this is to go slow and use a metronome.  Remember that guitar playing is just like any other physical activity in that we have to build up muscle memory in order to sort of automate ourselves.  By practicing things slowly and accurately, you will build up that muscle memory so that when you speed things up, you will be more accurate and sound better.

Lastly, just a couple of notes on practicing.  We live in a very fortunate age as musicians because we have access to some awesome practice tools that our predecessors didn't.  Namely, computers and all the great things they do.  I use an iPad when I practice and it has helped a lot.  That said, you don't necessarily need one.  But, assuming you have computer access since you are reading this, I would say you need to have the following:

- Tuner
   * Either a clip on or something on your computer/iPad/iPhone
- Metronome
   * I use one on my iPhone/iPad
   * Small units can be gotten fro $20 at most music shops
   * There are numerous free online metronomes
- Recording software
   * I use Soundcloud and DAW
   * You could also use a digital recorder or a micro cassette recorder
- Backing track software
   * I use iReal Pro and it is amazing for the price.
   * There is also Band in a Box, but it is pricier.
   * I have also found one or two free online backing track makers that are useful.

The biggest need on that list (outside of a tuner of course) is something that you can use as a play along.  Whether you are typing in chord changes that the computer plays back (iReal Pro, Band in a Box, etc) or recording yourself using a digital recorder (or Soundcloud, DAW, etc), having some way to play over changes (chord progressions) is a must.  Once you get a certain shape or scale memorized enough that you can play it fairly regularly, then start trying to play that scale up against a play along backing track.  This way, you can start to hear how the notes line up with the chords.

~Danny

Swing Guitar - Part Eight

My eighth installment of Beginning Swing Guitar is going to be a bit of a review and give you some good reference material to get you moving forward with chords.

So far, we have taken most of our chords from two basic families.  Knowing these two families intimately will be invaluable to you over time and make chord building very easy to do on the fly.

Before we get too far along, take a look at this reference chart.

I've blocked out the regular dominate 7 chords in solid dots and left some relevant intervals (such as b3 or b5) to give you some reference.  You can use this chart to quickly learn and find different qualities of chords.  Use it as a reference at first and then start trying to remember the chords.

Building Extensions

To build extended chords we need to understand what we are meaning by that.  Basically, an extended chord is one beyond a simple 7th chord.  You may have seen these are 9ths, 11ths, or 13ths.  To create one of those chords, we need to understand what the 9th, 11th, and 13th interval is.  Basically, just keep counting.
 

C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15

So, if we wanted to add a 9 to a chord to get a nice swingy sound, we would simply find the 9th degree of the scale and put that in the chord.  Since the 9 is the same as the two, we will often replace the root chord with a 9 by going up from the root two frets.  We used that in the previous lesson where a 5-4-3-2 shape with the 3rd in the base became a 9 chord.

Try playing around with the chord shapes, their qualities, and some extensions and putting them into your rhythm playing.

Swing Guitar: Part Seven

This is part five of my Swing Guitar Workshop which I will be teaching at the Folk Alliance Winter Music Camp this coming February.  Make sure to visit their website and get signed up for the camp.  There will be tons of great classes from local and national musicians on all types of music.

That Extra Something

When playing either solo or as an accompanist to another instrument it is sometimes a good idea to really try to take a song a long way to really bring out some of the chord movements.  This is particularly true with swing guitar.  To illustrate, let's take one last look at "Six Foot One" and see what else can be done.

A great move that I learned early on is one that moves from one chord to another that is a fourth away.  This particular move is designed around a moving bass note that is traveling up the scale from the starting chord to its fourth.  In "Six Foot One", we have two measures of A7 that eventually goes to a D7.  This is a perfect spot for this move.



Another move that we can use in this tune which is equally useful when moving a fourth is one that utilizes a 9 chord.  Check out this example:



Now, let's put that all together:



Here is a video to explain what is going on here.