Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Student Spotlight: Isaac Verbeck

This edition of "Student Spotlight" is on 16 year old Isaac Verbeck. Isaac has been playing guitar for about 2 years now and has been taking lessons from me since February 24, 2011. Isaac starting playing for a couple reasons. His brother played and that inspired him. He also liked how portable a guitar is to carry around verses say a keyboard. He also just really liked music! Along with his brother playing, his dad plays numerous instruments. His brother does alot of singing and theatre. His brother currently goes to college for singing. Some of his favorite guitar players are Brad nowell from the band Sublime and the guitar players from the band "Slightly Stupid." His dream guitar, and this is a first for this answer, is a high end nylon string acoustic guitar. he wants one because the sound is just great on one. I asked Isaac if he could play a gig anywhere on Earth where would it be. He replied " I would want to play somewhere in Orange County California. That is pretty much the birthplace of any good ska and punk and I just absolutely love those styles of music." Isaac has had a chance to check out a couple of live concerts. He has seen Reliant K, lots of local bands in different areas and various other regional bands. He has some gigging experience too. Isaac was in a band called "Of all the people" and they got to do a couple of gigs with them while he was still in high school. If his band could have played with any band of his choosing what would he pick? He dreams of being on the monster tour called "Warped Tour." Warped tour is a staple of summer concert touring with some of the best and biggest bands out there. That reason and the fact that that tour has so many styles of music on it are reasons why he would dream of being a part of Warp Tour.I also asked him " If you could pick any band in history to be a guitar player for, who would it be?" He replied quickly with " Van Halen!!" Why? Again he replied quickly " Its Van Halen!!! Come on!!! Is there really any other reason???" Isaac also plays a bunch of other instruments. He plays the bass, ukulele,sings and even played the trumpet back in middle school. Isaac is out of high school and is currently working on getting into Augusta State University and getting a computer science degree. Isaac plans on keeping up with music and sees himself continuing making music tracks and posting on the Internet because he loves doing it and its fun. Isaac has got alot from his lessons with me but the thing that has stuck with him the most is screwing around with arpeggios. He loves doing it and has a ton of fun with them. Some advice he has for anyone starting out is to learn 4 chords and learn every song you can with them. I have had a blast working with Isaac. he is a good kid with a ton of creativity. He is going to be musically active for many years and i am looking forward to hearing it! So heres to you Isaac......Keep Rockin........Keep Playin.......and keep Having Fun!!!!!

Friday, June 1, 2012

Spotlight licks: Scott Terry

this edition of "spotlight licks" is brought to you by musician extraordinaire, scott terry. scott is a multi instrumentalist who plays, harp, guitar, banjo, mandolin and countless others. he has played with some world class musicians. he has played with the legendary bluegrass out fit the lewis family, was guitar tech for smash country stars heartland, is endorsed by martin guitars, jammed with earl scruggs and countless other great musical endeavours. he is going to demonstrate moving up on the neck, playing various voicings of the A chord and throwing in some smokin chicken pickin licks based on the A minor and A major pentatonic scales. he even throws in some chromatic notes while going up. he has some great hybrid picking throughout,has some huge bends, some great pull off licks and ends on a cool banjo-esque lick. have fun with this one. he breaks it down slow at the end of the video. that is the prime time to pick up what he is doing. if you have a tough time break it down to learning it a section at a time. consider a section of licks the area in one position of the A chord. as he moves up to the next position of the chord that is the next section and so on.