Spotlight Licks: Will McCranie

This edition oif spotlight licks features Augusta native and current resident of New York, New York, Will McCranie. Will is a veteran of the Augusta music scene, having won countless Lokal Loudness awards and opening for a bunch of national acts. He is known for being an acoustic singer songwriter type but at heart he is a smokin guitar player. He has toured the east coast as a solo artist, as a back up player and with his band the Will McCranie Trio. Here is a lick he does in drop D tuning. He says it is his way of doing some of the very cool synth sounds of Pink Floyd. He shows you everything you need to do in the video. Check out Will and keep up with his shows at http://willmccranie.com/

Student Spotlight: Shauna Price

This edition of Student Spotlight is here by deemed the " The Christmas Student Spotlight:Shauna Price." I hope by this point everyone has all their Christmas shopping done and is snuggled up next to the fireplace cuddling with their loved ones with a mug of hot chocolate, waiting for ole Santa to come drop off some presents. While your waiting for Saint Nick check out Miss Shauna Price. Miss Shauna has been playing guitar for 2 years now. She is only 8 years old! She started taking lessons from me at age 6. She is a straight A, honor role student at Lake Forrest Elementary School. Shauna decided she wanted to play guitar, way back when, while visiting her aunt in Vermont. Her aunt was taking guitar lessons and Shauna went with her to one and watched her during a lesson. She wanted to play guitar at that moment. Some of Shauna's favorite bands are Fun, Panic at the Disco, Taylor Swift, Classic Addict and Pink. Even though Shauna is only 8 years old she has been to some concerts. She's seen Panic at the Disco, Fun and Classic Addict. If she could play guitar for any band in history it would be Panic at the Disco. The reason why? Shauna got to meet them. When Shauna was around 4 years old her mom sent a video of her singing Panic songs to Panic at the Disco. When Shauna met them a couple years later the band actually remembered her from the video!!!! She got to take pictures with them and hang out with them. That experience solidified her love of panic at the Disco forever. Shauna's favorite guitar is this blue acoustic she has that has a lot of her favorite bands autographs on it. The guitar has Panic at the Disco, Fun and Classic Addict autographs. I am sure she will have many more bands sign it through her life too! If she could play guitar anywhere in the world it would be France. She would love to play in France so that she could see the Eiffel Tower while there, plus she has always wanted to learn French too. Shauna comes from a pretty musical family. Of course she has the aunt that got her inspired to play, who's name is Betty. She has an uncle who plays, has a great uncle who plays a ton of things and has a studio and of course her GaGa plays the flute. Her mother's side is very musical. Shauna's favorite song to play is "Mine" by Taylor Swift. Shauna still sees herself playing guitar in the next 5 years and hopefully is a student at Davidson fine Arts. Shauna thinks that learning power chords is the thing that has most benefited her in her time in lessons with me so far. When Shauna grows up she wants to be a vet. i for one think she can do it with no problem. When Shauna came back from summer break this year she came back wit the fire. She has made huge improvements in her playing and has really stepped up her game. She has impressed me a ton. She is hungry for musical knowledge and has been practicing her butt off! I have enjoyed watching her get better every week. So here's to you Shauna........Keep Rockin.........Keep Playing.........and keep Having Fun!!!!!

The Art of Ear Training: Part 2 Hum In Uh Hum In Uh Hum In Uh

This is part 2 of the ear training series. In part one we discussed putting on the radio and trying to learn a song in the time it plays on the radio. Hope you all read it and had a good time with it. In part two we are going to go over humming a note to pitch and humming the notes of a chord.

Tune your guitar/bass up to standard pitch. What you want to do is play a note and hum that note to pitch. A good note to start on is your 5th (A) string's C note. It is on the third fret. Play the note and hum it to pitch. Once you have hummed it to pitch, sing the note, saying the name of the note as your singing word. Example: You are on the C note, sing the letter C to pitch. You can tell your in tune by listening for the "waves" to go away. You can also use any tuner that has a built in mic to help you too. After you have it right, just start working your way up the string, humming then singing every note. Do it on every string from the low E to the high E that you can. This will get you use to the way a note sounds. Doing this enough will help you be able to identify notes when you are listening to a song in your car or anywhere else you listen to music. It will "pump up" your ear. It will exercise the snot out of it!

The second thing you can do is play any chord, start with the lowest note , hum it. Go to the 2nd note , hum it. Play and hum every single note in the chord. This will get you use to the notes of a chord and how they sound. Do this one enough and you will be able to identify chords in songs like you will the notes from the previous exercise. Play major, minor, dominant 7, diminished or whatever kind of chord you want to do or that you play. This also will "pump up" your ear.

This is it for "The Art of Ear Training Part 2: Hum In Uh Hum In Uh Hum In Uh. work this one for a while and see you soon for part 3!!

Chris Livingston : Rock Bottom Spotlight

Chris Livingston has contributed a "Spotlight Lick" before and I thought it would be cool to spotlight another teacher from Rock Bottom Music. Chris has been teaching for 10 years now and has been playing for over 25 years. He currently plays in 48 Volt. Chris started playing because his cousin had an Ibanez Destroyer guitar and jammed out on Def Leapard and other kick butt rock n roll and it gave him inspiration. He started learning from a buddy back in high school when he moved here from North Carolina. It snow balled from there to him learning from anyone he could and by ear. He also had an uncle that showed him some things. Why does he teach guitar? It's what he likes to do. It also makes him learn more by teaching. Teaching re-lit his fire for guitar. Seeing a new players smile when they learn their first song or chord is highly rewarding. His enjoyment helps the kids enjoy it and vise versa! Chris teaches ages 9 and up and a variety of different styles- blues , country, metal, rock and modern popular music. He caters the lessons to what the student likes. He will start a new person with with basic fundamentals and get them playing the songs they like as soon as possible. Anyone out there who thought of learning but has never taken that first step your first lesson is free! Give Chris a call at 706-589-2112 and get started!

Spotlight Lick: John Berret

This edition of "Spotlight Licks" is brought to you by yours truly, John Berret. As a guitar teacher in Augusta Georgia, I figured it was time I added one, so here we go. This is based off the A minor Diatonic scale. It walks up the high E and the B string. This is a very common metal-ish lick. In the vain of Kirk Hammett or Zakk Wylde. It is one measure of each little "position" and it is played as sixteenth notes.In the video I play it slow and then at a faster speed. Start off slow and PICK EVERY NOTE! I will have some later on that use pull offs and hammer ons that are similar to this. Above the tab I have the chords that will go along with it, if you want to have someone play with you or record them. Check out the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUzSuC9dylM&feature=channel_video_title

Just click on the tab and it will appear bigger for you. Have fun and shred it up!