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!!

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!

check this out!!!!

In this edition of "Check This Out" I am telling you about a big change for me. I am changing my teaching store from Big City Music to Rock Bottom Music. It is not a change happening for any ill wills or bad feelings, its just a change for the opportunity to reach more students. I have had an amazing three years at Big City. The staff has been great to work with and Adam Tolar is a stand up guy. Adam and I have had some great success there, our student concerts and Rock Band Camp has been very successful and it was an immense pleasure working and molding the students. Big City will always offer great customer service and Good teaching program. I am handing off my teaching reigns to Darrell Cliett. He is qualified and will be using my program for the students there. At Rock Bottom I will be continuing what I did at Big City. My students will continue performing student concerts and I also will continue with Rock Band Camp in one form or another. There is a great stage at Rock Bottom where the students can do in store performances. The same stage where great artists like Duff McKagen,of Guns and Roses, and many many other national and world wide performers have did in store performances. The same stage where world class musicians like Greg Koch , writer of the Hal Leonard books i teach from, and on September 9, 2010 Mark Shulman, drummer for world wide recording artist Pink, will be doing a drum clinic. Rock Bottom has other great teachers like Devron Roof. Devron is an amazing musician and teaches the bass like nobodies business. Henry Wynn is a fixture on the Augusta music scene who also teaches guitar, mandolin and banjo. The staff is amazing. Guys like Joel Hodges, the award winning Micheal Badamie. Micheal is a great guitar player who is very knowledgeable about music. Jason Morris, who is a former student ofmine, is also on staff and is very musically inclined himself. Joanthon Karow, the owner, was alocal musician just like us before he took Rock Bottom from an online store to the growing successful franchise it is today. He is an all around great drummer, bass player and singer. He is also a work-a-holic likemyself. Jeannie is always by his side, kickingbutt while working at Rock Bottom. I am leaving out alot of the staff but i will be doing a write up on all of them soon. For those who don't know, Rock Bottom is located in downtown Augusta on the corner of 8Th street and Broad Street. I am excited about starting there. So keep our local businesses flourishing. Stop down and see me at Rock Bottom and when you go to Big City tell Darrell, Adam and the rest of the staff hi for me.This change will not change the teaching on this blog either. It will help the site reach more people. See you all soon!

Check This Out: Rock Band Camp

At Big City Music this summer we are doing a continuation of something we have been doing and turning it up a notch. The student concerts and lessons are being turned into "Rock Band Camp." It has been in the works for a while and you may have heard it on our commercial on 95 Rock. It is gonna start around mid June and will lat 2 weeks. Adam Tolar and myself will be instructing it. At the end we will have a concert. The classes are not only open to Big City Music students. It is open to students from other stores and people that have playing experience. The camp will include class instruction, seminars, practice time and all kinds of cool and informative education involving music. Its open to boys and girls, drummers and bas players, singers and guitar players, keyboard players and beyond. For more information call Big City at 1-706-364-3033 or just stop in. Big city in located at 3526 Wrightsboro Road Augusta Ga ( down by the mall,under the Bobby Jones underpass, on your left). Or contact me at john@questsoundpro.com, 706-627-1556 or here on the website. Classes will be 4 days a week.Come sign up and spread the word! Our Rock Band Camp will also be featured on NBC 26 news on the "Spotted With Jay Jefferies" segment in the next week.

Student Concert on March 20

The students from Big City Music have another student concert coming up. Its on saturday March 20,2010 from 12:00-1:00 p.m.. They are playing originals and cover songs and will be performing acoustic and as a band. The Columbia County Am,phitheatre is located in Evans Ga off Washington Road. Turn onto Ronald Reagan Drive. The amphitheatre is behind the library. It is a family friendly event called "Books Alive." Its up near the Evans Wall Mart. The sound willbe provided by Quest Sound Productions. Check them out at http://www.questsoundpro.com/

student spotlight

I am going to be starting a little thing i am calling"student spotlight." What it is going to be is i will select one student every 2-3 weeks that has been really improving, playing great, excelling or just about anything that would make them stand out musically. It can be a student of any instrument at Big City Music. Expect the first one in the next 2 weeks.

new blog\site

I opened this up to let people know whats going on musically with me and my students of past and present. This blog will mainly focus on students of mine and of Big City Music in general. You will know when student concerts are, learn about current students, see whats up with past students and anything else you could think of to do with music students.