check this out!!!!

One of my most promising young students, Alex Cooke, is also a visual artist. Check out this picture he drew of Paul McCartney. It is amazing. GOOD JOB ALEX!!!!!

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.

"Product Review: VHT Classic 6"

Welcome to the latest installment of "Product Review." This one is gonna be on a guitar amp. The amp is the VHT Classic 6. Amps are important to guitar players. Tone freaks are always shopping to find the perfect amp with the perfect tone. Most of the times finding that amp will cost you a ton of money and almost always means your looking for a tube amp. The VHT Classic 6 is an all tube amp with 1 6v6 and 1 12ax7 in it. Its a one channel amp that is 6 watts(at 8 ohms). Don't let the 6 watts fool you. It is plenty powerful to play any club and powerful enough to keep up, even in metal music. Its just one channel with no eq, just a volume and tone knob. The volume and tone knob are all you really need with this amp.The combo comes with one 12 inch speaker and has a high input and a low input. The amp is very clean sounding.The tone knob dictates alot of your sound. With the tone knob all the way down and mid volume its got an old school jazz sound. Tone knob all the way up and mid volume gives you that country music chicken pickin sound, that tone setting and 3\4 volume gives you a creamy\ breaks up real bluesy sound that is awesome. the louder the volume the better it breaks up. Think "Red House" by Jimi Hendrix or early stones or zepplin.You run it clean and stick a good distortion pedal, like the Boss Hyper Metal, and it is very modern metal sounding. This amp is very versatile and sounds fantastic. I tested the amp with my "JOHN JOHN" model Berkshire and a Schector "Damien" guitar. I have played on the amp a good 4-5 hours to test it. I am going to end up getting one. The cost? It retails for $500 and is on sale at Big City Music right now for $299. Get down to the store and check one out as soon as you can. They are selling quick and I am gonna end up buying one, so get there while we got them. The price of this amp is astounding for the sound you get. It packs the punch and has the great tone of the WAY higher end $1000 and up VHT amps. VHT amps are known for sounding great and to get one at this price is a no brainer.

Learn From.....

This is called "Learn From." Basically its just about something that you can use to become a better musician. It can be anything....from a person, to a band, to an experience. The first one I am gonna do is musician magazines. There are alot of ones to choose from, Modern Drummer\Guitar World. They are great to learn from for a lot of reasons. The first one, and my personal fave, is the lessons. There are some real crappy ones, like the flavor of the week ones. Korn guitar players did one in guitar world years back and it was no good, but majority of them are informative. You also got product reviews. They are pretty honest too. You can also look at the little ads in the back classifieds and find a bunch of info on anything from new practice books to new start up company amps. If you need it they also have decent tabs in them for the most part too. If you have to use tabs, guitar magazine tabs are alot better than online tabs. There use to be a ton of guitar mags Guitar World, Guitar For The Practicing Musician, Guitar Player and way too many to list. Over the years some have went under and some new ones have emerged. The best thing to do is get a subscription, a year can cost you as low as $12, and learn all you can from guitar magazines, bass magazines and drum magazines.

The Importance Of..................

Welcome to the second installment of "The Importance Of." This installment is gonna deal with the importance of listening. Sound weird? Its something you don't normally think about and sounds simple but its something that gets overlooked way to often. There are several ways of listening I am talking about and all are important. The first one is listening to the people you are playing with. That means when you are playing, listen to what they are doing and try and compliment it. Not do your own thing or try and play "against" them. Make sure every ones levels are set right so that everyone can be heard and that your not to loud or to quiet. The second one is, if you are playing a cover song, listen to the subtleties of the song. Even when a band is doing their own version of a song there are, alot of times,key parts and phrases that are very identifiable to the song that you need to be doing. If you are trying to do a "spot on" cover of a song you defiantly need to listen for all the intricacies of the song. Something as small as a little "ping" of a cymbal or a pinch harmonic in a certain spot can be crucial. The third thing? Listen to how you sound when you are laying. Are you in tune? Is your eq out of whack? Are you drums tuned? how does your instrument sound through the p.a. you are playing through? How does your instrument sound in the room you are playing? The next thing? How are people reacting to what you are playing? What do they say? Are they applauding? Are they booing? If you are out playing in public or putting your music out for people to hear, you are automatically putting yourself out there for criticism. Listen to it.Learn from it. Don't get pissed off or overconfident from bad and good criticism. Take it and improve. If you ask for an opinion be prepared for bad answers as well as good ones. There are many things to listen to when you are a musician. These are just a few. So keep your ears open and remember the importance of listening.

"Student Spotlight"

Hello everyone! We are back with another installment of "Student Spotlight." This months student is Donald Davis. He is a 24 year old guitar player from right here in Augusta Georgia. Donald is a very determined person. We have worked hard to get him playing. H e is the only musical person in his family and he does not have a back round in music. That has not deterred him. He has worked harder than the average student to get his fingers moving. He has EXTREMELY long fingers that are double jointed near the tip. The double jointedness has made him have to work his fingers more than average to get him strong. The extra long fingers and double jointedness will prove a great asset to his guitar playing in the future. Donald wanted to play guitar because its just a cool instrument that he wanted to play for a long time. He got his guitar 2 Christmas's ago and started lessons with me on March 14, 2009. Some of his favorite bands are Gazette and Papa Roach. If he were ever to be in a touring band he would love to tour the United States more than any other place in the world. His favorite guitar player is Jimi Hendrix. James Brown is his musical hero. He loves James Brown's music. On one of his birthdays he got a ticket to James Browns birthday show and was floored by the skill of the band and Mr. Browns stage presence. He hopes to be in a band in the next couple years, showing off his skills and having fun. So here's to you Donald...keep rockin....keep playing...and keep having fun!!

Berkshire Guitars

There are some pics of some beautiful Berkshire guitars. I had the pleasure of being the 1st ( I think) local musician to buy a Berkshire. They gave me an endorsement dael and i have been pushing them hard ever since. They are a father ( Ron) and son (A.J.) team that have built an outstanding business from the ground up. I recently sat down with AJ and picked his brain. The company started up in 2007. Originally from Washington state, where AJ worked(among others) for Fender guitars. He studied under master luthier Jack Pimitel.They recently opened up a store in downtown augusta Georgia on the corner of Reynolds and 13th street. They do ANY repairs on ANY instrument with strings.That includes banjos, violins, guitars, etc. They also build ANYTHING that has strings. I remember being hesitant at first when i met AJ about playing their guitars. He handed me that white strat style guitar (its pictured above)and i almost gagged. I HATE strats. I tried it to be nice. I touched it and from the instant i plugged it in i knew it was different. It was , pure and simply, amazing. I loved the guitar. It played with ease and had a creamy, yet bitey tone that i craved. I happened to have a big show coming up and he let me play the Les paul style guitar. Again, a home run. These guitars would make Jack Pimitel proud.At their shop you can see an amazing amount of guitars being worked on. From gibsons to fenders. Fender guitars are what they see most, for upgrades and Jackson are what they see most for repairs. I asked AJ what was the most expensive guitar he has worked on and it turns out it was a 1946 Martin d-28. A $28,000 guitar. They built me a guitar similar to their most popular model, the "Twin Coupe." Their most serious repair was to a 1965 Gibson 45. It had been stepped on and crushed and was pretty much destroyed. I saw the pics when it was done....YOU COULD NOT TELL IT WAS IN LITTLE BITTY PIECES!!!!! It was astonishing, to say the least, that they could have fixed the guitar. AJ does most the building and repairs while hid dad is the main businessman, artist and painter. AJ's wife ,Christina, contributes to some custom graphics as well. To sum it up Berkshire is an amazing company with endless possibilities for musicians. They work, build and repair FOR MUSICIANS. They back up their work. The number for them is 706-823-5800. They are open mon-fri 1030-530 and sat 11-5. Go to www.berkshireguitars.com and check them out. And one last word from Berkshire that was passed down to him...." Don't play the headstock.No matter what the cost of a guitar, if it plays good and sounds good, it is good." Great words from a great company who can build high dollar guitars, high quality at down to earth prices that can and will compete at the level of Gibson,Fender, Guild ,Taylor and all the greats.

Here is a video tour of the Berkshire Guitar Workshop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kbPA5-a_kY