Alice in Chains and Simplicity

I saw Alice in Chains live for the first time when they came to St. Paul on July 9.  From this middle-aged man, those slightly older middle-aged men on stage seemed to be aging rather gracefully.  I don’t have their latest yet but I understand that it’s filled with mostly mid-tempo material.  In concert, they…

My First Videos!

I’ve been thinking about getting into posting videos for a long time, but I finally figured out how to take video using my MacBook’s iSight camera but with audio coming from my audio interface.  So these look like crap but I’d say the sound is superior to most webcam or phone videos. It’s quite embarrassing…

Hydrating My Way Out of Wrist Pain

Earlier I reported that I was struggling with a wrist pain.  Upon a little research and experimentation, I figured out what was going on. First, the facts: It always happens when I’m cold: when the weather turns cold (I live in Minnesota, USA) and my body in general gets cold easily And I’m trying to…

Exercise of an Entirely Different Kind

It’s not like I practice for hours everyday (I wish) but from time to time I have wrist problems.  Sometimes it’s a burning, cramping sensation in my forearm, but more problematic is a sense of tightness I feel in my left wrist, usually relating to trying to do some fast legato licks on lower strings…

Paul Gilbert’s Pentatonic Lesson

Recently I’ve been watching the myriad of Paul Gilbert guitar lessons available on YouTube.  I’m not a huge fan of his music (Mr. Big’s Lean Into It was the only album I owned) but watching these I am developing more interest in his music, as Paul just strikes me as a guy who of life.…

Doing the Simple Things Well

Last weekend I accompanied my wife on an acoustic guitar while she thumbed through a few children’s songbook, singing to my tired-and-needed-to-wind-down children.  And this little family event reminded me of the importance of doing the simple things well. Finding the Challenge in Simple Things From a guitar player’s point of view, it can seem…