The Practice Room

The Caveman Cometh

Is it time for your playing to EVOLVE to the next level? WorkshopLive has a series of commercials airing on YouTube as part of our promotional campaign. Check 'em out! Evolve beyond the I, IV, V.

Ooga Booga.

Keyboard Teacher gets an Emmy nod.

Leo Marchildon, one of WorkshopLive's top-notch keyboard teachers, has been nominated for an Emmy! Could another WorkshopLive teacher end up with an Emmy Award on the shelf? Guitarist Jeff Bihlman has one too. Leo was nominated for his composition with the Cell Block Scholars at Ball State University in Cleveland. He is on Prince Edward Island right now, working on a musical based upon the "Anne of Green Gables" stories.
Jeff Bihlman has an Emmy for his work on the soundtrack of the film "Remembering the Bradley," a documentary on the sinking of the Carl D. Bradley in Lake Michigan.

Meet The MONSTAS

Matt Smith has released a new CD with his new band, The MONSTAS. According to Matt's website, “The MONSTAS were spawned from the dark neon rain slicked streets of NYC and the heat and dust, BBQ and weirdness of Austin, Texas. The MONSTAS music is New American. A big hot melting pot of steamy New Orleans funk, big sky spaghetti Western blues, and slinky Lower East Side rock and soul blasted into outer space. Fate and family, mysterious people and synchronistic events brought together six flat out MONSTAS on their respective instruments.”

You have to listen to understand. Click here for a track called “Crawfish Funk.” For more, head over to www.myspace.com/nymonstas

Naked Hippy!

Rocking guitarist Geoff Hartwell was featured in a skit on Saturday Night Live! We asked him how this happened and he replied, "You get naked at ONE party...." But seriously, Geoff has a connection to a writer over at SNL and was called one day and asked to pose for the skit. It led to another job as a shirtless guitarist for a furniture commercial. Years of practice, tons of talent, and fame catches him with his pants down? Click here to watch the Saturday Night Live skit, his image comes up a few moments into the skit but it's all Geoff.

WorkshopLive launches school program.

There's more news from WorkshopLive this morning,

In January of 2007, the company launched the Music Access Program (MAP), which provides schools and other educational institutions access to its award­winning technology and rich curriculum. The Website replaces a text book in guitar and keyboard classes and comes complete with teacher’s guides. “WorkshopLive is like a huge, almost limitless resource for the school music teacher,” says Nathaniel Gunod, Vice President of Production and Content, “it would take hundreds of books or CD­ROMS to provide an equivalent quantity and variety of content for the classroom. Now, with 2,000 interactive, 10­minute lessons and more being added every week, we are the clear leader in the music education marketplace.”

WorkshopLive’s MAP has been installed in schools in several states around the country. Troy Mooney, the principal of Waller Junior High in Houston, Texas, says “We are renewing our contract with Workshop Live for the 2007-08 school year because of the systemic impact the program has had not only on our student’s guitar ability, but also on their connectedness to Waller Junior High School .”

WorkshopLive hits a major milestone!

In less than two years, WorkshopLive has produced 2,000 music lessons in all styles. Reaching this impressive number is a major milestone for the new company, which has quickly become the industry leader in online music education.

Formally launched in December 2005, WorkshopLive offers keyboard, drums, bass, and guitar lessons on a 24/7 basis to any student with a high­speed Internet connection. The student can choose from over 50 teachers and the patent-pending student-teacher matching engine helps select the right educator and lesson plan to match the student’s ability and style of learning. Lessons range from beginner to advanced and are offered in a wide variety of styles, from acoustic to rock to classical or jazz.

"Music is as borderless as the Internet, and so is the passion to learn,” says David Smolover, founder and CEO of WorkshopLive. "WorkshopLive has attracted thousands of customers for online music lessons on six continents."

WorkshopLive’s patent­pending technology delivers the first truly interactive learning experience of its type, with visual and auditory elements that change to suit the preferences and abilities of the student.

Repetitive Stress Injuries

In browsing Leon Gruenbaum’s web site I found a link to Deborah Quilter’s site, RSIHelp.com, which is all about Repetitive Stress Injuries. Musicians who practice too much or play with lousy posture or hand position may be at risk for RSI as much as the computer users who are Ms. Quilter’s main focus. RSI can affect the neck, shoulders, upper back, upper arm, elbows, forearms, wrists, thumbs or fingers. If you’ve noticed any of these warning signs in any of those areas – weakness; fatigue; lack of endurance; tingling, numbness or loss of sensation; a feeling of heaviness; clumsiness; difficulty opening and closing hands; stiffness (and that’s not the whole list) - you should think about seeing a doctor. And it wouldn’t hurt you to spend some time on Ms. Q’s site to learn more about the subject.

[TJH]

Samchillian

A while back I did a piece about the Samchillian Tip Tip Tip Cheeepeeeee, a PC-keyboard MIDI controller that operates on the idea of relative pitch, rather than fixed pitch. In other words, the Samchillian doesn’t have keys that produce C, C#, D, D#, etc. It has keys that say “go up one half-step from wherever you are,” “go down one half-step,” “go up two steps,” go down five steps,” etc. The Samchillian was invented by Leon Gruenbaum, who studied music at the New England Conservatory and received a BA in mathematics from Harvard.

Eitan Shefer later invented a svelter version as his graduation project from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. There’s a cool video demonstration of his device at his site.

I mention all of this because I just heard that Leon is performing in at LEMURplex, the Brooklyn home of musical robots, on August 31. This prompted me to check his web site, which now has MP3s of Leon performing. If you like high speed guitar (and who among us does not?), you may like Leon’s MP3s. Worth a listen. He’s into other odd stuff, too – weird videos, goofy band names.

Anyway, if I were in New York or thereabouts on August 31 I’d end up at LEMURplex, but as you know if you’re a regular, I’m almost never in New York anymore, and in fact have never been to LEMURplex despite my curiosity about the place. So can somebody please go and tell me what goes on there? All we get where I live is Taiwanese heavy metal bands and third-tier arena rock old-timers. 

[TJH]

PS: You can download freeware from Leon's site if you want to turn your own keyboard into a Samchillian, but you'll have to do your own wacko paint job.

Intellishred

Alfred Publishing and the National Guitar Workshop bring us Intelli-Shred: The Thinking Musician's Guide to Incredible Guitar Soloing. Intelli-Shred offers an in-depth look into the mechanics and concepts behind guitar solos by artists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Randy Rhoads, John Petrucci, and others. Exercises and etudes challenge and motivate students and enable them to build strength, speed, dexterity, and fretboard knowledge. An enclosed CD included demonstrates all the examples in the book. You can order it from the National Guitar Workshop’s on-line store.

[TJH]

Interviews with Greybeards

This week brings us some good interviews with long-time players from a generation that, as a general rule, don’t get much ink anymore:

- Modern Guitars talks with Arlo Guthrie (“…A lot of people confuse folk music with being a genre. It’s really not. What it is, it’s the way that people learn the music they’re playing…”)

- Jambase talks with Herbie Hancock (“…criticism is an indication that I'm doing something right. If I'm not being challenged then maybe I'm working in an area where I'm too comfortable…”)

- Herbie gets around – Hancock talks to the Detroit Free Press as well (…"Miles wanted to hear me. That set me free.")

- Slate’s Fred Kaplan talks about (not to, unfortunately) the late Max Roach - with clips.

[TJH]