The Practice Room

What's Goin' On?

The new CD "What's Going On" from WorkshopLive jazz guitar maestro Tom Dempsey and bassist Tim Ferguson is slated to be officially released later this month.  Tom is a great teacher and a devotee of Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall and Grant Green, so, you can expect a lot of clean swing. You can hear some samples at their MySpace page.

I interviewed Tom a while back, and asked him if there were still things he found hard to do as a guitar player. Here’s what he said:

“Sure. - play guitar. It’s a challenge every day to try to sit there with a guitar and make some music, and make it consistently on a high level. Music, I think, is one of the most humbling things that I know of in my life. Whatever you give to it, it will give back to you ten fold, but if you’re not really good to the music, it won’t necessarily cover your butt. I know Wes Montgomery used to talk about how the guitar was so intimidating, he sometimes wanted to throw a steak into the guitar case. I think the most difficult thing about playing music is being able to play consistently on a high - and most importantly on an honest - level. Just trying to be true to it, and trying to deal with it with the respect it deserves.”

[TJH]

Global Drum Project

From MickeyHart.net:

“The GLOBAL DRUM PROJECT Tour brings Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgo together again in a reunion sparked by the 15th anniversary of the ground-breaking album Planet Drum. Released in 1991 on the Rykodisc label it went on to earn the first-ever Grammy Award in the World Music category. The tour is the group’s first in almost a decade. It also marks the resumption of an artistic relationship – between Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain – that goes back to the late 1960s.

“For Hart, this reunion is an opportunity to take Planet Drum into new places. "This is a deep drumming groove. We’re taking the archaic rhythm worlds into outer space. Planet Drum explores rhythm and noise…it’s a sound yoga of processed acoustic percussion headed straight for the trance zone that becomes a dance of ancient and modern worlds. Deep drumming is a skeleton key into these realms."

If this kind of stuff gets your juices flowing, take a look at WorkshopLive’s percussion lessons with Kalani. He teaches a variety of hand drums and small percussion instruments. The lessons are designed for intermediate players who want to expand their knowledge of rhythms, styles and instruments.

Tour dates for the Global Drum Project:

WORKSHOPLIVE’S KIDS FIRST LESSONS ACQUIRED BY NET RETAILER E-TOYS

In a move that will provide retail exposure for Workshoplive’s excellent Kids First Lesson series to millions of catalog and store customers across the country, retail powerhouse E-TOYS has announced a DVD package deal with the Internet-based music lesson provider.

Workshoplive’s business development guru Mike Thomas said “Each of the Kids First products is approximately one year’s worth of beginner’s lessons for the instrument of their choice. The current offerings in the Kids First series are Kids First Keyboard, Kids First Guitar, and Kids First Drums. Other instruments are being looked at for development into the series as well.”

The two companies started talks on the deal about 18 months ago, which came to fruition last month, when thousands of the DVD packages were delivered to E-Toys for inclusion in their fall catalog. “This is a great way for youngsters to get started in music, and it’s also a great gift opportunity for kids for the upcoming holidays.” Thomas added.

E-Toys executive Fred Hurley said the two companies were a good match for each other, particularly because “E-Toys has been looking into selling more musical instruments for kids, and packaging these great first lessons along with the instrument seemed to make a lot of sense. Sales reports show that initial sales of the new Workshoplive product have been excellent.” Hurley said.

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.

New WorkshopLive Feature: Find A Teacher In your Area

WorkshopLive has just installed a new feature, the Teacher Resource Program. In a nutshell: students can find teachers by country, state and city (we list teachers in the U.S. and Canada); teachers can sign up to  be listed.

This is a great service that will help you find the right teacher and help us promote WorkshopLive as a great supplement for any teacher's lessons, since we don't believe that WorkshopLive can replace real music teachers.

The Teacher Resource Program is not only limited to listing teachers who teach an instrument currently available at WorkshopLive, but is open to all instruments. WorkshopLive teachers are marked with "WL Approved."

Wherever you are, use our Teacher Resource Program and find the teacher of your choice.

Peter

Latest Lessons at WorkshopLive

Here's a brief summary of new music lessons WorkshopLive has added recently:

Guitar:

• Using Major Scales to Solo over Triads - Tom Dempsey
• The One-Finger G7 Chord and 3/4 Time - Lou Manzi
• The Full A Minor and E Minor Chords - Lou Manzi
• Time: Rhythms, Beats, and Measures - Lou Manzi
• Notes on the 2nd String - Lou Manzi
• Time: Rhythms, Beats, and Measures - Susan Mazer

Keyboard:

• 7th Heaven: Dominant 7th Chords - Andrea Amos
• Intervals Revisited: Minor and Major Intervals - Andrea Amos
• A Scale of Minor Importance: Introduction to Minor Scales - Andrea  Amos

New lessons are published constantly; check WorkshopLive's home page frequently or look for news in The Practice Room.

Peter

News from WorkshopLive

1. We have added a "What's New" link on the right side of the lesson selection screen. To see the new lessons added or updated in the last two weeks, simply click on the "What's New" link on the right or on the "What's New" link in the history/new favorites box. The color squares will remind you what filter selection is active. All new lessons will be listed; just click to preview or play them. Don't forget to change the filter back to "all" before looking for your favorite lessons.

2. We have added a great new feature to the Search tool. You can now access all the jam tracks and printable exercises from the Search tool. When searching by jam tracks or exercises, leave the keyword field blank and the entire catalog will be listed. Or, you can filter the results based on your desired criteria. You can play the jam track or open the exercise flash paper directly from the search tool list - no need to open the lesson.

If you have friends who are interested in learning to play guitar, bass, keyboard, or drums, please tell them about WorkshopLive. We have added 50 new sample lessons  that represent all the instruments, styles and skill levels available at WorkshopLive. Tell them to check out the sample lessons at this link: http://www.workshoplive.com/lesson_interface/lesson_interface.cfm?sl=byob&h=sample. (Or, if that's too complicated, just send them to The Practice Room.)

[TJH]

NATIONAL GUITAR WORKSHOP MUSIC EDUCATION PROGRAM ANNOUNCES GUEST ARTIST CLINICS FOR SUMMER 2007

The National Guitar Workshop is a summer music workshop program. We currently have 8 locations across the country: Nashville, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco and New Milford, CT and McLean, VA. The National Guitar Workshop has been teaching music (Blues, Jazz, Rock, Country, Classical, etc.) (Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Drums, Songwriting, and Vocals) to teenagers from the age of 13 to adults to the age of 90 for over twenty-two years. Please visit www.guitarworkshop.com to learn more.

WorkshopLive news

We are pleased to announce that Akamai will be our new flash video content provider, delivering our high speed flash videos world wide.  This means that WorkshopLive videos, mp3's and graphic files will be delivered even faster. Flash users don’t need to do anything differently; it’s all automatic. (QuickTime users won’t be affected by this change.)

We’ve made some other improvements recently:

• New Study Guides - These guides to help you navigate through the lessons.
• Cool tools - tuner, glossary, jam tracks and more.
• New Search - Find lessons and songs by keyword.
• Over 450 jam tracks to play along with.
• New Drum lessons (including beginner rock) with many more to come.

Check us out!

[TJH]