My Birthday Story
From a post on Facebook 8/29/2020:
I am few days away from my birthday. This is not just when I was born, but literally the day I started playing guitar. My parents gave me an electric guitar with a "built in speaker" for my 14th birthday. They got it at a yard sale. I LOVED IT. My father gave me (along with the guitar) a sheet of paper that had folk chords on it, how to tune, and a brief description of notation and where the notes lived on the first 5 frets of the guitar. That's it. No Lessons, no teacher, no teaching.........
Explore, Experiment, Create
The chords on that sheet were all "Folk" chords and sounded horrible to me when I played them with distortion. My parents have since shared with me that during the first few days there were some pretty awful sounds coming out of my room but they never said anything at the time. Eventually I figured out “Relative Tuning" and what combinations of finger positions made sounds I liked. I started writing songs because I wanted to PLAY but didn't know "How to Play" the songs I was listening to or even "how to figure them out". I had "No Internet", "No Song Book", "No Teacher" to "Show Me How”. Write your owns songs and play them was my solution. That first year I did things that formed the foundation of my understanding of the guitar. How to move my fingers, how to strum and mute, how to EXPLORE, EXPERIMENT, and CREATE.
Once those traits were ingrained it made buying "Books on Music" meaningful. I had an idea that there was a lot of INFORMATION I did not have. I gleaned as much as I could from other guitarists, but where I really learned “Music Theory” was from books. If I go through my sheet music collection and song books, almost all of them were purchased after high school, but my collection of “Theory Books” were all from 1989–93. I had a huge 3-ring binder where I kept everything I knew about music. I had plastic sheet protectors covering my sheets entitled “How to Spell Chords”, “How to Use Modes,” and my “Fretboard Visualization” exercises.
“Learn To Type So You Can Always Be Employed”
When I was two years old on the guitar, my parents asked me if I wanted to take lessons. We decided that if I did it would be to learn to read music and play in the classical guitar style. I still play many of the pieces I learned to read with and took to heart the advice of the teacher to “Learn to Type” because then I can always be “Employed”. After some months, he left for California and my lessons with Wally Wysk started.
Unique lessons
Wally left his body several years ago. His fingerprints remain on my playing and I pass him on in all of my lessons. Wally and I had very “unique lessons”. (Those are his words). We didn’t “play much”. Mostly I asked him questions and he answered them. He might demonstrate something, I’d try it, and it would lead to more questions. He never tired of answering them and told me on more than one occasion that those lessons use to make him nervous because sometimes my questions were “out there” and “challenging”. We had a 1/2 hour lesson each week for 3 years. That was my FORMAL MUSIC EDUCATION prior to Music School.
I Was Home Schooled In Music
I was basically Homeschooled in music. I didn’t take band/chorus or any of those regular music classes in school. Instead my long time band mates - Justin, Chuck, Jeff, Jamie, and Aaron were not just my friends, but were the people who could bring to life the music I was writing. In music school we called that a “Lab Band”. I certainly am indebted to them for all of the nights we “Jammed” in the shop, and their willingness to play just about anything.
Music School
When I went to Music School, there was a period of time where I was “translating” my “understanding” of music to the language of “the trained musician”. I had some strange ideas. For example, the note F# (F sharp) was used exclusively, never Gb (G Flat) even though there are times when Gb is the right term. The Idea of “Enharmonic Pitches” was not in my lexicon. I also had a very broad collection of recorded music and owned all of the listening material we were studying (money and time dubbing music well spent). My room became the place my friends would come to “hear” what was going to be on history tests instead of the library. Often times they would come in and I would be listening to some “metal band” and they would say
“How can you be listening to music right now, we have been studying and playing all day”.
I would answer
“We are not studying or playing this music”.
A Special Kind of Teacher
I had 3 different classical guitar teachers in College. Each one left an imprint but my last teacher, Pablo Cohen, was truly special. During my Senior year, I asked him if it was possible that instead of “going over my repertoire in lessons, we could diagnose and fix technical issues I might see in my lessons with beginning and intermediate guitar students when I am out in the world”. He never had a request like that but dove in with me. I took out my 3-ring binder and added a special section: technical issues and how to fix them. There were lots of things I learned in Music School but those lessons were the most important because I could translate them to all the other instruments. Not the specific diagnosis, just the methods for figuring them out. It has paid dividends as a public school music teacher as very little of what I teach there is aimed at “guitarists”.
Student Driven Discovery
Since Music School, I have returned to my original independent study method of learning. Occasionally, I take a master class with a “Famous Guitarist”, and I buy the winner of the Guitar Foundation of America’s contests to listen for new classical guitar music to learn. Almost All of my Current Repertoire comes from AFTER COLLEGE. Pieces I chose to learn instead of pieces I was assigned to learn. That concept of “Student Driven Discovery” is the very foundation I build my teaching from. I am a guide, translator, and mentor. My method is to figure out how to help you, not force you it into “my mold”. There’s that saying about “Give a man a Fish……” well, I’m vegan so I say this
“Teach someone how to plant the seed, nourish and care for it, and its fruit will feed you for the rest of your life”.
On September 4th, 2020 I turned 32 on the guitar and 46 in regular life. I am still learning and it is still feeding me. Thank You to my Teachers:
“The guy who lived in a tent off I 89 that taught me to read music and classical guitar”
Wally Wyske who began each lesson by asking me if I had any questions. I always did, and he always took the time to answer them. We eventually taught in adjacent rooms at Blue Mountain Guitar Center and on any give Wednesday we would share stories and music. There is always that one teacher in your life. Wally is mine.
Edward Flower who said “sometimes you just need to play something that makes everyone in the room stop and listen.”
Frederick Hand who assigned my least favorite music but challenged me to make my tone beautiful.
Pablo Cohen who is the reason I only follow the rules if they help me play and the reason I care about how you hold the guitar.
And of course The Members of "Ultra-Rocks", “Torment*” and “13 Year Silence”
Justin Manning, Jeff Barrette, Charles Moote (Chuck), Jamie Landry, Aaron Brown*, Karl Eno*, Quentin Amsden*, James Skinner*
The music I play today would not exist without all of you. My heart is full and every note I play carries your echoes within them.
See you on the Path,
Josh