Dan Miller, publisher of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, shares his gift with ready musicians.
Members of the Sounds of Nashville gave a guitar clinic in the "Owl's Loft" at Navasota River Halls Friday, Oct 18th... and some of the area's most talented musicians came to learn how to improve their guitar and mandolin skills.
Three notorious gunslingers, Tim May, Dan Miller and Brad Davis share over one hundred years of performing experience between them.
Voted the "Top Instrumentalist in Nashville," Tim May is also a gifted instructor... For instance, he uses the word "chicken" as a chord change clue rather than complicated technical jargon. That kind of nomenclature keeps you smiling.
Plantersville's own Bill Mock, a country singer who just recorded his new CD with the legendary Johnny Bush, took advantage of this rare opportunity to sharpen his guitar skills.
Forgive this artistic observation.. but this scene struck me as amazingly reminiscent of the famous painting of the Texas signors of the Declaration of Independence... and THAT was what this clinic was all about... giving guitarists the "independence," or the skills to improvise and play along in any jam, independent of memorization.
Show me that one more time...
The trick was getting in the right key, then closely mimicking the cadence of the lyrics with your notes, whatever the sequence of chords... an ingenious technique discovered by the bluegrass master Tony Rice.
