Aces high!

Rockers!

Woooooeeehooooooo! I totally want to get my pilot's license now! My brother Noah just went for a flight in a little Piper, and all the brothers are enthused now. I have grand visions of a fighter squadron, flying across the country, with Iron Maiden blaring through the speakers, but they are being boring, and say only one brother plane in the sky at once. Lame. I mean, sure I ran that go kart OFF the road and IN to the telephone pole, but that was an isolated incident, I assure you. A MiG 15 is much different. I wonder if it has subwoofers or not...."Flaps...Check...Mega machine guns...check...subwoofers...check."

I've been having some fun conversations with people over the past few days about the magic of writing things down. Have you tried it? We all have goals in life, and music. Writing them down allows us to really specify what it is that we're after. If we know what we're trying to go, we can figure out how to get there.

I know it sounds pretty stupid, but the writing is a powerful way to achieve. Even more than helping with specifying our goals (getting the sweep picking to 4 bajillion beats per minute so our rivals' faces melt, for example), it seems to send a signal that "hey, we mean business."

Try it! I was cleaning recently (believe it or not), and I found a paper that I had written of what I'd like my life to look like a few years prior, down to having a corvette. Well, I don't have the vette yet, but I DO have a loud, red Z28 Camaro! And a lot of the other goals on the paper had either hit their mark, or were darn close.

How can we get what we don't ask for?

Write it down. Mean business. Then go out and achieve.

I'm going to set aside five dollars today for my pilot's license. And I'll write it down as soon as I get home.


Rock on!

- Josh

Local news!

Hey hey!

OK, no philosophy today - just some announcements. Your brain will appreciate the break!

STUDENTS! Or anyone in the DC Area! I'm hosting a rock 'n roll recital on July 23rd! It's called The ZakkFest, in honor of an especially cool student of mine. You don't have to take lessons from me to play in it. Drop me a note for details, and I'll sign you up!

Shady businessmen! And Students!

I've got a few open spaces in the summer schedule, and I'm looking for a few more students. Refer your friends, and get $20 per friend! Sell 'em out! Lie, tell 'em lessons are fun, and send 'em this way. You'll be paid for your efforts and sales pitch. (I once gave a student a $100 bill for commission. That could be you!)


For Everyone

I'm thrilled to announce my new single, Workaholic Blues, will be due out within two weeks! Yeah! Stay tuned for further details!

Well, that was a pretty lame blog post, so I ask you this:

Why have you not set off an air horn in Good Fortune's ear?

That'll wake it up.


Well?!


Rock on!

- Josh

The point, bro

Rockers!

I hope everyone has been stayin' cool in this muggy warm weather we're havin' near DC. I've been doing the lizard thing - wearing lizardy sunglasses and staying in the cool of my studio. And my CD is benefiting from it, let me tell you! I finally got some decent solo tracks down.

But the other day, I was just lunchin'. It was horrendous. I had every local guitar player sitting on my shoulder, metaphorically speaking, and my artistic vision was obscured, to say the least. "Josh, we're gonna pick on your chops if it's not fast enough, your tone if it is, and your hair if everything's perfect."

I was trying wayyy too hard to play a particular arpeggio in at a particular time stamp, and have a certain note value at a certain place, and it was just a mess. I stopped by Mom's for lunch, and she gave me a great bit of advice.

"Josh, you're a good guitar player. You're just having a bad day. Put it up, and try it again tomorrow."

So I did, and it worked. You'll most likely hear the tracks I'm referring to, as I think they're keepers. The jury's still out, but they should make the cut.

The thing that really, really struck me after recording the bad tracks was a mental picture a photographer. This shutterbug has obtained a spiffy new camera, and he's gonna show his buddies what it can do. He sees a picture that is worth a million bucks - but instead of capturing the very soul of the view, he starts fiddling with settings, changing lenses, adding filters, and trying to be technically perfect. In the process, he so misses the essence of the shot, and the light fades away from the day, and leaves him standing in the dark, fit for a National Geographic safari, his camera a crutch instead of a jar to capture the fireflies of inspiration.


An old point and shoot camera would have been way better. Sorta like how old clunky blues riffs can somehow express the depth of the pain we feel every day, as well as the joy.

So shred, rockers. Shred well. Practice, get that ideal tone...But don't let technique get in your way. Transcend it, forget about it, ignore it, I don't care. Just don't let it get in your way! Of course, this applies to any artist, or person for that matter.

Sometimes ya gotta ask yourself: What's the point, bro?

Well?


Rock on!

- Josh

About twenty cents

Rockers!

It's been a little while since I've thrown my two cents into the vast swirling void that is cyberspace...so I'm overdue!

I hope everyone's been good and is progressing nicely on their path toward world domination!

Dealing with a negative Ned?

My brother Noah calls them...

The Most Essential People

They always say the critics are our best friends, but sometimes that's hard to see, so caustic can these critics be sometimes. I'll run with the chemistry example, because success can be viewed as a process, a reaction if you will, with many agents causing ignition.

I'm sure we've all had the experience of a naysayer beautifully illustrating the path we're on if we don't change our ways. My favorite cosmic 2x4 in the face is when the party matter-of-factly states that we'd better start measuring the drapes for our house of failure, and they don't even realize it. They're dead on right, because, sometimes, the rest of the world isn't as blind as we are, and if we keep on the same path, we will need to order some extra-mediocre shades, indeed.

It's usually said like "Well, so when are you gonna go into sales? Wouldn't it be nice not to play dive bars?"

BAM!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

These are some of the most essential people - the arsonists who light that fire under us, and burn us into action. The acid that eats through the blinders, and gets us to wake up, smell the chemicals, and say "Hey man, I'm gonna get some better gigs, and make this happen!"

They're usually about as strong as the chemicals used to bleach my hair, and Jimi bless 'em for that, because you know that's some darn good stuff! The faster the blinders come off, the faster we can strike a ready pose, and say, "eat my dust, suckas!"

Jeff Beck...

Was the most amazing guitarist I've ever seen. I caught his show at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia, and promptly had a reason to buy a new mind. Mine is in tatters. I've been on a new tone quest...that doesn't involve gear. He got so many tones out of his strat without even stepping on a pedal. He used the volume and tone controls, whammy bar, and hit the guitar occasionally to make it sing like...an alien.

Very inspired, I've been having my students jam through a Fender Blues Jr. (15 watt tube amp) and pay super close attention to details like vibrato, slides, picking attack and intensity, and the like. Jeff showed me, as he filled the concert grounds with the magnificent sound of his soul, that...if you think it sounds good, it can sound even better.

I made the grevious mistake in the past of saying to myself "I'll concentrate on tone when I can play fast." This makes about as much sense as a chef saying "I'll make the soup taste good when I can chop the food really fast."

Play fast! But make it sound like a million bucks. A student jokingly asked me yesterday if sounding like $999,999 was good enough. And my answer?



NO.





Rock on! And start paying attention to your tone TODAY. It's just awareness.


- Josh

Are you a mover or shaker, foo?

Hey hey!

It's been a crazy good week! I gave my second clinic yesterday to about thirty homeschooled kiddies who aspire to play the guitar. What a great time! I was running up the road to get to my teaching studio, and I decided to stop to get a sub. I'm standing in line at Subway behind two little old ladies who only wanted HALF of a six inch sub, and wanted to know the price of everything, and were in no hurry whatsoever. It got me thinking about several things. a.) would a stray hair curler most likely left in their hair crumble when I smote them for taking up all my time, b.) how nice it must be to have all the time in the world, except of course, that they'll probably die next week, and c.) how it's gotta suck to be old. Ha ha!

And d.) if I ever run for political office, how you guys will either blackmail the heck out of my bank account, or bury me with all these things I say.


Old people don't seem to like the Information Age, and believe it or not, I'm starting to side with them in a roundabout sort of way. Oh sure, I'm a proud shareholder of Google (I have exactly one share), and I have a feeling my fortune will, at least in part, have a .com after all the zeroes on the check!

But information can be insidious in how it robs us of our power of conviction and action. I see it all the time with my students, especially my clients above thirty. They want to learn the best way, and in seeking the shortest path to the top of the mountain, they spend their day reading the map at the trailhead while everyone else already has their hike on!

And this debilitation in the name of research isn't limited to guitar - on the contrary, I see everyone talking about how to be better people instead of actually going out there and doing the work. This is a broad theme that can be applied in many disciplines.

If you can't think of anyone, how 'bout the person reading this blog right now? AW SON! Gotcha! Well, OK, a little training here and there is OK.

But we need to know when to draw the line, stop researching the perfect running stride, and jump on to the track. Hit the ground running! This brings me to a cheesy point and a question:

Are you a mover or a shaker? Do you get stuff done, or stand there trembling, wondering the best way to do it?

(I tend to be the latter, unfortunately.) But you know what? Before you go out to buy a book on motivation...You know all you have to do to make the transition?

Just start.


That's it!


Rock on!

- Josh

Mom's greatest hits

Rockers!

I sure you hope you fellas remembered today is MOTHER'S DAY! I did. (Whew!) I'd like to take a few paragraphs here, and a departure from the normal music vibe, to tell you a bit about my mom.

First off, there's a misconception going around the internet in general, and facebook in particular, that, for example, Joe's mom, or Sam's mom is the best. I'd like to settle any and all rumors, and say for a fact that, sorry Sam, it ain't so. Mine's the best. There. Now that that's been cleared up, we can move on.

I've learned from being raised by Mom that it's not a job for the faint of heart, under-qualified, or lazy. Fortunately, unlike Joe's mom, my ma is none of these things. She did all the usual...Great cooking, reading to us three boys, home schooling us (a herculean effort, to be sure, as we were adverse to learning), teaching us to be kind, and letting us climb trees and catch fireflies. Then there was the unconventional, selfless giving - like the time she delegated the only spare room in the house into a model train room for me. We built an 8'x8' train set, and it was awesome. Or when she gave me half of her studio space to build my own little teaching studio in it...AND let me graffiti the wall to make it look rock 'n roll!

As we grew older, she has evolved into a senior-level cabinet member, a chief-of-staff of sorts for us. Here's a few (paraphrased) lines from conversations we've had over the years...Now, these are the funny lines...I can't even begin to count all the kind, compassionate advice and guidance she's given me...BUT - these are not included here because, a.) go to Hallmark if you want to read mushy stuff, and b.) these quotes are a heck of a lot funnier!

Shopping for an unconventional outfit for my (homeschool) senior prom...

"WOW, these yellow chuck taylors match that cummerbund with the Toucans on it! Buy 'em!"

When I was five, living in Greenbelt, asking how dating works...

"Well, let's say you meet someone...say her name is Nancy. You say "hey Nancy, you wanna go for a walk?" You take a walk with her, and you have a good conversation, and you get to know what she thinks." (I felt the butterflies in my stomach way back then!)

When I was fifteen or so, sitting around the kitchen table trying to figure out a career path.

"Well, it looks like a choice between the sciences and entertainment...." We both looked at each other and said..."Entertainment!"

On careers in general...

"Follow your heart, and the money will follow."

When I was fourteen, and said "Mom, Dad, I think I wanna dye my hair blue."

"It's about time!"

On girls...

"What are you doing with that loser, Josh? What do you see in her?" Then my brothers start chanting "Dump her! Dump her! Dump her!"

On basketball at first glance, trash talkin' at second...

"They used to call me Hoops Lorei!" (I think we figured it out after "Ollie 360 Lorei")

On Killswitch Engage...

"What is this stuff? Little boy music? Get me some real metal."

When I was twelve, and really into bird watching...

"If you like birds, then make 'em your thing! Hey, why not become a world famous ornithologist?!"

(That was especially cool, because it made me believe I could do anything I wanted, and be really, really good at it. I carry that lesson to this day.)

And, perhaps the most fateful...

"Why don't we get you an electric guitar? You can try out Uncle Mike's, and see if you like it. "

Thank you, Mom. You've done, and continue to do, one heck of a job! Happy Mother's Day!

Love always,

Josh

Mike's advice

Rockers!

Got some great insight for you today...Actually, it's from my buddy Mike.
I've known Mike from Driver's Ed way back in the day...We both suffered through a program we were sure was run by the mafia. I mean, the instructor was an old Italian guy, and he hated the class. We were pretty scared. For example, the first day of class, the dude holds up a steering wheel. "This is a steering wheel" he says. "No KIDDING!" the class yells back at him. He snapped, yelled at us, and we were all scared of him ever since. During the two weeks of terror, since we were sitting at the same table, we found out we were both musicians. While some of the other kids were on a smoke break (and they were really smoking, and it wasn't tobacco), I got to chatting with Mike, and we've been friends ever since. Mike showed me how to mix live sound, and he's off in LA doing sound for movies and TV shows right now. (He's a great example of how a great work ethic gets you far.) I'm always calling him up asking for advice about recording gear. I've asked him a million questions, and he's walked me through setting up a great little home studio.

But listen up, all you gearheads - remember, the gear serves the music, not the other way round!


I was asking him if he thought I should get another piece of gear to finish tracking vocals on my CD (which has been in the works for almost two years), and here was the quote of the week!

"People are always looking for the next piece of gear to sound even better, but there comes a point where you just gotta say "I'm recording this" and focus on the creativity, not the gear."


Bravo, bravo! Well said, Mike!

Draw a line, state what it's going to sound like, and get it done!


Rock on!

- Josh