A blurb on attending The National Guitar Workshop

I've been slacking a little on my blogs lately; reason being, I've been drilling my guitar skills at the National Guitar Workshop in Purchase, NY.

If you haven't heard about it, visit their website. In brief, it's a music education program focusing heavily, as the name implies, on guitar oriented music. At the same time, as the name does not imply, it's also for bass players, drummers, classical guitar players, jazz players, and so on. I haven't seen any horn or keyboard players involved in the courses or workshops I've been exposed to, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're not here; I certainly haven't seen it all by a longshot.

As I'm writing this, I just came from a run (yes some musicians exercise, Steve Vai goes to the gym and Herman Li studies martial arts) following another full day, 9-5, of exposing myself to just about every aspect of the instrument I love and have been playing for years. I've been playing guitar longer than I've been a technologist, and if you read my tech blogs, you get an idea that it's more than say...a couple of years (or 10x that).

However, I never took it to the pro level. I've been in bands, studied some classical theory, can find my way around notation, and have a walk-around repertoire of classical, blues, jazz, and rock songs, and have even "played out" as recently as last week, but I've never taken it to the "next level", as it were. I get a lot of compliments on my playing, but I know that, put into a setting with bonafied pros, I'd have some gaping holes in my overall package.

A few months ago, I received a Facebook notification from the Steve Vai fan page; it said that he'd be appearing at the National Guitar Workshop summer session. Steve is one of my favorite guitar players, I even have his signature model Ibanez JEM. I also play a Les Paul, a Strat, a Kramer, as well as classical and acoustic guitars, so I wouldn't say I emulate Steve heavily, but I'm clearly influenced by his style, and of course the JEM is just a great, top-of-the-line guitar.

Anyway, I decided to pull the trigger, sign up for the program, and see what it was all about. I'd just finished a stint in a rock band and advanced lead class at New York City Guitar School, and have been studying my composition, theory and technique diligently, as well as just playing hard, so figured I'd be ready for a more advanced program.

I have to say, so far so good. If you're a player looking for a crash course and exposure to some top notch teachers working in the industry at the pro level, you should visit the site and consider taking a week or two out of your life to polish up your chops and performance.

Day 1: I walk into class in the morning, and sitting there is a woman I know I've seen somewhere before. She's wearing a Fender shirt, is sitting next to a Fender Strat and a Fender practice amp...who the heck is she, I know that face from somewhere. My suite mate (we get individual bedrooms but share a suite, remember it's at Purchase college), had done his homework and knew she was Jane Getter, who has played with any number of big names, such as warming up for Alan Holdsworth (wow), as well as being part of the Saturday Night Live band for a stretch. This was going to be my teacher all week; I sat down and waited to see what it's all about.

Jane is great. She's laid back but in control of the sessions, which is challenging to say the least; it's a full class of rock guitar students, all plugged into amplifiers, in a closed-door classroom, so now and then it's GUYS PLEASE STOP PLAYING. In addition to keeping the roof on, she finds time to dissect solos and techniques from guys like Trey Anastasio, Eric Johnson, Alan Holdsworth, Robben Ford, and so on. We learn a little of how they might think about their approaches to composition and lead structure and improvisation, then we settle in with a drummer and bass player for a while, trade fours on the leads, and call it a day. Jane's son actually plays the drums, lucky for her (if you play guitar, have two kids, make one play bass, the other drums).

On top of that, we had guest sessions with Steve Vai himself, and Herman Li. Both were well spoken, revealed a number of interesting points about playing and the industry, and showed us a few things from their magic bags of tricks.

At night, we go to the concerts, and/or perform. The faculty here is, without a doubt, a group of the finest players I've ever seen under one roof at the same time. Even the guy who administers and runs the program, who you'd think of as the "business guy", turned out to be a brilliant jazz player. Bar none, they can all teach, play, and communicate in a variety of ways to show you how to do so.

The students are great as well; it's a mixed bag of ability, age and experience, but from a networking perspective, it can't be beat. I've already got some contacts for players back in NYC, which I plan on taking advantage of right away, so look out for me in the clubs; I'll be the guy playing guitar.

I'll leave it at that for now; just figured I'd blurb a word about this amazing experience.

As always, thanks for visiting, and see you out there.

Fretboard Framework, the name, and all related articles, are the creations and property of Tim Consolazio.

Copyright 2009 By Tim Consolazio. All rights reserved.