By Bruce Lamb

http://www.TheGuitarWorkShop.com

In general, a freelance musician or guitar player is one who is not working for any one particular place of employment and is usually not restricted to an individual job. They work when they want, where and as often as they wish. If you decide to be one, you’ll be responsible for your own taxes, like any other self-employed person. To freelance, you should have a higher skill level and that may be developed by playing with groups, school bands, and other musical ensembles. During this time, the talents necessary to make it in the business can be developed, songs can be learned, and getting used to working with others will give you a lift up along the ladder to success. This is the period of time necessary to learn the tunes that other successful groups are playing.

You can find a place to work anywhere that people get together. It could be a social event, a party, or someone’s home. If there is a floor there, musicians can set up to play. You can get a booking on a ship, in a shopping mall, at a club, church, shopping center, parking lots, on a bus, department stores, offices, at the beach, sports stadiums, trade shows, virtually anywhere people congregate or listen to music.
One very important aspect of making money in this business is to try to book gigs yourself, or have one member of your group appointed to get the word out and handle all aspects of the bookings.

There are many different types of bookings for the right music. Generally, you should see what type of atmosphere that particular establishment is trying to specialize in and play accordingly. If you are with a country band it would not make sense to book in a rock and roll c lub or blues club and vice versa.

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By Bruce Lamb

www.TheGuitarWorkShop.com

If you have been playing guitar for any length of time you have most likely thought how much fun it would be to play in front of a real audience. Now what I mean or my definition of a real audience is playing in front of people you don’t know. Many people find it is easier to play in front of people they don’t know rather than play in front of their own family and peers. Many times your peers and family can be very critical and brutally honest when it comes to critiquing someone’s playing abilities.

If you are one of those persons who has the musical skills necessary to play one or more instruments and have grown up around people who played guitar or other instruments you may have acquired the desire to perform in front of other people early on in your life. On the other hand you may not even know it because it is an unconscious desire. Many people don’t even begin to play guitar whether it’s from fear of embarrassing them selves or don’t think they cold possibly be as good as others in the household or the immediate area they are in.

Weather its an acoustic guitar or electric guitar starting to play in front of people will improve your playing each and every time you do. If have the desire to become a professional musician or work in a related field I encourage you to just do it and get over any fears that are holding you back. My intent here is to give you an insight into how you can achieve those goals and subsequently may even earn a comfortable living or at least some spar change. Its an amazing thing when your playing and someone drops a buck into your guitar case for the first time.
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By Bruce Lamb

www.TheGuitarWorkShop.com

When you first start or begin to learn how to play the blues it is a very good idea that your first know what type of blues you want to learn to master. There are several types of blues that have been developed in this country. Many regions around the United States have their own style of blues guitar playing. There is Chicago Style of Blues, there is Texas Style of Blues, The Delta Style, also New Orleans Style of Blues Guitar, and the Piedmont Style of Blues that comes for the mid east coast up to Delaware style.

A very first and most important thing in my opinion is knowing what a progression is. The blues is comprised of a kind of pattern or order of notes that are played. This is the blues progression patterns. The blues progression is a one, four, five progression (1-4-5-). I’ll try to describe what this means so pay close attention. There are seven major notes in playing music. These notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Now here is where it gets kind of tricky. If some one says they are going to play the blues in the key of A, this simply means that the A is the (One Chord) or the very first chord in the song. The next chord to be played in the song would be the ( Four Chord) or the second chord that would be played. And then the next chord is the (Five Chord) this is the 1 4 5 progression.

Looking at the 7 major chords A, B, C, D, E, F, G, start counting from the left you will notice the first chord is the A chord the fourth chord is the D chord and the fifth chord is the E chord. Now lets look at a song in the key of E. Can you figure out what the progression is? Read the rest of this entry »

By Bruce Lamb

www.TheGuitarWorkShop.com

One of the first chords a new guitar player will have difficulty with is the Fm7 or F major 7th. To play this chord your fingers will get a work out but it is a chord you must learn so I would not put it off. Start off with this chord because it will help your guitar playing and you will learn and progress much faster if your hands are in playing shape.

There is definitely some stretching going on when you play this cord. This is an important lesson particularly for beginners because you will soon see that the stretching that your fingers will go through will help you with all of the other difficult chords you will learn.

I should first start off by explaining how the strings are numbered. As you hold your guitar the smallest string is the first string. Then each string is numbered 2nd, third, fourth, the fifth and then the sixth string is the top string or the thickest and bass string.

The Fm7th chord starts off with your third finger on the fourth string just above the third fret. If you don’t know what frets are, they are the little metal bars that go across the neck of your guitar. Now place your second finger on the third string just above the second fret. Now place your first finger on the second string over the first fret. Read the rest of this entry »

By Bruce Lamb

www.TheGuitarWorkshop.com

If you want to learn to play guitar there is nothing holding you back and all the information you need for learning guitar is out there and can be found by using the internet. If you want to learn blues guitar, rock guitar, country western guitar, Fingerstyle guitar, flat picking guitar, or Hawaiian Slack Key, you just have to get started. The key to learning guitar is practice, practice and more practice learning guitar is different from learning to play a violin or a trumpet. If you want to learn to play guitar you have to make a personal commitment.

My theory of learning to play guitar is try and pick a guitar that sounds great to begin with. This unfortunately means a guitar that cost more. If you strum several guitars in a guitar shop find the one that sounds best to you. Try and find a guitar that has great action. What this means is that the strings are close to the frets which are the little metal bars that go across the neck of the guitar. If you have great action or strings that are close to the neck you won’t have to push very hard to make a solid sound with out squeaks. .

Many people start out with a nylon stringed guitar. These types of guitars are primarily used to play classical music. Which is usually played using just your fingers and not using a guitar pick. This is called finger style guitar playing. The thing about using a classical style guitar is the neck of these type of guitars are quite thick across and the strings are spaced further apart to accommodate the rapid finger style of playing.

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By Bruce Lamb

http://www.TheGuitarWorkShop.com

            If you are planning to attend a trip to learn to play guitar this year you may want to think about how you are going to transport your guitar to the many acoustic guitar, blues guitar, flat picking guitar, rock guitar, or Hawaiian slack key guitar lesson venues that are available.

 Case Extreme and The Fly It Safe guitar transporter. A new type guitar case that is designed to turn any gig bag or guitar case into a full blown hard knock travel protection unit. It’s extremely light weight material and strength, is why Air Born Express, United States Post Office, and other similar companies use shipping cartons made of this same space age material.

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By Bruce Lamb    

 www.CaseXtreme.com

As the inventor of CaseXtreme I have to speak up and say this about shipping your guitar rather than checking it as luggage on airlines. Packing it well and checking it as luggage  is much better than shipping your guitar with a common carrier.  Shippers like UPS; Fed-X etc. Also use Airplanes hello! And they have many more people in involved with the moving of your instrument.

 A driver picks it up and throws it in his truck. When it arrives to its home base location it is then off loaded by hand and tossed into a sorting bin then either thrown onto another smaller truck for delivery in town or onto a larger truck which takes it to their airport location and then  the process starts all over again. When it finally arrives to your location it could have been in several different trucks and planes and thrown onto many more conveyers belts and has a far greater chance of damage.

 A good travel case is the key.  Weight is the enemy no matter how good the case is the heaver it is the harder it falls. The inside of your case must have a lot of padding to absorb the shock and protect your guitar from the sides of your case.  Most guitar cases only have a ½ inch of low grade foam padding. If you have a guitar case, try this. Feel how dense the foam is by pinching it with your fingers and thumb. If it crushes easily it’s not really doing much good to protect your valuable guitar.

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Flying with Guitars and Photographic Equipment
By Bruce Lamb
http://www.CaseXtreme.com

If you are a guitar player or band member or make a living with anything that can be broken on an airplane or flight on any airline this article is for you. I invented a case that is 100% used and intended for protecting anything if you use airline travel. Although if you travel or ship anything on UPS, FedX or other shipping companies please listen up this article will save you money and grief if you are traveling with something that you don’t want destroyed while traveling.

First I’ll give me some of my background. I have been a videographer for 23 years and am also a guitar player. I was traveling with a group of well know acoustic guitar players and was in Las Vegas at a the (NATPE) trade show. This is a trade show where companies buy and sell television programs. I was promoting a show concept on learning to play guitar and had these guys playing in my booth. The name of the show is “The Guitar TV Workshop“ which is now an online lesson website were you can by DVD guitar lessons or take lessons on line. There are hundreds of hours of lessons on learning to play guitar on Acoustic Blues to Hawaiian Slack Key, or Ki ho ‘alu. The web site is
http://www.TheGuitarWorkShop.com The Artist or Instructors playing in my booth were
John Cephas, Martin Simpson, Woody Mann, and Orville Johnson all award winning players.

When I arrived in Las Vegas and went to get my bags, camera equipment, and guitars everything looked fine. I went to the hotel checked in and we hit the town. When I returned to my room I thought I would play a bit of guitar. That’s when I found the problem. I grabbed my National Steel guitar and when I started to play it just went thunk. The bridge got pushed in from something heavy being put on top of the case or a baggage handler inside crawling over it. The cone got pushed in as well and when I called the airline they said I only had 4 hour to file a claim. Or I got your screwed. Read the rest of this entry »

 Tunings of Hawaiian Slack Key  from

http://theGuitarWorkShop.com

 by Bruce Lamb

If you have read one of my earlier articles on how I got started playing guitar and in particular Hawaiian Ki ho ‘alu Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar I mentioned how us young teenagers livinge in Hawaii on the Island of Oahu would gather on the corner at night under a big mango tree and share our different music. I also mentioned we would play the popular music that was on the radio. Acoustic Blues was always my favorite style of music:

  I liked the deep pre-war acoustic stuff that was mainly played by some of the older black community. I think the only reason you could find this music in Hawaii at that time was that the late nite DJ was a black Guy.  And as it turned out most of the lyrics and progressions were remade by the hot new bands at theat time. Bands like the Rolling Stones were doing some of those old black songs like I can’t get now satisfactions, and I followard her to the station.  Also Eric Burden and the animals were also redoing old blues songs. Ok I know I’m showing my age now at 60 years old and it’s hard top believe that those songs by these new artist are over 45 years old now.

  Then i mentioned that the Hawaiian guys would always end the evening with a more traditional style of music by retuning their guitars. I could never get them to show us how or what they did but there was a siolent code between them.  While one guy was talking story or noodeling around with his guitar the other guy would be retuning. before long they were both in this new tuning. I think it gave them great satisfaction in keeping this secret from us.  As it turned out both guys would be in tune and would begin to play and sing Hawaiian songs. It was so enchanting and captivated me and I really wanted to try and play along but I could never figure out why my guitar was always so out of tune all of a sudden. It took me almost the entire summer to realize my old Stella guitar could be tuned in this magical type of tuning. Read the rest of this entry »

  Ki ho ‘alu Hawaiian Slack key Guitar got started and more,

by Bruce Lamb.

www.TheGuitarWorkshop.com

If you have ever had a chance to go to a Slack key guitar concert or festival most likely you have heard this interpretation from one of the many performers at the concert.

How did the Hawaiians come to owning guitars and learning how to play them? First off the guitar found its way to the Hawaiian Islands back in the 19th century. The Hawaiian king at that time King Kamehameha the 3rd I believe was given a few cattle as a gift from some Portuguese traders who stumbled upon the islands.

Now there are many different ideas on who actually gave the cattle to him but we do know he liked them and made it a law that no one was to harm them. Well Hawaii is an abundant land and cows being cows all they did all day long was eat and make more cows. The population grew and many of the cows began to eat the homes of the islanders, Grass shacks.

When more Spanish and Portuguese explorers began to discover the islands King Kamehameha employed some of the Spanish cow boys who were on the ships to help with and teach the Hawaiians how to handle the cattle. These Mexican and Spanish vaqueros or cowboys in English brought some of there most prized positions with them.

One thing every one knows is the these people love to sing and play guitar. Because the Hawaiian cowboys or (paniolo) in Hawaiian, has always had their own style and deeply rooted type of traditional music they fell in love with this new instrument and I’m sure they sensed that this could be adapted to there own style. At the end of each long day of chasing cattle the Paniolos and Vaqueros probably began sharing musical ideas around the campfires every night. Boy would I have loved to be around those jam sessions.

After a few years many of the Vaqueros began to head back home. Many of them stayed on and started families in Hawaii, but most longed for their own homeland. Many of the guitars that were brought over were left with their new friends and that seems to be the story on how the Hawaiians got guitars of their own. The Hawaiians began to develop their own unique style of guitar playing and tunings. Using their traditional chants and songs this type of music began to evolve into the slack key style.

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