I’ve been honored to play in several FODfest shows over the last four years. I get to meet and play with many terrific musicians from all over, not to mention meet the people who come to the shows and who get to experience the joy that music can bring. These musicians range in age and abilities. I may have mentioned that the great Corky Siegel played at the show in Oak Park, Illinois last October. Having him perform a harmonica solo for one of my original songs was without a doubt one of the highlights of my life as a musician.

And some of the musicians I meet are younger, but just as talented! I’ve had the privilege of playing with Sam Weiser, ans amazing young violinist (a winner of the Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin – and he’s still in high school!) at a few FODfest shows the past two years and he is quite a talented and exciting performer. He’s just finished his first CD, Sam I Am (available at Amazon, CD Baby and probably also your own music store) and has a short tour this month to promote it. This CD was produced by the Grammy nominated SONiA of Disappear Fear (and she is another person that I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting and playing backup for through FODfest) and I’m sure it’s going to be a great disc of music. He’s donating the profits from his CD to the Daniel Pearl Foundation.

You’ll find him playing at these venues and dates in February:

February 10th 7:00pm – Fairfield Theatre Company – Fairfield, CT

February 12th 7:00pm – Unity Church of God – Somerville, MA

February 13th 3:00pm – Rockwood Music Hall – New York City, NY

February 15th 7:30pm – Saint Mark Presbyterian Church – Rockville, MD

February 21st 7:30pm – The Rutledge – Nashville, TN

If you’re in the area, try to get to a show. You’ll have a great time, hear some great music and help support a great cause.

If you would please answer my questions about guitar teaching since you’re the expert.

1) Is it frustrating?

2) Do you need a degree from college?

3) If not, would it draw more customers to have a degree?

4) Would a degree help you get better?

5) What do you say the basic level of skill would be to become a teacher?

Thank you for reading my questions, I consider this a possible career.

Hi

Thanks for writing! I’m hardly what I would call an “expert,” but I have been teaching full time for close to ten years now, so I guess I could be called “experienced.” I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

1) Is it frustrating?

It’s tempting to say “not at all,” but every job has its share of frustration. A teacher cannot go home with the student and do his practicing for him or her. The teacher can guide and advise and coach, but ultimately it’s a team effort. One wants his or her students to enjoy music and to have as few frustrations as possible and as long as both student and teacher can be open and communicate freely with each other, the minor frustrations that are just simply a part of any natural learning process can be easily dealt with.

On the other hand, if you yourself look at playing or any aspect of music as a competition, then you are setting yourself up for a lot of frustration. If you are expecting your guitar students to all become Steve Vai or Eric Clapton, you’ve set yourself an impossible task. If you are trying to give them a gift that they can have the rest of their lives, the gift of playing the music that makes them happy, you’ll discover that each of your students has to learn at his or her own pace.

2) Do you need a degree from college?

No, unless you plan to teach “for credit” courses at a school (at any educational level).

3) If not, would it draw more customers to have a degree?

That depends on your customers. Many students (or their parents) simply look for whom they consider the best possible teacher. Sometimes people mistakenly equate “best player” with “best teacher.” Sometimes they think “best educated” means “best teacher.” Neither are true, and neither need be necessary, but being a good player and having a degree can help draw customers. Having a reputation of being a good teacher will draw more.

4) Would a degree help you get better?

That depends, too. Getting a degree for playing the guitar doesn’t prepare you in the least for teaching unless you take courses on teaching. And getting some basic business courses would also help anyone with a goal of making a living at being a teacher.

5) What do you say the basic level of skill would be to become a teacher?

People discuss this all the time. Obviously, you need to have a good command of the basics of playing. You also need to know enough music theory that you can competently discuss the “whys” of music instead of simply telling your students to “just do this.”

If I had to quantify further, I’d say the most important thing you would need as a teacher is the ability to be honest (both with yourself and with your students) about what you know and about what you can teach them. You need to be able to direct them to other sources (teachers, books, tutorials)
when they have absorbed all that you are capable of giving them.

In addition to all this, I’d like to add that if you’re truly interested in a career teaching music (whether guitar or any instrument), that you check out two books:

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Teaching Music on Your Own, written by Karen Berger, answers your questions and many more in detail. She not only deals with teacher qualifications, but also the day to day aspects of teaching that you might not even think about (how to set up your studio, getting business, contracts, even making time for yourself in your schedule) until after you set up shop. Karen is a great writer and piano teacher and she also is my partner, so yes, I’m a bit biased in my assessment!

The Musician’s Way is by Gerald Klickstein, another excellent teacher and educator with over thirty years experience, and does an exceptional job of dealing with practicing, performing and creativity from the point of view of both the student and the teacher. I can’t recommend either of these books enough.

Hope this helps and good luck to you!

Peace

Time seems to fly by sometimes. The Winter / Spring 2010 Guitar Workshop classes at Berkshire Community College will be starting up in just over a week! From the BCC website:

Anyone interested in learning to write songs, play the guitar or brush up on guitar skills, is invited to register for the following music workshops held this spring at the South County Center of Berkshire Community College:

“Absolute Beginner’s Guitar” (WKS 796) teaches the basics of guitar from tuning, strumming and finger picking to simple lead and bass lines. Classes meet Tuesday evening, Feb. 2 through May 11, from 5 to 6; or Thursday evening, Feb. 4 through May 13, from 4:30 to 5:30 or 7:30 to 8:30.

“Guitar – Step Two” (WKS 800) builds on the skills and knowledge learned in the beginner’s course Students use song arrangements to learn about chord voicing, walking bass lines, Travis picking, and more. Classes meet Thursday evening, Feb 4 through May 13, from 6:30 to 7:30; or Tuesday evening, Feb. 2 through May 11, from 7 to 8.

“Guitar Jam Workshop” (WKS-841) combines group play with practical applications of music theory and guitar techniques. Classes meet Thursday evening, Feb. 4 through May 13, from 5:30 to 6:30.

“Songwriting Workshop” (WKS 1528) for all levels of experience, teaches songwriting basics. Students work on weekly assignments to improve music skills. Classes meet Tuesday evening, Feb. 2 through May 11, from 6 to 7.

For more information, or to register, call BCC’s South County Center in Great Barrington, 413-528-4521. For long distance (in Mass only), call 800-816-1233, ext. 5201 or 5202.

These classes at BCC are truly a bargain – you get fourteen weeks of instruction and it works out to around $10 a session. Learning in a group scenario works very well for some people, plus the classes are a lot of fun!

Feel free to email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com if you have questions. Hope to see you there!

Peace

When you’re playing a song, how do you know how many times you need to strike the chord before you change?

Like, when you read the music, it’ll say just one note, for example “D#,” over one word, and in a few words, it’ll say another note. My question is regarding how many times you play the note.

This is the song I want to play:

http://www.e-chords.com/guitartab.asp?idmusica=107519

Here is the song if you haven’t heard it before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOd_5ZRPmFs.

I’m fairly new to this game, but I’d like to try it. To prevent a lot of screw-ups, I already covered a few basics on guitars.

Help appreciated!! So is any other advice regarding performing this song successfully.

Thanks!!

Hello and thanks for writing.

Chord changes in songs are always a matter of timing. Each chord is given a certain number of beats and if that specific number (which may be different for each chord) isn’t written out for you, then you have to be able to count it out yourself. So when you’re using what most people call a “chord sheet” (a page of lyrics with chords written out on top of each line of lyrics), you really can’t just go by where the chord appears over the lyric. And it’s almost always a chord, not usually a single note that is played. You have to be careful of that because if you see “A,” for instance (the first chord of the first line of the song in question), you play an A major chord and not just the single A note.

By the bye, I’ve not heard this song in ages, so it was cool to listen to it again. Thanks!

Tous les garcons et les filles has a strong 6/8 feel to it. You can hear it in the drums and in the accompanying chords. And, conveniently enough, if you count a quick six beats to yourself while listening to it, you’ll find that the chords, for the most part, change every six beats.

There are a few exceptions, of course. In the eighth line (“oui mais moi je vais seule car personne ne m’aime”) the Bm and E each get three beats instead of six. 

In the bridge (the part that starts “mes jours comme mes nuits”) the D and Dm get six beats each while the A at the end of that line gets twelve beats. In the second line of the bridge, the first D gets twelve beats and then the following four chords each get three beats (by the way, you can just play an E chord there for all twelve beats and use the notes E, D, C# and B as a descending bass line). The third line of the bridge is the same as the first (D for six, Dm for six and A for twelve) and the last line of this section has D for twelve, Bm for six and E for six).

The rest of the song simply repeats the first section or the bridge section. No new timing changes.

I hope this helps you out. Remember to get into the habit of counting the beats / timing of any given song. Not only will it help you figure out where the chords changes are, doing so will also  make your life as a guitarist (or any type of music instrument) a lot easier.

Peace

As I mention in the January 15 issue of Guitar Noise News, it’s certainly possible to look into scheduling maybe one or two for this spring, say possibly early May or early June.

Since a lot of our readers have been asking about it, I thought a good topic for this year’s seminars might be “playing with others in small groups” and it would make perfect sense for the first seminar (or the first few) look at how to work as part of a guitar duet. We could have the people attending the seminar learn about how to arrange pieces for two guitars. We would take specific songs (brought by the participants) and explore how best to work up a second guitar part that would best befit the second player’s skills and abilities.

Guitar Noise Seminars are usually held at my home in western Massachusetts (about two-and-a-half hours from New York City and two-and-a-half hours from Boston) and probably be on a Saturday, starting around nine-thirty in the morning and lasting until four-thirty and I will be providing lunch for all. If it’s possible (and if the participants are interested), I can try to arrange for a public performance at a local venue for that evening. I’m also still working out the cost, but I’m hoping to have it be around $125 for the day, and that would include lunch and beverages.

If this appeals to you, drop me an email (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) and let me know. I’d prefer to keep the groups small, between five to eight people. If there is enough interest and we can work out when people would like to come, then it’s possible to hold them on several weekends so that we can accommodate as many folks as possible. And if there is enough interest we could also see about having them in the late summer and throughout the fall months.

Plus, and this would take more planning on everyone’s part, if there were enough interest in someone else’s neck of the woods, it might be possible to schedule a seminar somewhere else in the world. We’d have to work out travel arrangements and such, but who knows? With some planning it could certainly be done.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Peace

Dear David,

First, thanks so much for the great lessons you have provided at Guitar Noise.

Second, is Leo Kottke a Travis style picker? I watch his videos and it seems that he is. Can you suggest any lessons (other than the obvious ones under fingerstyle of finger picking on GN) that may help me to become a better fingerstyle/Travis style guitarist?

Third, I live in a pretty dry area and seem to have major problems with string squeak. I currently have D’aquisto Tony Rice strings on my Guild D-50 (as you can see I love bluegrass guitar too). Will changing to coated strings like Elixirs solve/reduce the squeak? Do you have any suggestions beyond changing strings or suggestions for other strings?

Thanks again for all the great lessons and any advice. I really feel you all at GN have helped me become a better/more diversified player.

Very best regards,

Hello and thank you for writing. And thank you as well for your kind words concerning Guitar Noise.

Concerning online lessons about Travis picking (and yes, Leo Kottke uses a lot of Travis style picking in his playing) or just online lessons in general, I have to tell you that I don’t spend a lot of time on the Internet and haven’t gone looking around at other websites all that much, so I cannot direct you in that area. I can, though, recommend many books, particularly any by Mark Hanson. He has two books, in fact, that specifically study Leo Kottke’s style: The Music of Leo Kottke and Leo Kottke Transcribed, both available though Acccent on Music Publishers. His book, Paul Simon Transcribed, was a huge help to me ages and ages ago. I can’t recommend his books enough.

As far as “string squeak” goes, the nature of the guitar as an instrument means that there will always be some string squeak. Personally, I love the sound and think of it as part of the sound of any guitar. You can hear it in recorded music and it’s part of the personality.

Coated strings, such as Elixirs, can certainly help. But if you’re a vigorous flatpicker, you can also find yourself shredding the coating when you play, making the face of your guitar a bit of a mess!

Beyond the strings themselves, developing a lighter touch when sliding, being able to gracefully move up and down the fretboard without as little string contact as possible is something that you can certainly work on. This is something that takes time to get good at, though, and it’s very easy to get frustrated with a seeming lack of progress. I say “seeming,” because what usually happens is that, after much practicing, you one day wake up and you can move more lightly, creating less squeaks. And you think that it’s magic because you’ve totally forgotten that you’ve been working on it for ages!

In regard to all these questions, I’d like to also suggest you post a few queries on the Guitar Noise Forums boards. You’ll get a lot more ideas and read about more people’s first hand experiences and that will hopefully be even more helpful than I’ve been.

Please feel free to write anytime. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

Peace

David

Hey.

I stumbled across your website looking for easy songs to learn on my guitar. Love the site, I’m learning a lot really fast. I do find navigating your site awkward though.

I’m was trying to do you lessons in order but can’t seem to figure out what order they were written in with no dates or link to the next lesson. So I’m kind of doing it hodge-podge and finding myself doing way more surfing and reading then playing at times.

I’ve done all three of the abolsute beginner lessons (by the way there was no strumming lesson as promised in the first one that I could find). And because I was confused just moved to the first song in the easy list. I’m sure I’ve missed tons of theory that I would like to learn (I play piano so know the importance of knowing my theory). Could you lead me to which order the lessons go in?

Again, awesome, amazing website!! Thanks so much for all the work you’ve put into it. I’m actually sounding not to bad

Thanks,

Thank you for writing and a Happy New Year to you.

I’m glad that you’ve found Guitar Noise. If you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you a litle bit about its history. This site was created back in 1995 (or 1996, I’m not sure which) by Paul Hackett. Originally it was a site that provided links to other guitar sites, but Paul wanted it to be more than that and started gathering volunteer writers to produce original material and lessons for the website.

I joined Paul’s team in November 1999. My task was simply to write. It wasn’t about having a lesson plan or anything, but simply to write for our readers. My early columns covered basic topics as well as exploring specific areas that people asked me questions about. One of those questions was “what’s the easiest song to learn,” which led to my writing the article on Horse With No Name and, after that, readership at Guitar Noise just kind of mushroomed.

At the beginning of the last decade, I considered myself fortunate if any of my lessons got over a hundred hits a month. Nowadays Guitar Noise is visited by over two million people each month. And, as you might imagine, these people are all at various stages of learning and enjoying the guitar. Some are total beginners. Some may have once tried the guitar and are finally get back to it. Some are people who have been playing for ages but want to know more about the “why”s of music and music theory so that they can become better musicians instead of simply copying tablature they’ve found.

So trying to write for this wide audience is, again as you might imagine, rather daunting. Especially since being a full time guitar teacher, I know that everyone learns and pick ups things at different paces. Some may instantly grasp a technique or an idea of theory while some may need it explained several different ways and at several different times in order to understand the same thing.

As impossible as it might seem, Guitar Noise tries to meet as many needs of players as possible. One of the big reasons that there is no “order” to the lessons is that I have no idea as to what individual needs a person visiting the site for the first time may be.

In order to help folks out, I am always willing to suggest a “lesson plan” for anyone who writes. You mentioned that you were looking for help in strumming. If you click on the “hot lessons” icon near the top of the page, which takes you to a page where
you will find some very good “Strumming for Beginners” lessons. I would also suggest that you check out the Guitar Noise Podcasts, which are all about strumming technique as well as combining strumming with techniques like hammer-ons and pull-offs and such, which you can learn more about it the lesson called Tricks of the Trade.

We also have a music theory page where you’ll find all sorts of articles on theory.

And most of the song lessons for both the “Easy Songs for Beginners” and the “Songs for Intermediates” get into ideas about theory and various techniques. We’re very proud of these song lessons because, essentially, they are reflections of the Guitar Noise philosophy. We don’t want you to just learn how to play a song. We want you to learn the ideas and techniques used in playing these lessons so that you can use them to play anything you want to.

So when you have a minute, tell me a little bit about yourself, about what you already know and about where you’d like to explore first. I’ll be more than happy to give you what guidance I can as far as where to look on our site for help and answers. I noticed that you have also signed up at the Guitar Noise Forum. That’s another excellent place to get ideas as to what to study and where to find material for it.

I hope this answers some of your questions and I look forward to chatting with you more.

Again, my best wishes to you, your family and friends for a truly wonderful New Year.

Peace

Dear Mr. David Hodge,

I am new to guitar with a few months of experience. I really like Jim Croce’s music, and recently I picked up a DVD by Pete Huttlinger entitled: Learn to Play the Songs of Jim Croce; Guitar Accompaniment and Techniques. I was glancing through the tabs for Time in a Bottle (Maury Muehlelsen’s part for 2nd guitar), and I am confused. Here is the part, the very beginning of it anyway:

And here are my questions:

1) Why is there a capo on the fifth fret and why do you think the musician put it there? My observation: The key is C or Am, puts a Capo on the fifth fret, and plays an Am chord on the tenth fret… this does not make sense to me.

2) The chord for the first measure is an Am; however, this chord does not look like a regular Am. Why and what type of chord is this?

3) There are chords I do not recognize since they are not chords I am used to like C, G, D etc.. Why are there weird chords names like D7/F#, E7 (b9) etc..

After making this list, I kinda feel like this song is too hard or difficult for me right now. Anyhow, thanks for helping me. Oh and sorry for the poor display quality of the photo.

Take Care…

Hi!

Thanks for writing and my apologies for not writing back sooner. Things have been much busier than usual of late and I’m getting more than a bit behind with my email correspondence. Also, please feel free to call me “David.” I appreciate the “Mr. David Hodge,” but it’s truly more formal than you need to be with me.

You’ve asked a lot of questions and I hope that I can answer them all to the best of my abilities. It’s going to get a little involved, so please don’t hesistate to write again if you’re not sure you understand any of the explanations.

A little bit of background on both the song, capos, and on the different philosophies people have when writing out notation:

Time in a Bottle is a song that changes keys. The verses are in the key of D minor (relative minor of the key of F major) and the choruses switch to the key of D major. Many of the intricate arrangements of Jim Croce’s songs are the result of the interplay between his guitar part and that of Maury Muehelsen. Muehelsen. A typical technique of guitar-duos is to have one guitar playing notes on one section of the neck while the second uses a capo to play higher up. This allows both guitars to make use of the ringing open strings and create some cool harmonies. They do the same sort of thing on I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song, with Croce playing in open position and Muehelsen playing with a capo on the seventh fret, if I remember correctly.

As you know from reading some of the earlier posts here on this blog, not to mention my Guitar Noise articles on capos and transposing, when someone plays a second guitar part with a capo, they use the familiar open chord shapes but the capo itself means that they are playing in a different key. Usually, when someone tabs out a guitar part for a guitar with a capo, they use the open position chords as the reference.

Hopefully all of this will help tie in to your questions. So here goes:

1) Why is there a capo on the fifth fret and why do you think the musician put it there? My observation: The key is C or Am, puts a Capo on the fifth fret, and plays an Am chord on the tenth fret… this does not make sense to me.

As mentioned, when we put a capo on the guitar, we raise the chord by the number of half steps equal to the fret where the capo is placed. So putting the capo on the fifth fret means that we have raised all the open string notes (and chords) by five half-steps, which is two-and-a-half steps. So playing an Am chord with the capo on the fifth fret means that you’re playing Dm, which is the key of the verses of Time in a Bottle. If you’d prefer, the key of C is raised two-and-a-half steps, which means it’s the key of F (relative major of D minor), so we’re still good whichever way you’d like to look at it.

We’ll get to the “Am chord on the tenth fret” in just a moment…

As to the “why,” there are all sorts of possible reasons, but the most likely would be that since the song switches between D minor and D major, the second guitar would want to find a place where playing in both the minor and major of a particular key worked out well. For open position chords, the easiest keys to play in both major and minor are D, A and E. Playing in E minor and E major, with the first guitar playing D minor and D major, would mean using a capo at the tenth fret, which most people tend to avoid as it really cramps the amount of space available for one’s fingers.

You’ll notice in both the verses and the chorus of this song that Muehelsen makes use of many open chords as well as arpeggios that make use of open strings. Without a capo, he’d find many of the fingerings for the voicings he wanted to use close to impossible to play.

2) The chord for the first measure is an Am; however, this chord does not look like a regular Am. Why and what type of chord is this?

Any chord is a combination of specific notes. A minor is made up of A, C and E (D minor is made up of D, F and A), so anywhere you can find the notes A, C and E on the fretboard, you are playing an Am chord. For instance (and we’re not using a capo here for this example), if you put your ring finger on the tenth fret of the B string (which is A), your index finger on the ninth fret of the G string (which is E) and your middle finger on the tenth fret of the D string (which is C) and strum all six strings, or even just from the A string down, you’re playing an Am chord.

When two guitarists play together, the harmony is often shared between them. It is implied by all the notes that both guitarists are playing together, so one (or both) guitarists don’t have to play all the notes of the chords involved. In this case, Muehelsen is playing just the A (fifth fret of the E string) and E (fifth fret of the B string) notes of the chord. Taking the capo into account, he’s actually playing D (tenth fret of the high E) and A (tenth fret of the B), so he’s playing two notes of Dm, while Croce’s guitar has the F note (first fret of the high E) as part of an arpeggio.

The chord itself is still Am (Dm with the capo), it is simply a different voicing of the chord, meaning that the notes are being played in different places on the neck than they are played with open position chords.

3) There are chords I do not recognize since they are not chords I am used to like C, G, D etc.. Why are there weird chords names like D7/F#, E7 (b9) etc..

Guitarists are peculiar in that most of them insist that they don’t want or need music theory, but then they go out of their way to describe chords in such a way that they have to know music theory in order to understand them. It’s actually quite amusing when one thinks about it.

What’s going on with the weird chord names is that whoever has written out the chords has decided to base the choice of chord name on the harmony of both Muehelsen’s and Croce’s guitar parts, and then transpose it to Am (or A major in the chorus) to go along with the use of the capo. Things like “D7/F#” are simply “slash chords,” meaning that they are meant to be played with a note other than the chord’s root note in the bass (you can read more about these in the Guitar Noise Easy Song’s for Beginners’ Lesson on Eleanor Rigby, among others). Others, like the “E7(b9)” are based on both guitar parts being played together. You truly don’t need to worry about this too much at present. It shouldn’t keep you from learning the song.

I know that this is a basic and simple explanation. It could get a lot more involved and detailed, but I have been working on a single guitar arrangement lesson of this song for Guitar Noise for quite a while now and it will hopefully be up online sometime this coming spring. And, again hopefully it should answer more of your questions and also give you a way to play a combination of both Muehelsen’s and Croce’s guitar parts as well as an appreciation of how they went about creating their two-guitar arrangement.

As I mentioned, please feel free to again if you need a better explanation than the one I’ve given you. But I do hope this does help you to get started on learning this wonderful song.

Looking forward to chatting with you again.

Peace

As people, musicians, and/or guitarists, we are constantly growing and evolving. Giving ourselves specific and measurable goals is a good way to direct and focus that growth. Just saying “I want to be a better guitarist” is good and admirable, but it doesn’t give you any direction. Because there are, at last count anyway, more than 18,364,308 different aspects to playing guitar, you may have absolutely no idea where to start. So you just practice, usually without even a plan of practice, and then wonder why you’re not improving, and then get frustrated and then just resign yourself to not improving at all.

The thing is that making goals, irony of ironies, is also something that takes practice. My friend Darrin Koltow wrote an excellent article about this subject that you should take a moment or two to read. Plus, you probably want to take a look through the many articles on practicing over at Guitar Noise.

But also remember, while New Year’s is certainly the traditional time to start in on setting goals and making resolutions, it’s just one out of three hundred and sixty-five days. Any day, every day, is a fine day to wake up and say, “I’m going to work on improving my rhythm playing, knowing where the notes are on my fretboard, learning a song to sing at the local open mic…”

I don’t know about you, but today seems like a great day to start being a better guitarist. And as vague as that sounds, I’m going to start writing up and then working out a specific practice program as soon as I finish writing this post!

Peace

And my apologies for being away so long. Things have been very busy between wrapping up work on The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar, which is currently scheduled to hit stores on March 2, 2010, as well as on the writing and recording of the entirely new version of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar, which should be out in October or November of 2010.

It’s great to be busy, but I do want to truly try to spend more time on both this blog and the Guitar Noise website in 2010. I’ve just sent off a new lesson to Paul on Jack Johnson’s Banana Pancakes and that will (hopefully) be up online before the New Year starts.

Anyway, I hope that everyone has had a great 2009! And Lily, who managed to have a very interesting (“interesting” for her – absolute basket case of nerves for me!) adventure back in June, is safe and warm and also sends her best wishes:

Looking forward to keeping much more in touch in the days to come!

Peace