David Hodge

Today, April 3, the Monterey General Store is closing its doors. It’s been an honor (and my pleasure) to have been a part of the music scene there these past seven years since moving to the Berkshires and I’m going to miss playing there. 

Even though I performed at the Monterey General Store more times than I can count, I never played solo. The venue itself is all about the intimate sharing of music (the musicians usually within arm’s reach of the audience) and I always tried to make my gigs a celebration of music, friends and community. In many ways these shows were a bridge between my old world of Chicago to my then-new home in the Berkshires. My former student and good friend Kathy Reichert had two shows there and Mike Roberto and Anne O’Neil (two other good Chicago friends) and Helena Bouchez (who was in Chicago when I moved but has since moved out east as well) all participated in shows at one point or another.

So did new students and friends, such as Marilyn Miller, Jim Martin and Glen Polson. And I also got invited to sit in with people who’d been playing in the Berkshires for ages, such as Todd Mack, Sammy Brown, Joel Schick and many others.

There was something mischeviously cool about telling people you were playing in a general store. One of the running jokes was to tell folks to be sure to come early to avoid having to sit right next to the frozen food section. More times than not when we played it was to a crowd of people, many of whom would have to stand in the aisles among the potato chips, canned goods and ice cream bars. It was at Kenn Basler, the owner’s urging that we recorded a number of performances in 2007 to create the Songs and Sandwiches CD.

Here’s a video that Nick Torres took of a June 2008 show with Nick singing David Gray’s “Babylon,” backed by Karen Berger on piano (hiding on the far right), Glen Polson and myself on acousitic guitars and Greg Nease on electric guitar (which you might mistake for synthesizer).

Getting the opportunity to make and share music with your community is an incredibly chance and I’d like to thank everyone at the Monterey General Store for allowing me to do so these past years. And I thank them as well for all the new friendships I’ve been able to make, as well as the old ones I was able to maintain and celebrate through the music we made there.  

And we’re also hoping that some day in the near future one will hear music coming down those aisles and out the doors again.

Peace

Time to dip into the “email bag” once again! Today’s question concerns two of the song arrangements from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar:

Hi David

I want to tell you that I’m enjoying your book, a lot, and making some headway in the difficult but fun voyage of learning to play.  It sat on my bookshelf for a few months.  My first impression was that these songs would not be near as much fun as your Guitar Noise songs and, to be frank, “Tom Dooley” and “Banana Boat” reinforced that impression.

Luckily, I picked up your book and CD again, skipped around on the CD and heard many songs I liked.  I have worked my way through half of the book, skipping a few things I already knew or already could do, trying some things I cannot yet do and planning to keep going back and trying (like barre chords).  Your arrangement of songs like “Oh! Susannah,” “Wayfaring Stranger” and “The Cruel War” enable a beginner guitarist to sound good.

 I’m struggling with playing both “The Gallows Pole” and “Midnight Special” at anywhere near correct tempo.  I’m wondering if this is typical, at my stage of development.  I’ve been working hard at learning the guitar for about eighteen months.  I find fingerpicking style easier (I can do your earlier Guitar Noise version of “Scarborough Fair”) but I do like the sound of the pick, too.  Perhaps, I should concentrate on learning just the fingerpicking style because I do not have the luxury of limitless time.  Any thoughts, David? 

Thank you for writing and thank you as well for your kind words concerning The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar. Thank you, too, for giving it a chance! I know that “Tom Dooley” and “The Banana Boat” song are reasonably easy, but it’s hard to come up with something that a total beginning can play easily and still sound like a cool song. I did try to get my publishers on the “Horse with No Name” bandwagon, but they were totally set on using only Public Domain material (or my own songs, which is how I snuck in “Julia and John” at the very end).

With “Gallows Pole” and “Midnight Special” you’ve chosen two of the hardest pieces. Not because of the speed but because of the thought behind it. When I recorded both of these songs for the book, my intent was to do something very spontaneous, just as one would when playing a song on the fly. Then came the wonderful task of transcribing it all afterwards!

Of the two, “Gallows Pole” is a little easier because pretty much everything is a variation of the pattern given at the top of page 111. And that’s really the key to playing it at speed - work on just the first two measures at as slow a tempo you need to get the rhythm and the feel comfortably in your fingers. The first measure is totally based on the Am chord, so try to keep that in place – keeping your index and ring fingers very close to the strings after performing the pull-offs. Your middle finger should be at the second fret of the D string even though you don’t play it during the first measure.

Once you’ve played the first measure, then use your ring finger to get the third fret of the A string. Because you’ve not moved your middle finger, you should see that you’ve got two-thirds of a C chord. Pick the A, D and G strings and then slide your fingers up two frets to get the last three notes.

First try doing this without worry at all about the timing. Your object is to get your fingers to perform their assigned task. Once your good with that, then start very slowly and gradually increase your speed. You should find that, with surprisingly less repetition than you’d think, you’re getting faster than you’d imagine.

The strategy with “Midnight Special” is pretty much the same, only you want to work one phrase at a time. For what it’s worth, I’m going to be doing a Guitar Noise step-by-step piece on this arrangement of”Midnight Special,” much in the same manner as the “Oh! Susannah” lesson, sometime this spring. Hopefully that will be of help, too.

I should mention, too, that you can play either of these with just your fingers. I do it all the time. The percussive hits don’t sound quite the same but it still works. If you were to put twenty minutes a day into it I think you’d probably get it all fairly quickly.

I hope this helps and I look forward to chatting with you again.

Peace

Hello to all!

Here’s another recent email of interest:

Dear David

I want to learn to play the guitar.   But I play left-handed.  Any comments about a “lefty” learning to play guitar.

Do you play left-handed?   Your pictures show you playing left-handed.  Does any of your books have instructions for playing left-handed.  And I prefer rock/electric.  Should I buy the guide book pertaining to rock first?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks! 

Hello and thanks for writing!

I play left handed, that’s how I learned from the start.

I’m assuming you have a left handed guitar. Left handed guitars are not upside down or backward as far as the strings go, so you can learn from any book. Going for books that are “learn left handed” are mostly gimmicks, The guitar is still the same and the directions are going to be the same as long as you keep in mind the only thing to remember is that when a book says to use the right hand (or strumming hand) that’s your left hand and vice versa.

Left handed books can actually be harmful, especially if they draw out the chord charts backwards. They are easy enough to learn and when you see them in other books or online they’re always going to be made in the same direction (thickest string on the left, thinnest on the right).

By the bye, if you’re going to get one of my books and you’re more interested in the electric guitar, I’d go with the Rock Guitar book. Both books teach the fundamentals but the rock guitar book really focuses on the electric and on the touch required to play one well.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to email me anytime with more questions. I look forward to hearing how things are going with you.

Peace