“Are you playing enough guitar?” That’s what my wife asked me in the kitchen today, and it made me realize how much time I was wasting on guitar stuff instead of actually practicing guitar. My Guitar Practice Has Dropped in 3 Years from 3 Hours to 1 Hour Early on I played or practiced sometimes…
If you are searching for the best no-name electric guitars, Average Joe’s Gear Talk on YouTube put together a video that nails the topic. It’s hands-down the best breakdown I’ve seen, and I knew I had to share it with you. After you watch the video of 12 minutes of great stuff, please continue reading…
In 2 1/2 years I have become an advanced beginner guitarist and a beginner bass player. Wonderful fun. And recently I wrote three songs of my very own. Every night before I sleep, I read for 15 minutes from Paul Zollo’s great book: Songwriters on Songwriting. Buy it, read it, it’s amazing. Before I blog…
This is a Taylor 114e Demo of my wife’s birthday gift to me. Happy 75th Birthday to Me! My wife purchased a used Taylor 114e for me in Santa Fe, NM. In my latest video, I’m demoing a beautiful Taylor 114e guitar that I found and purchased while visiting The Candyman Strings & Things in…
As an advanced beginner guitarist, one of the biggest hurdles isn’t just learning the chords—it’s recording them. If you’ve ever tried to record yourself singing while playing, you know the struggle: the guitar usually sounds like a roar, and the vocals sound like they’re in another room. I recently put the Blue Yeti Professional to…
One of the most persistent challenges in my journey as an “advanced beginner” has been the technical side of home recording. Specifically: How do you record a vocal and an acoustic guitar at the same time without one overpowering the other? Note: This blog post is specifically for my Blue Yeti and Ibanez V70CE. But…
The “Shoshin” Approach: “There is a unique kind of ‘beginner’s joy’ in rediscovering your own instruments after a long winter storage.” This is fun. Winter is breaking in Chicago and the Cubs played their first ball game yesterday (and lost). So early Spring means taking my best guitars out of their hard cases and soft…
This post is for players who want to record more guitar music on YouTube — not just buy more stuff. I Wish to Be Upfront About Recording Guitar Music for YouTube I want to be upfront about something: I am not chasing perfect sound, cinematic video, or influencer status. I am an advanced beginner guitarist…
Yes, I’ve been playing guitar for over 7 months. It doesn’t seem that long to me. I have practiced every day. I enjoy it. First Demo, “Man of Constant Sorrow” – 3/4 Epiphone Les Paul Special Express Guitar Here’s my demo using my Birthday Epiphone. The Epiphone was made on my dad’s birthday of January…
Today is January 23, 2024 and I began my Kaizen Guitarist website. I reserved my domain name of www.KaizenGuitarist.com on GoDaddy and set up a simple website. It’s not perfect, but it will get better. This feels good. I have no pretentious dreams or plans about the website. I want a “bucket” where I can…