The Guitar Hour Podcast

Happy New Year Everyone! We kick off 2020 with the most epic guitar podcast colab ever, a 10-WAY guitar themed quiz of the year featuring: Andy Wood, Dan Smith, Dave Brons, David Beebee, Jake Willson, Jens Larsen, Levi Clay, Martin Miller, Phil Short & Tom Quayle. It's total chaos and laugh out loud fun

Bronsy returns to TGH to bring us up to speed on his brand new album "Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" - his epic second album!

Jake’s stressed, Dan’s damaged a rib and Beebee lets slip a dirty secret from his past. The guys talk turning pro after music college, making difficult career choices and the potential for loneliness & isolation that can creep up in the life of a professional guitar teacher. Beebee’s brand new Pathways To Jazz Volume 2 is available now with a 10% discount for podcast listeners. Click the link and enter TGHP10 at the checkout.

Release the beasts! Beebee has finally finished Pathways To Jazz Volume 2, and Tom has released the ULTIMATE Legato Practise Toolkit. The guys chat through their experiences of working on and releasing the tuition projects, learning jazz, practise motivation, legato control and fight Mac vs PC.

This week the guys take questions and threads sent in and discuss what to do with a 1 hour window of practise per day. Other things: Tom teases news about his upcoming new master legato product, Dan tells a story about a puma, Beebs announces Pathways To Jazz Vol 2 release date and in the patreon aftershow Jake gets a scale and polish. Check your app artwork for the picture, it’s spesh.

With Beebee & Tom away, Jake and Dan take the keys to the podcast machine and interview Rabea Massaad. The guys talk with Bea about his background, what it’s like touring, YouTubing, developing amps for Victory and the changing tide of what it means to be a guitar star in the digital era. There’s also a brief recapitulation of the fake instagram playing subject that’s only caught more fire in the last few weeks. Thanks so much for coming on the show dude, lovely hang.

This week the guys chat with the awesome Rhett Shull. Rhett is a hired gun session player with a successful and rapidly growing YT channel documenting his guitar life. Rhett also works closely with Rick Beato and on this episode shares some valuable insight into making guitar content online, juggling touring and making a living as a musician in the age of the algorithm. There are two ‘after shows’ today - and in the patreon edit TGH boys get a little lesson in Bourbon from Rhett!

Tom Quayle looks back on over 10 years being on YouTube and how the landscape of online guitar has changed. With Jake putting more time into his channel and Beebs contemplating doing the same, the team discuss what it means to start a guitar based YouTube channel in 2019, the possibilities, prospects and potential pitfalls. They also finally get round to some discussion group comments and tackle the idea of learning, absorbing and utilising licks in solos.

The guys convene to tackle the recent hubbub of mimed, sped up shred vids. The discussion then turns to a more interesting shade of grey: ‘Jam’ videos with composed solos either explicitly passed off as improvised or implied to be improvised. This is a great episode with strong debate tackling the important blurry boundaries between writing, improvisation, presentation, perception and preservation of image. What do you think? Let us know via email, facebook or indeed Instagram!

Tom & Beebs are away but…still find time to sit down with guitars and nerd out on a special episode. This week they answer listener email to the exam episodes & talk about the parallels of wood obsession between whisky & guitar nerds. Next, they talk about expanding the number of chords that work within a key. This weeks bonus for the Patreon edit features Tom and Beebs in a whisky fuelled jam over a couple of standards

With nothing short of a Herculean effort 3 of the 4 convene for an emergency episode. Putting the exam shenanigans on hold for a while they discuss getting their first paid gigs, this morphs into the perils and positives of comparing industry successes. The Patreon bonus after show this week contains some impromptu finger twisting chat about Jake's technique, note grouping and phrasing and light speed. (Apologies this is shorter than usual, but Beebs has been in and out of hospital visiting a poorly Sarah)

Happy 100 everybody! After a cursory overview of their experience of all things ‘graded’, the boys dive in head first and discuss some potentially controversial material from various guitar syllabuses. While doing this, they wrangle with the implications for both teacher and student when it comes to misinformation and the pitfalls that could arise if not tackled.

In this monster episode the guys ponder the prickly subject of graded guitar examinations. Also in this episode you may discover the Tom Quayle emoji, an interesting discussion on the state of the album in 2019. Apologies for problems with the edit and the sparse show notes. Beebs is deep in the Great Firewall Of China and getting this posted has been quite the challenge!

TGHP follows up on the big tone episode before picking up on a discussion group thread re: lightbulb ‘aha’ moments. The guys recall and probe their paradigm shifts in musical understanding, playing ability and diagnostic skills. Ahhaa!

Despite being exhausted from their trip to London, Tom, Beebee and Jake take on the topic of tone! Tom also reflects on his recent hang with the legend that is Paul Gilbert and his new album.