The Guitar Hour Podcast

With our beloved David Beebee away sick this week, Dan and Jake have a breif catch up and then answer your questions from the Guitar Hour Facebook Discussion Group. Questions include, sightreading, jazz studies, learning lots of songs, technique and more!

The guys are joined by recurring rogue, Jake Willson to drill deeper into solfeggio ear training and effective practise. Beebs reports on some breakthroughs and Jake has a new JTC masterclass out. (We had some problems this week, both technical and logistical, so apologies for the lack of show notes and if the audio sync drifts at times! Back to normal next week!

Dan gets brutal revenge on Beebs with a surprise test & Tom Quayle returns to give his thoughts on ear training. The guys follow up on last week's show - probing the wax filled mess that is aural development in education.

The boys answer listener email - and in the process start a new run of episodes on ear training, connecting the ear to the fretboard, improvisation and playing what you hear. They share their history and frustrations (mostly Beebs’ ranting) with ear training, ponder the nature behind vague instruction and start exploring what can be done. Evil Beebs then springs a surprise listening test on Smith! Mwuhaha. Definitely follow along in your podcast app artwork to see images of what is being talked about.

This Week The boys are joined by friends of the show Bobby Harrison and Phil Short. We discuss Bobby's gig with Cliff Richard and Phil's recently bagged arena tour with Westlife. We also dig into how they got the gig, the audition process, gear and what it's like to be a guitarist for shows on such an enormous scale. A great insight from both guys this week. Enjoy!

The guys cross the streams and conjure one half of the #Guitarsoles podcast - Levi Clay back to the show. They discuss Levi’s recent video review of the Steve Vai book Vaideology, critiquing ideas and changing one's mind. They also crack open the mail sack answering listener email, and follow up with some suggestions on where to start with modal harmony.

Beebs & Smith follow up on last week's Vaideology episode before discussing the latest big announcement from Fractal Audio. This weeks deep dive chat is on ways to practise guitar effectively, and in particular, motivating the discipline for the hard things that make long lasting change in playing.

This week the boys are back with a an emotionally charged and confusing discussion about a particular section in Steve Vai's long awaiting music theory book for guitar titled 'Vaideology'. They go back into the misty modal mines and talk modes and modal chord progressions as well as delving into some classic guitar magazines for the early 90s. This could get controversial...

YouTube are enforcing some pretty awful (and sketchy) copyright restrictions on big guitar and music channels. The guys chat this over, and muse on what a good thing it is that there’s no ‘YouTube’ for podcasts…..yet. Deep dive topic this week is all about depping (subbing for our American friends). The culture, etiqutte, skillset, and various pro’s and cons.

Andy Wood returns and this time brings with his his good buddy and partner in crime 'Uncle' Ben Eller. After a rowdy catch up and a thorough southern hazing from both barrels of the wily Knoxvillians the two git slingers take us through Andy's most recent guitar instrumental album 'Junktown'. Strap in for a track by track walkthrough including insights into the writing, recording and production process as well as some deep chat on the creative journey as a whole. Enjoy!

Beware, this episode contains hardcore legato nerdery! Beebee and Tom Quayle are enroute to the Jonathan Kreisberg/Nelson Veras gig and turn on the mics to pass the time. They discuss, guitar duos, legato technique, phrasing, seismic changes in technique, and also follow up on last week's episode, getting Tom’s thoughts on right hand technique influencing vocabulary.

This week the guys are joined by Australian guitarist Greg Stoff. They discuss how the role of the in-person guitar teacher has changed during the online/YouTube age and how picking technique can influence, help or hinder vocabulary and line development.

Beebee, Smith and Tom Quayle catch up with the phenomenal modern blues player Josh Smith during his 2019 UK tour.

This week the guys catch up with Keven Eknes to talk about Berklee, LIPA, Instagram, Strandberg and the Nashville scene for guitarists.

In their final leg of the trip Smith and Beebs catch up with Gabriel Wareing. They talk about his recent move to NY, studying jazz at the Royal Conservatoire Scotland, cruise ship guitar work and his involvement with Sky TV’s Guitar Star competition. This should be the last of the dodgy audio quality episodes for a while as we resume normal podcast service and start to roll out big updates to the show. As always, thanks for listening!