Allow Music to Move You – Part 4 (Make Time for Exercise)

Rumours about my death have been greatly exaggerated. I assure you that I’m still alive, and of course, I am still planning on faking my own death, changing my name to Nacho del Sol and fleeing to Costa Rica. In the meantime, I suppose Spain will have to do. I recorded a new tune awhile […]

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Sangria Days

“Jazz? Really? I didn’t know you could play jazz.” I can’t play jazz, actually. “Bass guitar? I didn’t know you could play the bass.” Uhh….well…I don’t really know how to play that big hunk of wood either. But I’ll give it a shot. “Do you know how to make sangria too?” Hell, yeah! I think […]

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Allow Music to Physically Move You – Part 3 (Intentional Relaxation)

Hello wandering souls, Welcome to the third installment of exploring how we can bolster creativity in music and life by focusing on physical movement and relaxation. Relax Into Your Being Are you practicing tension? Or are you practicing relaxation? What is the force that causes our tension? And how much of a role do we […]

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Allow Music to Move You Physically – Part 2 (Silence the Inner Critic)

In this next instalment, we continue to examine how to create an “allowing” of physical movement and relaxation in our body to help us deepen in creativity. Silence the inner critic The inner critic is bullshit and you don’t need it. Plus, it’s not even real. The premises that it’s based on are also not […]

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Allow Music to Move You Physically – Part 1

In a recent practice session, I decided to experiment with moving around more while playing. I got into physically connecting with the music and softening into purposeful relaxation. Being loose and moving spontaneously throughout my day is something I feel I need to work on, in general. Moving freely helped me to get right inside […]

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Capturing a Mood in our Music

Music evokes moods, feelings and emotions that are often not commonly experienced in our daily lives. What I mean is that we can reach out for music when we want to experience beauty, deep calmness, inspiration, mystery, excitement or other feeling states. I know that we can experience these without music, but music is a […]

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A Simple Way to Make Your Guitar Music Shine

How can we make our playing as expressive as possible? How can we say all the feelings we want to say through our guitar? The simple way is actually to use many small ways. It’s in the details that will take your music from being good to mind-melting. We express through using the right smattering […]

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Does Creativity Have Standards?

You know that recording that you just did? It sounds pretty solid. Your timing was pretty good, you played a few decent licks and overall, it turned out fine. Guess what? Throw it in the trash. Yep, that’s right. Bin it. Start over. “Wha…wha…whaaat?”, you may ask. “But my recording turned out fine.” Well… “Pretty good”, “decent”, and […]

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Song: The Traveller. Collecting Masks. Unrepeatable.

A longer improvisation. Strange notes and chords, occasionally tried to experiment with different picking styles and full chord vibrato. Odd contrasts. Spontaneous key changes. Consistently inconsistent, and at times, challenging to the ear. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that playing one “off” note doesn’t ruin your song: It depends on the note you play […]

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Song: Never-Ending Never Ever

Not really a song…more of a semi-improvised hypnotic riff. I would like to develop this a bit more. I hear bass lines for this…I left a few sour notes in there. Riff comes as is. Jangly sweet tremolo courtesy of Carr amps. Song: Never-Ending Never Ever

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