Classical guitarist and composer Kevin Gallagher, from his recent article “Music First“:

We cannot excel at any style of music by simply putting our fingers in the correct place at the correct time. There are no excellent jazz guitarists that I know of who don’t have an understanding of jazz music. There are no great pop guitarists who don’t have an understanding of pop music. And consequently, there are no great classical guitarists who don’t understand how classical music is written on the guitar. Often, I think that students forget that they are studying classical music on the guitar – as if the classical guitar is more about the technique than the music. Let me be clear – if you are studying this style, you are studying classical music on the guitar.

At the end of the year, I always like to reflect on all the great music that came out during the year. There were quite a few good albums that were released in 2009. Here’s a list of some of the more notable ones that crossed my radar in 2009 (in no particular order):

The Ballad of John Henry by Joe Bonamassa – Each new album by Joe Bonamassa shows him stretching the blues/rock genre with his own unique style of playing. The Ballad of John Henry continues that tradition and is another great album by Bonamassa. See my full review of the album here. Also, do not miss Bonamassa’s latest DVD release Live from the Royal Albert Hall. Bonamassa puts on one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen, and this DVD does a great job of capturing that magic. It also includes an appearance by Eric Clapton.

White Sugar by Joann Shaw Taylor – Joann Shaw Taylor is an excellent Telecaster-wielding blues/rock guitarist from the UK. White Sugar is her debut album and showcases not just her guitar playing but also her soulful vocals and songwriting skills. If White Sugar is any indication, Shaw appears to have quite a future ahead of her.

Keep It Hid by Dan Auerbach – I can’t say that I really understand why Auerbach went solo with this album, as any of these songs would have sounded good on a Black Keys album. However, Auerbach does expand the guitar/drums duo format and adds full instrumentation on Keep It Hid. At any rate, it’s an excellent album full of the Black Keys-style of playing that Auerbach does so well. I love his fuzz tones.

Heads, Tails, & Aces by Matt Schofield – Matt Schofield is another excellent blues guitarist from the UK. Heads, Tails, & Aces is his latest release and it showcases his excellent guitar, vocal, and songwriting talents. Schofield hasn’t gotten much press yet in the US, but he’s recently acquired US-based management and he’s looking to tour in the US soon. I can’t wait!

Coming Up For Air by Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam – Coming Up For Air is Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam’s Peter Frampton-produced second album. I think this album is a nice evolution from their debut. Although Knowles is one of my favorite guitarists, this album showcases more of his vocal and songwriting talents. These songs sound good on record, but really shine live, so I highly recommend catching them live if they come through your town.

By a Thread by Gov’t Mule – By a Thread is another solid effort from Gov’t Mule, who continue to put out great music. And, it features a guest performance by none other than Billy F. Gibbons, so what’s not to like?! Some of my favorite tracks from the album, “Broke Down on the Brazos” and “Inside Outside Woman Blues #3″, should be great live, so I’m really looking forward to catching them when they come through Nashville in a few months.

Crack the Skye by Mastodon – Mastodon is one of the premier progressive metal bands of today, and Crack the Skye serves to solidify their place in progressive metal history. This album is full of epic riffs. I bought the deluxe version of the album from iTunes, which includes a full instrumental version of the album.

Battle Studies by John Mayer – Another solid effort by Mayer. I’m partial to his Trio music, but his songwriting skills are undeniable. And, other people complain about his inclusion of “Crossroads” on this album, but I really like his version.

Sean’s Blues by Sean Costello – Frankly, I wish this album didn’t need to be released, because it’s release depended on Costello no longer being around to create new music. That being said, this is an excellent retrospective of Costello’s music with some really great tracks that weren’t released on albums during Costello’s life. This album also serves as a great introduction to Sean’s music if you’re not familiar with it.

Black Gives Way to Blue by Alice In Chains – Black Gives Way to Blue is almost as notable for what it stands for (the return of AIC) as for the music. This is not AIC’s greatest album, but what’s surprising is that it’s a solid continuation of AIC’s music. There’s going to be some fans that will never acknowledge AIC without Layne Staley at the helm, but Black Gives Way to Blue is a solid effort, and new singer William DuVall does an admirable job as Staley’s replacement.

This list is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of my favorite albums of 2009, but a list of some of the more notable albums that I keep coming back to. In fact, I’m sure I missed a number of excellent albums that were released in 2009, so please feel free to add your favorites from 2009 in the comments.

Happy New Year! Thank you for helping make 2009 the best year yet for Guitar Lifestyle. Traffic grew by over 50% from January through December, and there was quite a bit of good discussion. But more importantly, I’ve been able to communicate with more of you, which has been a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what 2010 has in store for Guitar Lifestyle. Best wishes to you and yours for 2010!

A little over a week ago, David Grissom played and demonstrated his signature guitar at a Paul Reed Smith clinic here in Nashville. If you don’t know, Grissom is a guitarist who has played with Joe Ely, John Mellencamp, the Dixie Chicks, and Storyville, among others. He’s also a well-respected studio musician both here in Nashville and in Austin. In addition to his sideman work, he’s also released two solo albums and a blues/rock guitar instruction book.

Prior to seeing the clinic, I had never played the DGT guitar. However, Grissom’s PRS guitar is widely considered to be one of the best signature guitars PRS makes, and it was nice to be able to hear both Grissom and Paul Reed Smith discuss the thought process that went into making the guitar. For example, while the guitar is based on Grissom’s McCarty model that he’s played for many years, there were a few features that he was adamant about including on his guitar. One such feature is the inclusion of two volume controls, one for each pickup. This allows him to blend the two pickups together in various ways when both pickups are selected. The guitar also features coil-taps, which split the humbuckers into single-coil pickups adding even more tones that this guitar can achieve. Grissom likes to use heavy-gauge strings, so he wanted big frets on the guitar; this makes the heavy strings a little easier to bend. The DGT guitar also features a tremolo bar, which he explained helps the strings reverberate more than a stop-tail does.

Of course, in addition to discussing the guitar, Grissom played the guitar. And, what a great player and what a great sounding guitar! He played the guitar through a PRS Sweet 16 amp, which also sounded fantastic. I’ve always been impressed with the quality of craftsmanship that goes into a PRS guitar, and the DGT exemplifies this. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into the design of the guitar and the pickups, and the payoff is an excellent looking and sounding guitar. After seeing the clinic, I spent some time playing a DGT model and I’m very impressed. I think a DGT model is going to be in my future!

Paul Reed Smith also spoke at the clinic, talking about not just the DGT guitar but PRS in general. He’s a pretty funny guy with some very interesting stories. Specifically, it was interesting to hear his take on the music instrument business and the tough year that it seems that all the manufacturers have faced. Unfortunately, he’s had to do some layoffs this year and reduce the workforce to a four-day workweek. He’s also had to cut out extras like bonuses. He mentioned how difficult it is for a non-traditional guitar manufacturer in an environment where everyone seems to want vintage-style instruments. He said that dealers are always looking for the Next Big Thing, even when the current inventory is almost brand new. For example, in Europe shorty after the release of the DGT guitar, the guitar received numerous accolades in the guitar press. However, even while these accolades were just coming out, the dealers were calling asking about new stuff. As a result, PRS has had to constantly evolve their guitar line, leading to them to discontinue a large amount of guitars over the past year or so.

If you get a chance to see a PRS clinic, I recommend going. It’s a fun night of guitar geekery!

Rob Hylton, owner of TeachWombat, let me know about some of his teaching tools for guitarists. His Guitar Teacher’s Toolkit contains many useful items for guitar teachers.

Included in the package are a number of tools for simplifying the entire process of teaching guitar, including administering lessons as well as managing and promoting your lessons. For example, the package includes five main sets of information.

The “lessons” set provides some sample lesson plans to help provide an outline for a lesson. Also included are a couple of backing tracks to help the student get a feel for playing in a band setting.

The “guitar” set provides a number of PDFs designed to be used in a lesson. There’s a selection of blank sheet music pages as well as blank guitar neck pages. The set also includes scale and mode worksheets that can be handed out to students.

The “managing” set provides several PDFs designed to aid in the running of a lesson shop. For example, there are sheets for tracking expenses and student payments.

The “promoting” set provides several PDFs designed to help promote your lessons business. These PDFs can be used in the creation of advertisements or business cards.

The “big grids” set provides PDFs of guitar chords. These PDFs can be used to help students learn chords.

You can get the Guitar Teacher’s Toolkit for $12 at the TeachWombat website. In addition to the Guitar Teacher’s Toolkit, TeachWombat offers backing tracks and additional handouts you can purchase, as well as a Bass Teacher’s Toolkit if bass is more your speed. I’m not a guitar teacher so I can’t speak to how well these products actually work in practice, but for $12 it looks like you get quite a bit of materials to aid you in your teaching.

Congratulations to Todd L. from New York for winning the Fret12 prize pack contest. He has won copies of Mark Tremonti’s and Leslie West’s instructional DVDs, produced by Fret12.

Thanks to all who participated in this contest. I’ll be announcing a new contest soon, so stay tuned!

I love seeing live music. You get to see how the recorded music takes shape after being played over and over again. Sometimes you get a first glimpse at new material or the artist’s take on someone else’s material, which may never get recorded. Furthermore, you get to network with people who have similar tastes in music.

But, over the past few years I’ve noticed an alarming trend in ticket prices. For medium and major acts, ticket prices have been rising at a rate that seems to be far higher than most other artists. Add to that the ever-increasing fees imposed by Ticketmaster and you’ve pretty much priced most people out of the show.

To illustrate my point…A major artist recently announced a tour that is scheduled to come through Nashville in 2010. I wanted to go see this artist, so I obtained a pre-sale code and logged into Ticketmaster. To my surprise, it was going to cost almost $80 per ticket to get the best available seats. I could have bought cheaper seats at about $45 per ticket, but those seats would have been in the upper balcony of the arena. Call me a curmedgeon, but I’d rather not go than pay over $50 (after parking and not including concessions) per ticket to barely be able to see the artist on stage. For the sake of comparison, two legendary bands played a joint show here in town not too long ago for a ticket price of about $60 after fees.

I thought that maybe that artist was an anomoly. Another artist also announced a tour that is scheduled to come through Nashville in 2010. This artist is not as widely known and is playing a smaller venue here in town. I looked up ticket prices for this artist, and mid-level seats were going to be about $45. While not nearly as pricey as the other artist, after paying for parking, it’s still over $100 for two people to go see the show. As a result, we decided to pass on the show.

Compare this with the $40 my wife and I spent (total, with food) to go see an up-and-coming artist at a smaller venue here in town. There were no ridiculous fees, either. Just a fair price for a great show. And, we even got to meet and talk to the artist after the show. Somehow, the artist was making it work while charging a very small amount for tickets. Of course, it remains to be seen whether this artist will raise ticket prices as they get more widely known. I hope they don’t try to keep up with everyone else.

The fact is, as much as I enjoy watching live music, it’s becoming increasingly cost prohibitive to do so, at least to see major acts. For my money, I’d rather support smaller venues who in turn are supporting up-and-coming artists. In my experience, these shows have been more fun because the crowds are generally smaller and more engaged with the music. Not to mention that these shows are generally less than half the cost of seeing a major act’s show.

I have partnered with Fret12 to give away one copy each of Mark Tremonti’s and Leslie West’s instructional DVDs. These are both two of the best produced instructional DVDs I’ve seen. Not only are they chock full of instructional material, there’s some nice insight into their background as well.

You can see my review of the Tremonti DVD here. The Leslie West DVD is similarly produced with background info, instructional content, and special guests, including Zack Wylde and Mark Tremonti, as well as a look into the making of West’s Dean signature guitar. For you amp geeks out there, there’s also a guest appearance by Budda co-founder Jeff Bober!

So, how can you win these DVDs? Easy! All you have to do is use the Contact page to send me an e-mail letting me know that you want to be entered into the contest. Please use “Fret12 Contest” in the subject line. Please note that these DVDs are encoded for US and Canada only.

The fine print: The contest will run through Saturday, Dec. 12, and I will randomly select the winner on Sunday, Dec. 13. This should allow me to get the DVDs to you before Christmas. One winner will win both DVDs. You must supply an e-mail address, but I will not use the e-mail addresses for anything other than to contact the winner.

Here’s a trailer for Mark Tremonti’s instructional DVD:

Here’s a trailer for Leslie West’s instructional DVD:

As we enter the holiday season, it’s time to start thinking of gift ideas for that special guitarist in your life. Perhaps consider a unique handmade guitar-related item from Etsy, a site where craft artists can sell their handmade products. You can find unique picks, straps, and even complete guitars on Etsy. There’s a little something for everyone.

Eric Clapton is one of my favorite guitarists. He has been for almost as long as I’ve been playing. Most guitarists I know feel the same way. However, I wonder if non-guitarists feel the same way?

Several years ago, I was driving a younger relative around in my car, and I was playing a Clapton CD. When he asked what I was playing, he looked incredulous when I told him it was Clapton. The feeling I got was that he was thinking, “Who still listens to Clapton?”

I wonder if this is a sentiment shared by most younger non-guitarists. Even though Clapton helped shape rock music and holds a significant place in musical history, has he done anything over the past few years, or even the past decade or so, that speaks to the next generation of musicians. Or, is he just a piece of musical history.

In my opinion, Eric Clapton is definitely still relevant. But, my opinion is and always will be clouded by the fact that his music (past and present) has had such an impact on me and my playing. If I didn’t play guitar, I’m not sure I’d feel the same way.

What do you think? Is Eric Clapton still relevant to the next generation of fans?