JD Simo is an up-and-coming local Nashville guitarist. Since moving to Nashville in 2006, he’s become an in-demand session musician as well as a regular performer in the Don Kelly Band, which counts Redd Volkaert, Johnny Hiland, and Brent Mason as alumni.

I had a chance to see Simo this past weekend at Robert’s Western World in downtown Nashville. Although I was only able to catch a few minutes of his set, I can see why he’s been garnering great reviews. Apparently, the word has already gone around Nashville, because Robert’s was standing room only with wall-to-wall people. I’m looking forward to catching a longer set next time, hopefully with a little more room to move! Here’s a clip of Simo playing some blues with the Don Kelly Band:

Seattle-based guitar instructor and founder of Heartwood Guitar Instruction Rob Hampton has recently written a book titled Rob’s Totally Awesome Guitar Teaching Handbook. In the book, Hampton provides hard-earned insights into setting up and running a successful guitar teaching business.

I’ve thought several times about becoming a guitar teacher, but I’ve always had questions that have held me back. Rob’s book helps answer many of those questions. For example, one basic question I’ve always had is whether I was a good enough guitarist to start teaching others. Rob had this same question before he started, and he provides some good advice about how good you have to be. Furthermore, he learned that teaching made him play more, which helped him improve as a player himself. Another question he discusses is determining whether you’re a good enough teacher. He provides some good insight into helping you determine that for yourself.

Many people get into guitar teaching because they like playing guitar and they think it’s an easy way to make money. However, when you teach on your own, you also need to be aware of the business side of guitar teaching. Rob’s handbook breaks down many of the details about running a guitar-teaching business. For example, should you rent a studio or teach from your home? What kind of teaching space do you need? Should you make housecalls? Do you need insurance? These are just a few examples of the types of questions that Rob discusses in his book.

Another aspect of guitar teaching is marketing yourself. Rob talks about how to brand yourself and then advertise your services to your community. Rob has a unique perspective on how to market his business, as he’s been able to get his business on the first page of Google when searching for “seattle guitar lessons” and he has a five-year waiting list of students. Suffice it to say, he has some helpful strategies for marketing a guitar-teaching business.

If you’ve been able to answer all of these questions and you still want to be a guitar teacher, Rob provides some guidance on how to teach guitar. He helps you determine the type of teaching philosophy that will be successful for you and your students. He also provides advice on how to structure your lessons to get the maximum benefit for the student. The book even includes detailed information about how to teach a new concept to a beginning student. Rob really spends quite a bit of time in this section providing details and examples about teaching guitar concepts and how to approach lesson planning. He even provides a list of easy songs to teach beginning and intermediate players. This chapter is full of excellent content about the actual act of teaching.

At $30, Rob’s Totally Awesome Guitar Teaching Handbook is a treasure-trove of information for anyone thinking about teaching guitar. It’s really opened my eyes up to a lot of things I’ve never even considered and made me really think about whether or not I’m ready to teach guitar. I highly recommend Rob’s book to anyone thinking about teaching guitar.

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.

Emon at Guitarkadia recently posted a review of It Might Get Loud, the new movie featuring Jimmie Page, The Edge, and Jack White. The movie was released in California and New York last Friday and will be released throughout the rest of the US over the next several months. I’ve been looking forward to the film since I first heard of it several months ago, so I’m looking forward to the September release here in Nashville.

Earlier this year, Kenny Wayne Shepherd was featured during one of the Guitar Center Sessions events. They recorded the session and have provide the videos on YouTube. Below is Shepherd and singer Noah Hunt playing “Shotgun Blues”:

The other available videos from the session include:

Introduction and “King Bee”
Shepherd discussing his history
Shepherd discussing his influences
Shepherd discussing changes in writing and why he started singing
Shepherd and Hunt playing “Blue on Black”
Shepherd discussing his effects
Shepherd and Hunt playing “Losing Kind”
Shepherd discussing Fender
Shepherd discussing recording
Shepherd discussing his last album, 10 Days Out

TinyLick.com is a fun Web site that lets you create licks and then share them on other sites, such as forum sites or on your own Web site. For example, here’s a three-note per string lick in G:

Adam Levy has a series on his Web site where he asks the same 13 questions to different guitarists. Recently, he asked those 13 questions to guitarist Alvin Youngblood Hart. In one question, Hart gives his opinion on what makes a good guitar:

Well, it certainly isn’t the name on the headstock. The difference is what goes on between the nut and the saddle. By that I mean, if those variables are straight, a $60 guitar will sound every bit as good as, if not better than, a $6000 guitar.

Check out the rest of the questions and Hart’s answers here.

The 88 have recently recorded an entire song titled “Love is the Thing” using the FourTrack iPhone application by Sonoma Wire Works. They describe a bit of the process and reasoning behind recording a song using the iPhone on their site.

This Spring, we were on tour opening up for the B-52s, with shows all around the East Coast. One day while we were driving, Keith was browsing through the applications on the iPhone and came across FourTrack. We thought this app would be a great way to record song ideas while we are away from home.

So we downloaded it, and I thought it would be a neat experiment to record the full band on a phone. I was very curious to see how it would sound.

You can judge for yourself below, but I think their experiment turned out pretty well. And, it’s not only a great advertisement for the FourTrack app, it’s turning out to be a great marketing tool for the band.

I was watching the Today Show the other morning and was surprised to see a profile of young 10-year old blues guitarist Quinn Sullivan. If you’re not familiar with Sullivan, Buddy Guy took an interest in Sullivan a few years ago and even featured him on his last album Skin Deep. While most of his peers are probably enjoying their summer vacation by riding bikes, swimming, and playing video games, Sullivan is spending his summer vacation touring and recording an album. The future looks bright for Quinn Sullivan.

In August 2007, Vintage Guitar magazine featured Joe Bonamassa as the cover story. A few months ago they posted the interview online. In the interview, Bonamassa discusses his guitar collection (with pictures!), his early career, and his experiences with guitar legends:

Asked why his experiences with such legends have been so positive, Bonamassa chuckled, “I listened to old records… I should have been born in 1950. I’m into old guitars, I’ve owned an old car, and for a large portion of my life, I didn’t listen to anything that was made after 1974. When I met all of those guys, they liked the fact that I could kinda talk the language in the sense that I knew a lot of the ins and outs of older recordings. And to be honest, a lot of the people I’ve opened for tend to draw a bigger crowd, so I’d tempered my act to fit that type of audience.”