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Hi. This is Ged Brockie from GMI: The Guitar and Music Institute; and you’re
listening to the Musicality Podcast. Ever wondered why some people seem to have
a gift for music have you ever wished that you could play by ear sing in tune
improvise and jam you're in the right place time to turn those wishes into
reality welcome to the musicality podcast with your host Christopher
Sutton. Hi this is Christopher founder of Musical U and welcome to the
musicality podcast on the show today I'm joined by Ged Brockiei founder of the guitar
and music institute a website which provides original and curated articles
and videos to help guitarists develop their skills and as you learn in this
conversation also provides insights and education useful to any musician over
the years I've come to really appreciate how playing multiple instruments can
both broaden and deepen your understanding of music and is in fact
one of the best things you can do for your musicality so I hope that even if
you're not a guitarist yourself you'll stay tuned because Ged's story and
perspective on learning music is still going to be very interesting and
relevant for you Ged has been a professional musician for over 30 years
performing across the UK he's helped to develop educational
courses for higher education he's launched a summer school and a music
festival and composed original music for television theatre and film somehow
amongst all of that he's also found the time to publish the first blind series
of guitar tutor books which teach jazz blues rock and more he's written a book
with accompanying tutorial videos called drop to voicings uncovered he's created
a huge website at guitar and music institute dot com
and launched the GMI podcast earlier this year jet is a great storyteller and
in this conversation we talked a bit about his early beginnings in music what
it was like growing up as a musician in Scotland in the 80s
how things have changed in terms of learning music and performing and his
perspective on what's good and bad about the current status quo in music
education he shares his opinion on whether there's
such a thing as musical talent and if so how important it is the most powerful
thing you can do while studying music to turn you into a real musician how
learning music is like learning a language and the important lesson to be
learned there that will help you avoid feeling frustrated or disappointed
during the learning process and the connection between theory technique and
your musicality we also talked about a man
smashing a bus stop I hope you'll enjoy this wide-ranging and illuminating
conversation with Ged I certainly found it thought provoking my name is
Christopher Sutton and this is the musicality podcast from musical you
welcome to the show Jed thank you for joining us today it's absolutely
fantastic Christopher doesn't seem like a week since I talked to you so for
those not in the know I was recently a guest on the GMI podcast fantastic show
with interviews teaching and more for guitar players and musicians of all
stripes and we'll be making reference to that a few times so do head to the show
notes if you would like to listen in on that previous conversation so Jed I'd
love to start at the beginning and talk a bit about how you first learned music
and what those early experiences were like for you well I had a very
interesting I think background it was a very musical background and I was first
I had quite a religious background actually and so I was always exposed to
simple songs and melodies Scottish sounds and all that sort of stuff and at
the each show I was always singing and at the age of five I started taking
piano lessons with my aunt and that lasted for a couple of years and then at
the age of I was always been asked to sing in choirs and things at school
and then the age of 10 and there was a guy came round and we offered to go into
this room and see if we could play a trumpet it was a corner actually and I
managed to get in there so I was play in the corner for a couple of years the
thing about and you know tronca envy you know I was playing the corner you went
to Edinburgh schools everybody just wanted to be in first trumpet so you're
looking at these guys and it always flash the first trumpet players you know
I was just in the corners so after that went to secondary school and again em
was wailing - singing and all the rest and then at the age of as you did back
in the day perhaps not so much nowadays and the bunch of pals were said why
don't we start a band so I thought yes I want to be the lead guitarist so I at
the age of 15 my mother didn't have any money and she was a widow and so I was
walking down the road one day and I saw an old lady struggling in our garden and
I said do you need any help not expect not to turn around and say
yes I do and she did now I've seen this guitar which was it was 670 it was 70
pounds and it was in a shop called the music box which was up beside - a hole
and hit mercy center a strange place a very strange place run by - to me at 15
very ancient men both bald I thought were brothers I don't know actually
you know and and everything was in glass boxes of dead flies in the port morphic
I mean it really was a creepy creepy place and then I'd gone up to this place
and seamless guitar I knew that was okay to guitarra I wanted it was actually a
strap Fender Strat copy called the Honda - and for anyone who knows another but
guitars and it was 69 pounds and the action of the strings was about an inch
off the neck as a distance from the cushion heaven
really birth but to me I was just amazed that I fell in love immediately and I
remember looking at the strings it's funny how certain things that will
leave you I remember looking at the strings and thinking I'll never be able
to play that seems funny no bus strike but say after all these years so
basically that lady said yeah if you want some help and I remember I go five
poems for ten hours work a D and I want for six these garnering half of more or
less of the money and in those days are we back in the early eighties which does
seem linked in the mists of time no you didn't just school and you know get the
thing in the MPO you Peter upper then got the thing so I was being up not a
little bouquet little cardboard thing and take my money up and him and he had
given me the piano lessons that was tell me earlier
she said that I'll pay the rest of it so I took the money up went up and they'd
sold the guitar so I'm basically they got another one which I don't know if it
was as good as the one that I was looking at but it was still a hold or
two and and that was really the beginning of my musical journey and I
just just my I do have OCD I guess and when I get my teeth into something I
don't give up I just keep going and that was that I wanted to be a musician I
fell in love with music have this musical background but interestingly for
fast-forward almost 30 years I mean the reality was I was adopted by maman
it was a bit of a funny one because I was actually adopted by her and her
husband who was my uncle if the Muslims are still with with me so he died when I
was age 7 and I had a brother who I didn't really know and it turns out that
brother had seen me a big concerts or stuff like that and made contact and I
was interested so I went to see him and it was absolutely unbelievable terms he
was in the guitar he was on all the things I was into he's a plasterer by
trade and when I was doing the plastering and
in this upper part of my house I built a *** plaster really easy so it must
be in the blood but the interesting thing about all of this is that my real
father although our complete and a vagabond you know it was like wine women
and song I mean that really was his his gig um he was a musician and he used to
write songs my brother also said he wrote songs for Lena Martell Bank career
one stage show I just think it's kind of weird that you know I'm suddenly music
I've got I've got the language in me and anything that actually we should go back
that's how it maybe is or why it is I don't know I don't know this is gonna no
we're done have you guys because Chris is gonna ask me Christopher's gonna ask
me a question and I'm gonna be all over the place there you go no I think that
provides a fascinating insight into your background and also your mindset about
music I'd love to ask though you're someone who at this point has a
seriously impressive career in performing composing and educating in
music and I'd love to know looking back how much of that success would you
ascribe to having a gift or a talent for music and how much is it down to hard
work and kind of educating yourself step by step I took a very strong line on
this actually because you will always meet people who who say to you you know
I mean we have choices like if people don't realize they have choices but you
know people think they have to do a certain thing they have to get married
they have to get a job they have to get mortgage they have to be in the name
till five and for me that that's a daft way to go about life um what was the
question again what proportion of your success would you say was down to that
gift that you felt you had early on or the drawing to music so so you meet
people and if they're impressed by you they'll see all you there almost like
it's people you really talent it as if that's
like everything came easy to you you know and they're almost I feel that I'm
saying you know I would be able to do that if I was talented therefore that's
my get a deal card free which is absolute nonsense because I kind of
think it's like you know when you get a little nugget and you burn away burn
away you find how much gold is actually held within it people have got to
actually work hard at things and and you know the talent comes from the work okay
you know there might be a guy who takes up guitar or a gorilla takes up guitar
and they worked really hard we won't know if they are fundamentally great
musicians until they've done the Japanese 10,000 hours or whatever it is
we we won't know and then we can make a judgment call on how much they're
bringing to the party in terms of giving to the human race and an artistic
expression that doesn't mean to see them they might be fantastic players is it
sublime well we can only judge that over a period of time and looking back I
don't forget that a lot of people who become famous a lot of them is you know
why did people than write me likes and I why didn't someone write it before it
well he came along when the technology was there with the iron frame to have
two tones attention are stirring therefore he could sustain the north you
know in technological advancement and actual application from an artist go
hand in hand so talent is a talent is everything but it can only be expressed
through hard work does that answer the question it does it I think what I'm
hearing is that there is something inside us that gives us a natural
inclination or aptitude to music but it certainly wasn't the case by the sound
of it that you bought that first guitar we're an instant rock star and have just
kind of dabbled in music having great success ever since yeah exactly I mean
you know I saw some sort of synergy with the fact that when I played the guitar
I immediately took to it and it there was a whole lot of cultural things
mixed up in that for a 15 year old boy around 1980 and when there was no
computers there was no games there wasn't all these other things I mean we
have to acknowledge that there's been a massive cultural shift and the way that
the Western world and the young people of today see their futures don't think
so many of them see that wrapped up in expressing themselves
sadly through music they're expressing themselves through new mediums such as
media and the game gaming world and and all that so when you were studying music
at Leeds City College and where you went on to get a first and be given an award
for your academic excellence I suppose was it clear to you that you are on a
career path there were you studying it because you saw this as your route
forwards in life well it's the age-old problem isn't it Christopher I mean I'm
a musician or I don't think of myself as an artist but it's Who I am it's what I
do is my first love and you can read it about whatever you want you know is my
first love says he was the broken marriage behind oh maybe yesterday it's
fundamentally that and it wasn't a case of can I do this should I do this for a
monitor again it's just what I was gonna do with my life but I'll tell you this
there was a small amount of people just like I guess in any course on anywhere
in the world and specifically music but we went out and kicked all the time and
you know 90% of the course their members didn't do that and but I do remember
going back once because I managed at the age of 21 and and a wife and I heard a
ho stone and leeks and I've never gone back to her one day and I was quite
upset because I just played terrible you know I just I haven't yet got the
language of music in me to an expressive to the point of expression that there
was a point that was a really big movement towards that actually the end
of that course but I do remember thinking I'll
never be able to do this and yet it's all I wanted to do you know it was like
and no I can explain that to young people very very succinctly but back
then no one had explained that to me so that's again a big thing in all that
development but in terms of what changed things for me was at the end of the inn
in Scotland you four-year courses so I was only doing a three-year course on
the English one and it was a degree equivalent and I've got to say that the
core standard and leads the stuff that they're offering at degrees for now is
just a pale shadow before we dead believe you me because in the final year
I thought there was a ten thousand one thesis along with oral transcriptions
and this makes me sound like a coming at the arc but actually I learned how to
use a nib pen and Indian ink there was no computers no from that and
eventually your brain got to understand how long a staff was until many notes
and all of that they're all of that sort of thing but as part of that 10,000 watt
thesis which I did on my guitar part the time lives in Scotland called Martin
Taylor was you know I analyzed loads of his music and all the rest of it and
through that moving the needle on the record and writing stuff down you know I
didn't just come overnight but that was a major thing and actually beginning to
understand the language of music so if we think back to that moment when you
came home to your wife and you were seriously distraught because your
performance had not gone the way you'd hoped and you felt like you couldn't
express yourself the way you really had the burning desire to looking back if
you could go back and say something to you then what would you have said what
could you say that would enlighten them as to the route forward I would say that
you know music is a funny thing because in many ways it's a language I mean
that's what it is it's same it's different than the language but it's the
same as the language fundamentally it's the language if you're learning a
language if you learn to speak French Russian German doesn't
water is you've got to start with letters or into works and then into
phrases and a classic example would be blamming a freeze which we regard as
calling a lick so I'm trying to improvise and I would learn a phrase
which we would call a lick now imagine that in the scenario of
learning a language you learn I would like to take my grandmother to the
toilet okay so then you're in the company of someone who actually speaks
that language and you've got your own little fries I'd like to take my
grandmother to the toilet and then everyone's chatting and laughing a
little my good tailor and then you borrow blotto at the wrong point I'd
like to take my grandmother to the toilet and it'll kinda stops Luke's at
you and starts ringing their glass looking at in an embarrassed fashion
that's and as a kin to learning some phrases going on and improvising gig not
having a language internalized and then just trying to join the dots together
it's gonna sound all over the place so what I would say to me back then is
toughen up your lambing a language you've just you just know a few words it
takes years for most people to actually be able to have their own version of
learning a language and being able to speak it I suppose what I'd most like to
know is how did you go from that young performer frustrated and disappointed to
someone who had such career success and went on to found such an impressive
website GMI at the guitar and music institute in 2013 what did you go
through to turn you into someone who was ready to go out there and say I can help
young musicians I can help guitar players well for many years it's the
only thing that makes a musician better there's constant woodshedding or
practice and going out and playing you know you just got to go it and play and
play and play and play and the more you play the better you'll become and you
and it's important that you play with people that are slightly better than
yourself you know one of the big problems with
teaching people is in every true musician the light children all the
musicians I know just like kids the big kids like I am that because beverage
somehow managed to retain that childishness which means it's open you
know if if you're playing then some I don't know restaurant or fancy hotel or
something there's always the kids that come or not
you know the adults are interested they are talking nonsense they're talking
about mortgages and houses and money in cars and things that can you know what
is the kids that are you know and true musicians have in themselves they never
came to lose it so you've got to play with people you've got to be strong
enough to say I'm not good enough I need to play with people or bear and that
will drag your level of competence up we need to go through the fire you know
there are being a times in my life when I've done gigs and things in this way it
has been literally running down the side of my face and my legs have been shaken
and dealt I tell me what that's difficult when you got a paddleboard
under here but yeah yeah and but you've got to go through those moments and I'm
assuming that that's a light to the work that needs to be done to get you into
those moments yogi if you work hard enough you will be given opportunities
to shine and if you haven't worked hard enough you won't be asked again because
frankly the paradox is you know what's the difference between say watching up a
theater show that's put on by amateurs on a theater show let's put on to
professionals because let's face it you go along you watcher and amateur show
can be absolutely amazing so what's the difference difference is that the
amateur show had nine months to prepare and the professional show at three days
and you get the cake because you'll expected that you can go along you can
sit down in a chair and more or less read what's there and if you can't do
that as bye-bye but if you can do that you either bordered handsomely
so take us back to 2013 and what was going on in your head that made
you start GMI it's an enormous undertaking to create a successful
website not least one that has created such a wealth of useful resources as GMI
has what was in your head at that time that made you think I will start a
website and start doing this so the the main thing was they have always been
interested in technological advancement specifically and two-minute m and I've
always been wrapped up in it and I don't know why but it seems to sort of pull my
chain so I was there and I brought up with another guy I think all banned for
the day which was an online site where bands basically competed to be banned
for the day and that way too you know various it's things a massive
counting machine and people liked it but unfortunately and and again this is a
good example of the person I am you know assessment partner is a great guy know
that I said that I would be up to 3 o'clock in the morning working on this
like every day you know I wanted to work and but bands young bands people aren't
willing to buy track so and fundamentally it was just it didn't work
because there was no money there was no revenue and there was huge gaps of my
knowledge and 2012 I started to think about em I was getting on a bit you know
i i've got a lot knowledge i've done a lot of things and you know i love to
compose or love to perform and I also love to teach and that wasn't really
this the story when I was a younger man and but with each comes maybe a wisdom
I don't know but is that feeling you want to try it not too much wisdom in my
case but you do want to try and you know help people food because there's so much
nonsense out there no so I looked around at what was out there and I just thought
you know a lot of things I teach are things that I teach that I don't see you
there I'm not saying ever teachers unique but you know I mean if
you go into YouTube and check and drop two voicings on cupboards it's not a lot
of use but there's already five comments that say this is the base they
explanation on the internet so I'm not seeing that to pick myself up I'm just
saying that to push for at the point that you know I have ideas and concepts
and thought through how to actually put things down and I felt I could do a good
job of it so that was one thing I was getting on a
bit I thought I want to get it done and I hope they're well stir still can do it
still got my marbles and I can still play and fit and healthy reasonably
healthy I see so for the listeners who haven't
yet visited the guitar and music Institute calm can you tell us a bit
about the website and what they can find there the is taken many it's changed
that's changed and it's it's been edited and go better from the mentally it's
it's got a course I scored there are courses there for people to do in guitar
and now there was also courses which have taken me down they will go up in
another medium but there's a thing called the performing musicians
blueprint that was all about how to get gigs how to get better gigs and all of
us are thing is also a course that I creates pinning for musicians because
Pinterest just saves me a bucketload of traffic every day and it's just an
amazing website I would never say to anyone out there that's listening to
this who does want a lot of traffic get onto Pinterest it's hard to imagine a
bunch of graphics could have such an impact but they can so there's the the
core the cool studies which will be added to from beginner right through to
advanced I got a little bit of investment from some friends you'll see
what I've done and they were retiring they had a wee bit of spare cash and
they threw it my way so I had a decision to make
do I reinvent real by paying other people because I
didn't have much real desire to do myself showing them how to play you know
any any poaching you know Wonderwall whatever but I saw this piece of
software which was called curation suite because if you think about it if you see
a story any story and then on the web or on the on the newspapers and then you do
a search for that story what do you see you see the same story a thousand times
and most of it's coming from one source which is probably Reuters all of these
newspapers are fundamentally cool hangers for out there's that all the
dune is curating software and curating stories and adding a little bit of
commentary save the same pictures on this on the web it's the same video so I
thought this is silly why don't I start curating things and actually adding
value to it and in that way I don't need to reinvent the wheel and that's what
I've done with the how to play CDs and that will be getting bigger as as time
goes on and who else to help me up the
podcasting and in fabulous year I started podcasting and I kind of taken
to it like a doctor what enough really great guys like yourself and others
there's so many people who did with the story a terrible once they said we all
just want to talk about ourselves and that's what podcasting is fantastic
because you don't need to say much she just asked a question and off they go
and and so the the podcasting thing it really is taking office it's quite
amazing and what else do we have on there news you name a name as the
publication's of all the publications there's loads of free stuff from GMI but
I'm putting that over to the shop so you know people can get backing tracks and
all sorts of stuff and it just goes on and on just it certainly does and I
think it's such such a delight as a new visitor to explore everything that you
have to offer there I think it's a really perceptive of you to recognize
the value of curation I think a lot of musicians
have the I was about to say delusion that's a bit harsh but they have the
feeling that if they create a tutorial and how to play the C chord on guitar it
will be better than everyone else's and therefore they should create videos for
every chord and then for every song and they end up recreating the wheel as you
put it and actually the value to your audience with GMI is in you selecting
the highest quality material that's out there and putting it in one place where
they can get exposed to the best material yes and mythical Asian thing
you know Ont you know let's say it's how to play and what did I say earlier
wonder what what's just for argument C so alright I would do that I do things
when something happens I don't want or someone's died you know and they're
bringing a new album you know if you think about a musician they don't
actually have a lot of stories to tell I mean once you know you've gotten your
homework oh I'm going on tour I mean everything else is just fluttering so
what I do with the curated part of it and I'll add in other videos you know so
there was a fake stairway heaven is one of the ones one of the obvious ones that
I did and there's a great video someone playing it on flutes in Japan and
there's someone else doing it another way and then you get the original one so
you got all these videos and then I'll put on some stuff that you can hear on
iTunes some Twitter feeds you know and it creates a bigger experience rather
than oh here's jet plane you know dude does the world really really eat another
bat ripoff sneery heaven and Washington say that seemed that they went to court
but anyway you know I'm saying that no it doesn't and that means that I little
old me here in Edinburgh in Scotland can help a massive Empire because I'm
pulling from all the best sources in the world every single day you know so so
GMI has like curates just you know the links are only another so I won't make
it clear to people this isn't about plagiarism
you know the links are there to all the sources even the image links and the
added commentary when needed from me but I do have a little news page on GMA but
should just put the latest guitar news click click click click click and they
click that and go to those websites well I think it's really impressive the
audience you've built a G mi and I think it's really a testament to the quality
of that curation and the effort you've been putting in for several years now I
I'd love to ask you didn't call it the guitar Institute or the guitar Institute
of Edinburgh you called it the guitar & Music Institute and I've also seen it
described as a place to learn guitar and musicianship I'd love to hear your
thoughts on what what you teach beyond guitar well in a way if people go to GMA
or all of the go to YouTube or if this year on Amazon and all those videos are
up there there's a lot of theoretical concepts that are not just from the
guitar and if a TV thing was talking about earlier about drop 2 voicings now
what I see on YouTube is a lot of people talking about things that talk about
drop to your voice ings you know we could get a monkey to tell
what I dropped you voicing it's you don't have to be Einstein I am certainly
not but they often leave out the reasons for drop two voicings you know then the
reason is to do with voice leading you know and it's that's something that
isn't just for guitar you know ask for everything
um and so that theoretical knowledge that's in there could apply to
absolutely anyone there the musicianship areas that aren't covered and there's no
need to me for me to do because there's AG recycled musical you that does it
yeah is oral feeling and I've been scratching my head would have had a
moment to think how I can integrate or help people you know use musical you
more and entrepreneurship not musicianship but entrepreneurship I
think that is the most crucial thing for young people today is to be
entrepreneurial mister be able to see see opportunity where none exists them
to think of ideas to make things happen you know that it's really it's really
exciting to actually have an idea and see it through absolutely so this maybe
ties back to something we talked about on the GMI podcast recently which was
that young musicians these days are may be prone to what you called
cherry-picking and looking for a quick fix to the
problem that's immediately in front of them that's very different from the kind
of broad attitude of musicianship and entrepreneurialism that you just
described how do you see music education today and what could young people do to
maybe give themselves a better chance of succeeding as a well-rounded musician so
really difficult one to answer and I don't want to be too negative but it's
probably gonna assume that you know is it's hard to see that you're actually
making history just by existing you're making history and once you die you are
history and it's hard to get an idea of the changes that are going around you
just to be aware of that the cultural changes and and we're all connected in
some way no so it's it's much more it's much more seismic in the way things
change the way people think about things and we live in a culture where people
are famous just for being famous you know why would you want to work hard
when you can just be famous for having you know big *** or something I mean
that that's sadly we were not I mean people with no discernible talent I've
been held up as Paragons of virtue to the young of today so that has to have
had an effect on everything and bleach right through to the consciousness of
those that are interested in music so I'm not saying everyone back in the day
because then I'm beginning to sound like old man but I think it it would be fair
to say that there was a lot more people interested in music back then and
playing instruments I'm talking about guitar here and people really want it to
get good I mean wants to argue with me about that that's
fine I'm I'm not here to make a big judgment call on it but just listen to
the charms I mean we've gone back to knock in the rocks together you know
some people might say that as if that is a reflection of where we're going then
it's not a really nice one so I think there is a broad a feeling that I just
want to do what's necessary almost the bluffers gate you know and if you think
about it if twenty years ago you know when I was working or coming through ten
years ago coming through sir a musician if someone phoned me up that's it yeah
can you play blues yeah I love blues *** can you play reggae yeah I love
reggae and all you would need is almost off standard a few licks or something
sort of key keyboard or wax to actually prove that you knew and understood that
and that's not going to get you past that the guys that really know it but
let's face it how many of them are about so I do think that young people are
being swamped with this don't work hard just get a few things together and at
least this you know if you go on YouTube and you want to play what's that song
done LaBelle and Hotel California and all that sort of stuff they just learn a
few legs they don't even watch the whole video you know even if it's a big lesson
they just post a bet I'll take that and that is not going to help treat a
rounded musical technique and an ability to hear things having said all that of
course there are some incredibly talented young people out there and I've
got the honor and privilege to come in contact with a lot of them and see what
they're doing when the university that I teach at some of the musicians
this is Napier University in Edinburgh on the the be a popular music course and
to be honest most of the good players are going towards rock jazz rock fusion
and and jazz but some of the players are just absolutely astonishing and that
kind of flies in the face of everything I've said but it does make me think well
thank goodness for them but there are they becoming less and less I don't know
and even is there a place for people to play I
think this is a big big point that actually feeds in to people just want
them to be like you know cherry-pick and all the rest of it where is the audience
ease you know people go to massive concerts because there's thousands of
people going you know if you want if you want a big audience get a reasonably big
one if you want a massive audience get a big one if you want a huge audience go
get a really big audience because you know people bring people but for working
musicians on the ground how much work is there you know I know what I do concerts
they I know it's on a specific things I'm doing gypsy jazz or something like
that no no theses are getting older and older
you know do you get to 60 and some I see I'm gonna start going to x-rays eight
concerts you know I've got a fainter than ten years but you know I'm
convinced that that doesn't happen and that the audiences actually may be
drying up you know because it's all there on the screen
yeah I think that's a really powerful observation given what you were saying
earlier about the importance of regular gigging and getting out there and
performing with musicians who are not better than yourself that is definitely
a challenge I think for today's musicians that the opportunity is to
perform live and the audience's even for local gigs can be much smaller than they
were maybe 30 years ago it's definitely making things a bit harder definitely
it's definitely you know I get stories of musicians having to pee to plea you
know Pat Metheny the seminal jazz guitarist the you know he's out there
just above all others Pat said quite a few years ago know that he felt this was
the last generation of Americans who were going to be interested in
improvising you know that's quite a dumb thing you say and that quite worrying
things to see you know the form of jazz you know that's really scary and you see
all these things and I was talking to a friend about the record Khurrana a
record label or at least we were and he was saying you know that the why the
musicians are now saying to people like you run bars and stuff like that they
oversee or you'll get good exposure there's no payment but
you'll get really good exposure and then there'll be signs up to that is then why
don't you give all your beer or your meals away for free because let's face
it you'll be getting great exposure for the pub or the restaurant or the coffee
yeah it's a tricky culture and environment to try and be performing
musician and one thing I love about GMI though to come back for a moment to
musicianship is that as you demonstrated with that truck to your example you
don't just say here are the notes to play go off and play Wonderwall you
explain things and you give musicians the the intellectual understanding of
what they're doing and why and I think for my part while I totally identify
with your maybe a slightly negative view of today's young musicians and the
cherry picking I think maybe the in their defense what I'd say is that a lot
of music educators don't provide that intellectual understanding and a lot of
those young musicians simply don't get to experience what it means to sit down
and improvise or play by ear all they know is that rote learning and in from
my own part even you know I had a squire strat as a 14-year old I learned to play
the intro riff to stairway to heaven it never occurred to me to learn to play
this awful song like I had the adrift that was good enough to impress people
and it was another 10 years I think before it before I sat down with a
guitar and tried just making something up myself really and that was because no
one had showed me that was an option and these days you know my favorite activity
is to sit down with an instrument and improvise just make something up from
scratch but I think without the experience of how much fun that can be
and how possible it can be it's all too easy and I have sympathy I think for
those who do just jump from YouTube tutorial to YouTube tutorial and and
learn the licks and riffs there's many things think of it fears I don't see
Healy something over here it's right it's right in front of you that's a
force multiplier especially if you're not a genius which are certainly haven't
the theory is a force multiplier by understanding that and and you know my
whole take on music and see come position is a meld between art and craft
you know so I may think up something that I want to write and actually just
write it down but then when you start looking at on the paper and you it's a
very difficult to thing to try and explain to someone when conceptual ideas
that may he'll be leant on the right-hand side of the brain suddenly
sort of male gender the left-hand side of the brain you know bit more talking
about language here and you know we do when we can speak a language we don't
think about the verbs or nouns that people say oh that we see but just
express yourself so it's getting to that point there's no doubt about that that
theoretical concepts are a force multiplier and allied to technique I use
the expression technique as a great gateway to expression so I mean if I can
take if through some theoretical concepts if I want that into my playing
if I can play something you can't play technically and or you can do something
I can't play then then either of us have an out in terms of actually expressing
ourselves in a way that we wouldn't be able to do if we didn't have that
knowledge or physical understanding and I don't really see people as people I
see them as bowls of energy but that's what they are Cree if I remember years
ago that going to the *** and I was walking doing the route and I saw this
big fat guy over the road and he was eating a fish supper and he came up to a
bus stop and he's food right through it and I he smashed this big peanut glass
and I'm so amused by just thought about Hannah you know there's obviously a lot
of reasons why it did that help him bound up in frustrations papa
certain frustrations but also I think creative you know you know for him
smashing that stove and bus stop it was a creative thing most people would see
is a destructive thing and it was because he doesn't have a home
that's why music education is so important
helping people to see the world through art / that it's music or sculptor or
painting or whatever is given everything we've been talking about in terms of
musicianship as a whole versus just instrument technique and the power of
performing and learning the music theory behind things and also the challenges of
the modern environment where there's a YouTube tutorial at your fingertips for
anything you can imagine I'm just a huge fan of the guitar and music Institute I
think the website you've put together as well as your YouTube channel your social
media all of the myriad places you are available and helping musicians online
is just phenomenal and one last thing I wanted to mention for those interested
is the books you're currently publishing on Amazon because you tell us a little
bit about that yes well um the thing is Christopher as soon as we got a music
college I actually started publishing and that was back in the days when
computers were run on coal and I had an Atari computer and a remember I'd spend
all sorts money to get this Italian at a tiny screen and I got a fairly a fairly
megabyte hard drive which was funny massive it was absolutely huge and I
bought this program called the copyist which remember I was telling you I was
we were taught to use a photon pin and all that sort of stuff well that meant
at the windy now he's using the copyist then it was a pray tricky because what
you saw on the screen wasn't what you actually got from the printer which he
and you had to wait 10 minutes for it to print so it was pretty tricky so I a
whole bunch of books back in 1991 and there was bringing it one book I had to
bring her 10 books now this is a solitary teal to anyone who's thinking
of being entrepreneurial the reason I started was I thought I'll not be quite
good you know I've got something to see so the books consisted of me recording a
whole bunch of stuff right and a whole bunch of stuff annotating a whole bunch
of stuff creating the designs getting the designs and everything and all that
and the reason I did it all was because there was a guy he was putting an ad and
Guitar Player magazine or a guitar player magazine he took a fool
dad and I a friend of mine got one of his things and that was rubbish it was
like badly for copied it was a Nepali bike badly recorded but once had come
through the whole the whole thing I realized the reason that he did that was
because it was cheap and he sold hundreds whereas my products were you
know expensive because because of the if he added up all this sort of the
monetary things and it just didn't work so a dusted those then three CreateSpace
and Ingram spark and it's just amazing it's literally amazing so who's there
just the the fast lane sees it's just cheap four pounds so I mean what do I
make of a book I don't know twenty paints or something but you know so I
regurgitate at all of those and they give them new covers and people just buy
a book and download the stuff from GMA and and they're brought out dropped two
voicings uncovered which is about ninety odd pages again I use QR codes and save
the book so people because people don't want to turn on their main computer
right they're using a book so I figured well if the QR code why put a thousand
order text when I can actually talk everything I'm going to talk and sure so
what they do is you just need to place their phone get your code reader they
ding and then the video come up right beside the book and they can learn from
that and watch and and it's like idiot-proof it's all chord boxes
basically so people can quickly get it under the figure and fingers and I think
that's what people love right now I'm about to start writing the hour half
side rating the the boot that comes after drop two voicings uncovered and
that will be really for folks interested in jazz and more expansive harmonics and
scenarios and I'm not gonna hold back on that one fantastic well we'll certainly
have links to those and and the other GMI resources in the show notes for this
episode Jed I think what I admire most about you is that these days it's super
easy for someone to flip on a webcam and kind of thoughtlessly put music
education material out and you only need to look around YouTube
to see that happens a lot you through the way you use technology and also the
way you teach the concepts you teach at GMI you've put such thought into it and
how to leverage technology and how to teach in a way that will genuinely help
and empower the musician and I certainly applaud you for that I think it's
fantastic work you're doing and for all our listeners if you haven't already
checked it out the guitar and music Institute
it's guitar and music institute calm and GMI by another name and you will just
find a wealth of resources free and paid as well as the amazing curation of
content that we talked about earlier so do head on over and check it out thank
you again jed for joining us on the show today
it's been wonderful thanks for putting up with my ramblings unlock your
musicality with musical you membership
/join jet has a real skill for storytelling doesn't he and I think
you'd agree with me that he doesn't hold back in his opinions about music
education from musical talent to learning to play songs to becoming an
in-demand performer to learning to express your own musical ideas
throughout this conversation it was clear there is no quick fix magic
solution I loved hearing about how for him there was a natural draw to learn
music and become a musician it was his first love as he put it but despite that
natural inclination he feels strongly that talent is only something which
affects how fast you learn or perhaps limits the very top of what you're
capable of it's hard work which determines your success as a musician
beyond his degree studies jed made sure that he was gigging regularly and
playing with musicians who were a notch better than him and he says that's what
gave him the edge over his classmates who didn't bother to do that i'm sure we
can all relate to his story of feeling frustrated that a performance hadn't
gone well he hadn't felt like he'd been able to really express his own musical
ideas effectively but looking back he says that you need to understand that
learning music is like learning a language so of course at first you're
only going to know a few words or free users you need to be patient as you
learn to craft your own sentences to really express your own musical ideas
effectively I liked how Jed described theory as something that's not separate
from the instrument learning but should go together with it and that instrument
technique is simply the gateway to artistic expression this connects back
to something Gerald click Steen shared on the show recently that you really
need to view the technical side of learning an instrument as the means to
an end not the end in itself and you should be thinking about expressing
yourself musically rather than getting caught up in the intricacies of things
right at the limit of your technical ability as jazz story about the man's
smashing the bus stop demonstrates we all need some outlet for our creative
energy beyond Jed's own story I really wanted to learn more about GMI the
guitar and music Institute and he shared the role he sees it playing in the world
of music education both to share his own insights and techniques for learning
guitar and to curate the best of the best in terms of tutorials videos and
news from around the web these days it's easy for musicians to just seek out
quick fix YouTube tutorials for a particular song or riff but there are
also resources out there that will equip you with the understanding you need to
go beyond that and to develop real musicality and of course this comes back
to the point from before about getting out there to play and perform with
musicians who are a bit better than you and will stretch your skills in our
conversation we agreed that it's not a new problem that young musicians will go
for the quick fix in fact I was guilty of that myself when learning guitar as a
teenager but if creativity and musical expression are included in music
education from the outset you can avoid falling into the trap of just playing
the notes you're told to and it's never too late to start that kind of
musicality training websites like the guitar and music Institute can help you
to see the bigger picture and avoid the limitations and frustrations that quick
fix note by note solutions lead to if you enjoyed hearing this conversation
with Jed please do head to guitar and music Institute
come and check out the GMA podcast of course you'll find links to those and
everything else we talked about in the show notes for this episode at
musicality podcast calm thanks for listening to this episode stay tuned for
our next one where we'll be talking about the 10,000 hour rule something
which jed referred to when we discussed the importance or not of musical talent
thank you for listening to the musicality podcast this episode has
ended but your musical journey continues head over to musicality podcast calm
where you will find the links and resources mentioned in this episode as
well as bonus content exclusive for podcast listeners