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I Heard Jacqui Sutton and the Frontier Jazz Orchestra last night. Great music!
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Do You Want to be a Musician?
This article simply expresses my personal experience with being a musician. I’ve consulted with many individuals who wonder what place music has in their lives. In no way will this article answer all of your questions, but it may assist in getting your thought-process on the correct trail. The Hunger
Performance Tips
Listen to the Audio Version [audio: performancetips.mp3] Performing is one of those things which I grew into. It is one thing to be able to play a song well in front of a crowd, and it’s entirely another to be an entertainer. In a future post, I’ll go over a
Developing an Arrangement
Arranging is a very personal thing that portrays many of the characteristics that embrace you. It is the personality of your music. Life, teamed with the adversity and bliss that it brings, will be passed on into your arrangements. There are endless possibilities to arranging a song; it will express
Improvising (Demonstrational Video)
This is not a lesson to help you learn how to improvise. This is a picture into how I use improvising as a practice habit and development skill. For me personally, the thought of only playing what other people have already put to music sounds boring. I like to do
101 Lesson 4 – Major Chords in the Box
We are now going to learn how to play the three major chords for the key of D. This is really quite simple, so don’t be intimidated by the technicalities if you don’t understand it. If you’ll give it a shot, it’ll make sense. If you have not learned any
Declaring Your Indepedence
Many people have been asking me for my approach to hand independence. I just thought I’d post this to let you know that I’m working on a lesson. It will be available soon.
The Value of Encouragement
If it was not for the encouragement that I received from family, friends, and musicians, I would have quit the hammer dulcimer many years ago. The encouraging comments from those who recognized my talent was enough to keep me from quitting. Additionally, I didn’t get the 1st place trophy at
101 Lesson 3 – The “key” to the box (Instructional Video)
So far, I’ve introduced you to the box concept and how you can build box 1 and box 2. Now, I’m going to show you the “key” to the box, meaning how you can use the box to play in multiple keys. [flashvideo file=http://www.joshuamessick.com/videos/box_key/box_key.flv /] NOTES I will show you
101 Lesson 2 – Building on the Box (Instructional Video)
In this lesson, we are going to build on the box that we created in the first lesson, and make a second box. [flashvideo file=http://www.joshuamessick.com/videos/BuildingBox/building_box.flv /] NOTES We ended the previous lesson playing a 1 octave scale in a box. This box is “copied” and continued on the treble bridge
101 Lesson 1 – Learning “The Box” concept (Instructional Video)
I’m this first lesson for 911 for 101, let it be known that I’m not going to get into the fundamentals of music theory. If you’re going to benefit from this blog, a basic, working knowledge of music will be needed. If you’ve never learned music theory before, other resources on the Internet
