"Gifts of Learning" (Jan. 2012)

Thoughts on watching a pre-schooler teaching herself about music, the gift of inspiration, and my "Acoustic Guitars You Should Hear" playlist I selected for my guitar students.

Santa brought our 4 1/2 year old daughter a Casio keyboard this Christmas. It's a decent learn-to-play keyboard, but it also has a lot of rythym section and tone capabilities, and comes pre-loaded with 10 songs, which I have now heard about 10 million times. But along with that, I've been watching with my own sense of wonder at how a young mind assimilates this language and vibe we call "music".

For the last couple of weeks I have been given an extraordinary window into the learning process. First it was turn on the song tracks and dance around. But what happened next has been quite enlightening. Madeleine has been singing melodies for awhile now, fairly true to the melody at whatever key she decided to start singing in, but not at all connected to what the actual key she was singing along to might be. That changed - about 3 days after the keyboard came down the chimney. First it was "Jingle Bells", then "Twinkle Twinkle", all starting to match up perfectly with the pitch of the melody coming out of the keyboard.

A few days later she started playing around with making her own notes instead of the pre-loaded songs. Experimenting with sounds, feeling a sense of the keys and the different notes and textures - they've all come under her scrutiny in bits and pieces.

Last night, I realized that she had figured out how to turn off the main melody in the pre-loaded songs, and now the harmony part became the main melody output. And so she would start singing the melody the way she knew it, still in the right key, but then quickly switched to matching the harmony line - which varies quite a bit from the main melody.

I'm impressed with how easily she manages electronic gadgets despite not having any of her own. She can navigate my iPhone touchscreen far too easily for my liking, so the idea of gestures, buttons, mouse clicks, switches and knobs is already second nature to her. But hearing and matching harmony parts with her voice after just a couple of weeks provoked a more visceral and emotional response in me - I was thrilled!

Interestingly enough, I too have been learning a lot these last few months. I have immersed myself in my guitar, reading voraciously and working diligently on building a dozen new skills (with a metronome app on the iPhone even). So I suppose she sees me practicing, and hears and sees me teaching my students, and I guess she has assimilated or at least is imitating the process. But her progress is real and her understanding growing. And that is inspiring me to dig even deeper, and learn more myself.

I decided this Christmas to gift my students with inspiration, sharing a playlist of great acoustic guitar tracks that I felt they needed to hear. They span the wide and diverse sea of styles from classical and Celtic to flatpicking oldtime fiddle tunes and contemporary two-handed playing. The playlist includes some tracks from legends of the guitar from the last century. And of course, for many of my young students, I had to include a piece or two that I have recorded myself as well as a few of the things that they are familiar with. I've included the list at the bottom of this essay.

What I didn't realize, as I painstakingly researched music and downloaded CDs and tracks from Amazon and iTunes and programmed the final playlist, was just how potent the gift of inspiration might be. Thanks to Santa Claus, Grandpa, and my little housemate who inspires me every day as she explores new facets of her keyboard, I realize that I might have scattered seeds in far more fertile soil than I might have guessed!

"Acoustic Guitars You Should Hear"
A playlist of inspiring pieces for my guitar students, Christmas 2011.

1.  Black Mountain Rag - Doc Watson   1:31
2.  Fiddler’s Dram/Whiskey Before Breakfast - Tony Rice & Norman Blake   4:42
3.  Blackberry Blossom - Tony Rice Unit   2:37
4.  Arkansas Traveler - Harvey Reid   2:34
5.  Durang’s Hornpipe - Dan Crary   5:22
6.  Smith Chapel - David Grier   3:19
7.  I Go To Rio - Tommy Emmanuel   2:19
8.  Coging’s Glory - Adrian Legg   3:33
9.  June Apple - Andrew McKnight   2:57
10.  Red-Haired Boy - Michael DeLalla and Andrew McKnight   2:45
11.  Le Marchais Du Malaucene - Michael DeLalla   4:37
12.  Merrily Kissed the Quaker & Cunla - Pierre Bensusan   2:45
13.  Shepherd’s Delight - Martin Simpson   1:53
14.  Wetland Spring - Al Petteway   2:26
15.  Old Town - Tommy Emmanuel   3:02
16.  Aerial Boundaries - Michael Hedges   4:43
17.  Hunter’s Moon - Andy McKee   4:19
18.  Banish Misfortune / Open Hand - Patty Larkin   2:00
19.  Children’s Dance - Alex De Grassi   2:42
20.  Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring - Leo Kottke   2:25
21.  Mendelssohn: Canzonetta - Andrés Segovia   4:32
22.  Wildwood Flower - The Carter Family   3:11
23.  Freight Train - Doc Watson   0:58
24.  Sweet Home Chicago - Robert Johnson   3:02

and if you'd like, my notes that accompanied it:

This was a crazy idea. Trying to put together a single CD of great acoustic guitar work that includes flatpicking, fingerstyle, slide and classical, plus at least some performed by legends of the instrument, and to do so in a way that’s actually pleasant to listen to. Pretty nutty, but here it is anyway!

More than a few words are due here about these tracks and players. Some people are included because they truly were pioneers - Doc Watson for arranging traditional American fiddle tunes for both flatpicked and fingerstyle guitar, Robert Johnson for redefining the bottleneck slide blues, Andres Segovia for being the foremost legend of modern classical guitar, and Michael Hedges representing the revolutionary two-handed approach to modern acoustic guitar.

Most of the first third of the CD is flatpicked fiddle tunes. The fingerstyle pieces begin in earnest at Track 11 with my good friend Michael DeLalla and weave through original pieces, cover tunes and some renditions of traditional Celtic (Irish) tunes. The last few pieces are a brief introduction tosome of the legends and pioneers.

Finally, yours truly is included on a couple of flatpicked pieces, one of which many of my students have learned. I don’t begin to consider myself or my arrangements at the level of these masters, but they do inspire me every day to practice and to excel at my beloved instrument. I learn something new most every day, often from one of them!

A word about the lack of gender balance here - it’s important for my lady students to understand that women have all the same abilities as men to excel at guitar! Historically there have been fewer of them, but that has changed in the last 30 years. But you should know that Mother Maybelle Carter essentially started a whole style as she grew up in an isolated community in southwest Virginia. While I selected a different version, Elizabeth Cotten wrote the classic Piedmont blues “Freight Train” when she was 12! You’ll find amazing women guitarists everywhere now blazing amazing new trails just like their male counterparts.

I hope that you enjoy this repeatedly. Listen for things you recognize - chords, techniques, slides and bends, harmonics, hammers and pull-offs. Let your ears grow accustomed to listening for those sounds. Each of these players learned the instrument from the ground up just as you are now, and inspired by those who came before. Take inspiration from their journeys, and thanks for letting me be a part of yours.