Tag Archives: guitar

Song-Sketch: Larrupin’ Twang in a Man Hat

Posted on December 15, 2024 by JMN

Attention, Nashville balladeers: Key of… why not?… C. I commend this hatchling of a hit (be sure to credit me) to the key of C.  The key of C is the key musicologists explain least incompetently but most deludedly. After … Continue reading →

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Friday Morning

Posted on September 4, 2020 by JMN

I’m struggling. My remote interlocutor in life of the mind is keeping me afloat insofar as having a rational dialog with someone. But that dialog is private. Of the muchness on my mind, I’m conflicted as to which of it … Continue reading →

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“Play Like You Don’t Know How”

Posted on May 9, 2020 by JMN

“… Play like you don’t know how to play guitar.” That’s the instruction that John McLaughlin recalls Miles Davis giving him. It was on the occasion of his being pressed precipitately into service to collaborate in Davis’s milestone album “Bitches … Continue reading →

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But Here We Are: Me and…

Posted on May 4, 2020 by JMN

I feel foolish at bobbing and weaving through the tall grass of music theory, unled and untaught, not glimpsing even sky, much less horizon. All I would have to have done — note the pluperfect infinitive — is to have … Continue reading →

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Robert Johnson

Posted on December 10, 2019 by JMN

It was in… popular juke joints — segregated stores or private houses that doubled, after hours, as recreational places — that his now legendary music career began… The young musician had trained on a diddley bow — one or more … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed — Triad Tirade

Posted on June 18, 2019 by JMN

“A triad is a simultaneous combination of three notes.” (Ralph Denyer, “The Guitar Handbook,” Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006) The introductory sentence to the “Triads” section of this useful guide distracts me from triads. I’m drawn off the mark … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed — More Inconvenience

Posted on June 6, 2019 by JMN

“It seems I am choosing words that will stand, and you are in them, but if I blunder, it doesn’t matter — I must persist in my errors. (Boris Pasternak, “For Anna Akmatova,” translated by Robert Lowell in “Imitations”) The … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed — No Money Shot

Posted on June 3, 2019 by JMN

An old advertising tag-line for an investment firm was voiced by the British-American actor John Houseman: “We make music the old fashioned way; we earn it.” Houseman, of course, said “money,” not “music.” In my effort to show with strong, … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed — Mind Over Method

Posted on May 24, 2019 by JMN

Pinterest thinks I’m interested in quick-and-dirty guitar: “This article will show you the best method ever of how to efficiently learn and memorize the notes on a guitar neck in the shortest amount of time.” I’ve seen the exact number … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed: NODS & Buck-Effing

Posted on May 20, 2019 by JMN

I’m not a rocker or blues man on a Gibson. I can make a long-fingered foray into the twelfth-fret region, but it’s not fruitful. When I mention “buck-effing” around the fretboard, therefore, only one B-C and E-F pair obtains per … Continue reading →

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