Acoustic Guitar Summit In California
Acoustic Guitar Summit in California!
Tag: acoustic guitar
Mark & Greta Perform in Silverton, Oregon
Free Concert at the Silver Falls Library! Mark and Greta bring their fun show of guitars, ukes, percussion and vocals to the historic town of Silverton, just a short drive south of Portland. Come see us! Thursday, October 26, 7:00-8:00 PM 410 S. Water St. Silverton, Oregon 503-873-7633 Cost: Free
Mark at Luthier Events in 2017
I’ve had fun attending and performing at several Luthier events this summer. I was the steel-string demonstrator at the GAL (Guild of American Luthiers) convention in Tacoma in July; and a performer, teacher and demonstrator at August’s SBAIC.com in Santa Barbara. At GAL I performed 40 seconds of my arrangement of “Water Is Wide” 33 times in a row – on 33 different guitars! The luthiers wanted to compare apples to apples, hearing the same player play the same piece on all the guitars. Next time maybe I’ll play O.C. Smith’s “Little Green Apples”… In Santa Barbara I had a […]
“Slap” Harmonics
Tip From Mark – ‘Slap’ Harmonics I had a question from a client recently about making harmonics sound properly. In particular, he asked about picking-hand ‘slap’ harmonics in my arrangement of “Moonshadow” in Travis Pick the Hits! I will discuss technique using that example. If you need more information about playing harmonics successfully, I’ve written an extensive article that you can read here. At measure 60 in “Moonshadow” (shown below), I barre the four treble strings at the 2nd fret, an Amajor chord. This must happen quickly, as I have just fretted two individual strings with fingertips, and pulled off […]
Guitar Harmonics – How to Produce Them Successfully!
Guitar Harmonics – Make Them Chime! I occasionally receive questions from clients about harmonics on the guitar: what they are and how to produce them. Guitar players love harmonics for their high-pitched ringing tone (Hawaiian slack key players call them “chimes”), and for the fact they allow a note (or more) to sustain as the fretting hand moves laterally on the guitar neck – not possible when you have to sustain a fretted a note. High-pitched guitar harmonics occur when a player creates a ‘nodal point’ (a non-vibrating ‘dead’ spot) on a vibrating string. Nodal points occur at the mathematical dividing points on […]
Free Tab: “Celtic” Scale Exercises in Drop-D
Alternating-Bass Scale Exercise For a recent wedding I was asked to play an instrumental version of singer George Ezra’s uptempo tune “Budapest” as the recessional. This was a fun little project, and a tune that fit right into an alternating-bass Travis-Picking form. The range of the melody suggested the key of D in drop-D tuning. (He sings it in F.) I put the capo on the second fret to approximate the original key (capo III was too high). Due to copyright restrictions, I will not print the arrangement here, but next best: As I toyed with the melody I came […]
Mark & Greta Sing/Play in Los Altos, California
Mark & Greta in Los Altos, California
Mark & Greta Concertize in Canby, Oregon
Mark & Greta Concertize in Canby, Oregon Mark and Greta bring their lively and fun guitars/uke/vocals show to the Canby Public Library a few miles south of Portland. Free to the public. Info: (503) 266-3394.
Mark Plays Guitar Solos at Holloran Winery, Dundee, Oregon
Mark plays this thrilling and beautiful fingerstyle guitar solos for three hours in the tasting room during Holloran Vineyards Memorial Day open house. Come join us!
Mark Teaches Two Workshops at Gryphon in Palo Alto
WORKSHOP #1 (To register, call Gryphon at 650-493-2131) 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. – Introduction to Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar! Gryphon’s old friend Mark Hanson – longtime Gryphon instructor, Grammy winner, Frets editor, and author of “Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar” – will introduce you to the beautiful world of Hawaiian slack key guitar. The essence of slack key is fingerpicking in alternate tunings. In this workshop Mark will concentrate on two tunings: “Taro Patch” (Open-G) and “C-Wahine” (C G D G B E, low to high). You’ll learn the necessary fingerpicking patterns (alternating bass), the common chord shapes, parallel-sixth […]