Mark Concertizes in Berkeley, California!
Ace fingerstyle guitarists Mark Hanson, Teja Gerken and Pete Madsen entertain at Timbre Folk & Baroque in Berkeley, California.
Tag: fingerpicking
“Tri-Tone Substitutions” Made Easy!
Understanding “Tri-tone Substitution” Note: This article references my bluesy rave-up fingerstyle arrangement of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” A video of me playing it in Santa Barbara in August, 2017, has been posted here on YouTube: The actual music starts at about 0:35. Perhaps you have come across the term “Tri-tone substitution” in your studies, and had a hard time understanding it. Here’s an easy way to understand tri-tone substitutions: Think of them simply as dominant-seventh chords resolving down a half step – F7, instead of B7, going to E, for example. Most of you use B7 to resolve […]
Acoustic Guitar Summit Annual Concert in Hillsboro, Oregon
AGS returns to Walters Cultural Art Center in Hillsboro, Oregon!
Mark & Greta Perform in Laguna Beach, California!
Mark and Greta join their friend singer-guitarist Beth Pinney for Sunday morning services at Laguna Presbyterian Church in downtown Laguna Beach, California.
Acoustic Guitar Summit In California
Acoustic Guitar Summit in California!
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 […]