Linkage: 8/22/09

This week, I published a some more notes on books I’ve read. The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin and Mind Power by John Kehoe have a lot of material which can easily be applied to learning guitar (or any instrument). The Art of Learning would apply to practice and performance, while techniques outlined in Mind Power could have big implications for performing. Both good reads.

The decreasing cost and increasing quality of home recording has made it possible for guitarists to release their own albums. Even big names like John Williams¹ and Manuel Barrueco² are now exploring self-publication. And they should! there’s a lot of classical guitar fans out there who seek out performers to support. Combine our cultural shift toward niches with powerful online filters and social media, and there’s self-published success waiting to happen. MusicianWages published a series of four articles to serve as a Guide to Self-Releasing Albums. Guitarists thinking about releasing their own recordings should read the articles.

This week unpublished Scores by Villa-Lobos were found in Brazil. The scores were found in a music school library. Maybe there’s some lost guitar music in there?

Kind of Bloop is an 8-bit trubute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue — 8-bit as in old school Nintendo sounds. I think this is outstanding and very amusing. [via @guitarlifestyle]

Thinking of attending graduate school in the Humanities? Read this article about why you should consider just not going. The article serves as a warning about the real state of things. On a more music-specific (musicology, actually) side of things Dial M for Musicology published an article that outlines some bad reasons to go to music grad school. But there’s also a good reason to go. Both articles are kind of depressing in a way, but bring up very good points.

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¹ http://www.johnwilliamsguitarnotes.com/ is Williams’ seemingly half-hearted attempt as online marketing. Unfortunately, it’s not updated frequently, which gives people no reason to continue going back to it. That store could easily turn into a powerhouse for selling arrangements. Plus imagine if John Williams ran a monthly Q & A column? There’s not a classical guitarist in the world who wouldn’t visit that website.

² http://tonarmusic.com/ is a Manuel Barrueco online store. He’s just released a new recording of duets with Franco Platino. Interesting ideas, but I don’t understand why he wants to build a new brand (Tonar Music) instead of capitalizing on his already existing and well known brand (his name). Unless he’s planning on signing other guitarists on to the Tonar Music Label (like his students at Peabody?). Tonar Music contacted me and said this was not their intention.