Hi Kev,

There are a couple of songs in the Songbook that are easy enough for beginners to tackle, so maybe I'll choose one of those, "Adrift" or "Requiem for Persephone" perhaps. The nice thing about a tune like this is it's pretty short compared to most of my own tunes.

There are a couple of tunes in The Stick Book that might be good contenders as well, but a certain voice in my head says "do new stuff" so perhaps I should listen.

Thanks again, especially for picking up my learning materials.

aahhh...Adrift. Could you do that? Luke Gray covers this tune, have you seen it? That guy is well on his way....

thanks Greg,
cheers,
kev

I haven't recorded a video of that song yet. Stick Figures is 20 years old now (hard to believe) and I'm thinking it might be cool to have a video of each of the songs from it before the year is out. So far I have videos of "Morning Song," "Dedication", and "Big Meadows"

that leaves 9 to go...better get busy...

I'll be seeing Luke at the Fredericksburg Stick Night on Feb 16, maybe I can convince to show me what he's got

It is very challenging turning art, let alone music, into money. While the Stick market is still relatively small, it is growing, and it makes Greg's work all the more important to learn, apply and build on. His contributions are well documented, well produced, formal and always very informative.

Having spoken with some of the musical faculty out at Cal Poly, Pomona,San Marcos along with some private subscription based guitarists on the matter, the barriers to composing, arranging and publishing became much more apparent. Creating printed material, publishing, distributing, advertising, marketing and trying to break even are a labor of love. I'll repeat that - A labor of love. In each of my conversations, my contacts encouraged in-person lessons when possible or by video if necessary as having unrestricted access to the educator / subject matter expert was key to building best practices for posture, technique and performance.

I have found that these personal musical learning experiences were the most gratifying, the most rewarding and the most memorable. Greg's challenge is to provide the foundation for Stickists at many different levels of ability to a broad base of musically unique individuals (Stick players always want to be the life of the party - go ahead and quote me on that). No small feat - we all respect it. The student's challenge is to adapt their own musical styling and musical history to the instrument and practice, practice, practice until you can make it your own.

Inspiring post, Gene, and thanks for the kind words.

I try to make every lesson I post as universal as possible as far as "genre appilcability" goes.

Just out of curiosity, what do you all think a lesson like this is worth? If you could pay for it and have perpetual access to it online, what would a reasonable price be? I have no idea.

obligatory thread page re-embedding:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1IJpL6zoXM[/youtube]

Right on Greg. I always enjoy getting your angle on you approached a song, and while I am a little bit set in my ways, you are the spearhead for technique and for posture.

A bit of a nag, but it's only bothersome because you are generally correct

What is it worth? Hmm. Location, market, competition all play a factor, let me get another post going to be sure!

Another question Greg, in the video, you play double stops with the left hand. I tried to do that but it ends up in triple stops. In the right hand, i use m all the time. I think it's because there are thicker string under the finger, any tips ?


Cheers,
Bas

I would pay 20-30 bucks for that access. Not sure if thats enough or too much; its just what I would be willing to pay. The beauty is you make a one shot recording and reap the benefits for years to come, but of course you already know this ( songbook,dvd, records).

It may turn out to be a great revenue generator for you, who knows? I know I would use a service like this if it existed.


cheers Greg,
kev

I think if this were packaged in such a way that it contained several songs on DVD (assuming you can obtain copyright usage to the songs) Each offering different challenges, and solutions, you could package it and sell it for around the same price as the other lesson DVDs on the market.

HI Bas, not seeing your hand in action it's hard for me to tell what the issue would be. If your thumb is really far behind the board, then that tends to make the hand collapse, giving you less control of how many strings you are hitting with those double-stops. As Luc pointed out in a earlier post on the forum the thumb angle is critical to open access for the hand Check out the early section of the DVD where I show my Stick callus, and check out the left hand angle etc at 30:41, even when I'm up at fret 9, I'm still trying to keep the thumb close to the 1st and 2nd fingers. The more relaxed the hand is overall, the easier it is to use hand movement to drive the notes.

Thanks, Kev, that's helpful feedback. It's great to have a variety of resources available, and I know there is a portion of people who prefer online video availability, so getting a sense of what a particular lesson is worth is really valuable, but as Randy says...

Some folks also want hard copy, and I can't imagine the hurdles necessary for trakcing online royalties of coversuse din this context.. Additionally, my sense is that interest in this would be genre-specific: a prog-head may be less likely to want to learn "Obla-Di Obla-Da" than "Heart of the Sunrise". This would limit the appeal of any individual release, so more videos are required, which becomes a lifetime project.

DVD's limited resolution gives me pause, as I love seeing the graphics in HD!

Good food for thought.