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15/11/2019

Episode 40 – Creating a Community Guitar group with Chris Dixon

Have you ever considered or even thought about community guitar groups? In this podcast, Chris Dixon explains his journey to creating more than just a one on one teaching practice.

Chris Dixon with a guitar group — Chris in action with a group of local guitar players

Ever felt that one to one tuition, whilst the best way to teach guitar, or indeed any instrument is a bit…well, sort of isolated? Would it not be great to actually take this and make it into something that feels and is a bit bigger with regards the other teachers and artistic people in your community?

Chris Dixon from East Lothian in Scotland has done just that. Chris has taken his one to one guitar teaching practice and developed it into a community group and by reaching out to other players and those involved with the arts has created something that is much more connected.

Chris also talks about his jet setting early years, how he got into guitar in the first place and how he views guitar tuition and the relevance of community action in music!

New Classical Guitar Books Available Soon From GMI – Guitar & Music Institute

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27/09/2019

New Classical Guitar Books Available Soon From GMI – Guitar & Music Institute

Not one but two classical guitar books are about to hit the book shelves as well as being available all over the Internet in multiple reading formats. This article tells you what all the fuss is about!

Virtuoso guitarist James Akers is to release two new classical guitar books published by GMI – Guitar & Music Institute

THE BACKGROUND

Here at GMI we have released quite a few books to date. Although we have created books for guitar that are primarily technique based, we always wanted to have the majority of our publications focused on actual music. With this in mind, we are delighted that James (or Jamie) Akers is working with GMI and the fruits of all our collective hard work will soon be realised with the publishing of not one but two classical guitar books from two distinct areas of interest to Jamie.

THE CLASSICAL GUITAR BOOK RELEASES IN DETAIL

The first book that we will be previewing is titled “Italian Theorbo Music”. This is a large publication which features the works of Kapsberger, Piccinini and Castaldi. Jamie has transcribed the music for classical guitar and is certainly a huge undertaking.

Italian Theorbo Music for classical guitar

However, we wanted to ensure that the largest number of people interested in this wonderfully rich music have access to it, so we have created this work both in music and guitar tabulature. That is not the end of the story though.

A RICH MULTI-MEDIA EXPERIENCE

Like many other GMI publications, we have worked with Jamie to ensure that the Italian Theorbo Music is much more than a book of music by including, in a discreet way online media. We have included QR codes (those funny square boxes with marks on them that you may have seen from time to time) which means the book owner just needs to point their cell (mobile) phone or tablet at them and you will then be able to view Jamie actually performing specific works included in the book.

As well as this, the book also includes commentary by Jamie about specific pieces giving insight into technical and musical considerations for various works presented.

FURTHER RICHES AWAIT YOU!

Although it’s great to have a brand new book packed full of wonderful guitar music, it’s also great to feel like you’re getting more than you expected, or perhaps even be surprised to find out more is available. When you purchase Italian Theorbo Music, inside you will find a code. This code can be used to download a guitar PDF that accompanies this publication absolutely free.

Italian Theorbo Music will soon be available to pre-order and we will be releasing a further blog post when the book is available.

AND THERE’S MORE…

Although Jamie now lives outwith the country, his love of Scotland and Scottish culture has never left him and the second release from GMI is a book that features music created by people who are from, living in or inspired by Scotland. In the words of a popular UK advert…“it does what it says on the tin”, the book is aptly titled “Scottish Classical Guitar Collection”.

There are eleven pieces in total within the publication and it explores a wide repertoire. In a shortened version of the preamble to the music Jamie states the following:

“Scottish Romantic Guitar is a collection of intermediate and advanced pieces for classical guitar by leading composers of the 19th century, inspired by Scotland. While these pieces have previously been available from different sources, they are compiled here for the first time, in corrected editions, in one convenient volume.

Highlights include, Mauro Giuliani’s beautiful settings of six favourite Scottish songs; Fernando Sor’s masterful ‘Variations on Ye Banks and Braes’ and Johan Kaspar Mertz’s dramatic evocation of the landscape of the Outer Hebrides, ‘Fingal’s Cave.’”

Tantilisingly this is volume one so I guess we can be sure to see further volumes in the near future from Jamie.

FORMATS OF PUBLICATION

Both of these publications will be available in the following formats: printed, kindle, Ebook and immediate PDF download from the GMI shop. We will be offering specific pieces from each of the books as individual purchase options as well.

Release dates are currently fluid, however, we are looking to November for publication of both titles with pre-sale notification coming as soon as we can.

You can find out more about Jamie and all his current and past projects at www.jamieakers.com

Episode 39 – Justin Dolezy of Neck Diagrams

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10/06/2019

Episode 39 – Justin Dolezy of Neck Diagrams

Ged Brockie Of GMI Discusses The Incredible Piece Of Guitar Software That No Guitarist Should Be Without Called “Neck Diagrams” With It’s Creator Justin Dolezy.

The three packages available from Neck Diagrams

We’ve all done it. Grabbed and scribbled down a bunch of lines and created our own chord boxes to then remember the latest and best chord, scale or arpeggio. Perhaps it was a bunch of chords for a song. You would think that there would be a plethora of quality software out there that could help you create beautiful images that you could easily share…but you’d be wrong.

Justin Dolezy created the company Neck Diagrams over ten years ago and in that time, his software is the “go too” piece of digital kit that guitarists use to create stunning fret board images.

Hot on the heels of our review of the latest incarnation of the software ND2, Ged Brockie discusses all things music, guitar and delves (lightly) into the world of programming. Justin discusses just what it takes to get a program like this up, running and out there to the guitar public at large.

NECK DIAGRAMS 2 Review

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25/04/2019

The History Of Neck Diagrams

If you are a guitar or stringed instrument player and you’ve never come across Neck Diagrams before, then you really have been missing out. This piece of software has been an important addition to the tools available to guitarists and numerous stringed instrument players now since 2009.

GMI Free Brochure 2019 2nd Quarter

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25/04/2019

We’ve created a handy and shareable brochure for all our visitors, readers and ultimately the users of this site. We hope you enjoy what we’ve created!

We’ve listed all our current books as well as giving detail about up and coming publications. As well as this, we’ve also brought our latest podcasts back to life by detailing them inside the PDF.

Please share our brochure as much as possible so others can get to know what GMI has to offer and what is coming up soon!

Simply click this text

GIVE ME MY FREE GMI BROCHURE

to get your hands on our latest production.

Best wishes from GMI

Episode 38 – Jamie Akers Renaissance Man

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16/04/2019

Episode 38 – Jamie Akers Renaissance Man

Jamie Akers Has Realised A Dazzling Career As A Multi-Instrumentalist Of Historical Stringed Instruments Including Early 19th Century Guitars, Lutes and The Amazing Theorbo. Ged Brockie Of GMI Find Out More About This Fascinating Musician & His Instruments.

Once the instrument of choice for those with plucked string leaning, the Lute is now a distant second to the guitar in terms of popularity. This is unfortunate as it’s beautiful sound and aesthetic should mean that it gets a lot more attention than it does.

Jamie Akers has worked with just about every major orchestra in the UK, recorded for film, taught across Europe and performed at some of the most prestigious venues in the UK and beyond.

Ged Brockie delves into, or at least talks about medieval instruments and later examples of stringed instrument history with Jamie as well as questioning him about the an instrument that he owns which you can see in the above image which is called the Theorbo.

DO YOU HAVE ALEXA? ASK ALEXA TO PLAY THE GMI PODCAST

Simply say “Alexa, open G. M. I. Guitar Music Institute” or “Alexa, start G. M. I. Guitar Music Institute” and you’ll immediately be taken to the GMI podcast.

You can find out all about the other commands by following the link from GMI – Guitar & Music Institute on ALEXA. If you enjoy the GMI podcasts then please leave a five star on our GoVocal link.

Blues Guitar Book – Latest Release

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15/04/2019

Fastlines Blues – Intermediate To Advanced Tutor

Here are the facts about this publication released on the 12th of April 2019.

FASTLINES BLUES INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED OFFERS THE FOLLOWING
● 40 Tasty Blues Licks Written In The Styles Of The Blues Guitar Greats From R&B To The Edges Of Jazz
● Each Blues Lick Comes With Instruction & Background To Help You Understand Where The Fastline It Comes From & The Techniques Needed To Play It
● All Licks Played A Second Time Without Backing Chords With Many At Half Speed For Clarity Of Learning
● Two Short Solos Let You Hear Many Of The Lines Within The Context Of An Actual Solo
● TEN Professionally Recorded Backing Tracks In A Variety Of Blues Styles & Tempos Played By Real Musicians – Nearly One Hour Of Backing Tracks To Jam Along With
● All Lines Provided In Music & TAB
● Fifteen Projects To Help You Get The Most From The Lines Offered & Expand Their Possibilities Endlessly
● All Fastlines & Backing Tracks Offered As A MP3 Download

Episode 37 – Haftor Medboe of Copperfly Records

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29/03/2019

Episode 37 – Haftor Medboe of Copperfly Records

Haftor Medboe is a highly regarded Scottish based composer, guitarist and educator. In this podcast interview, Ged Brockie of GMI discusses these areas of his work but also finds out about his new music label, Copperfly.

Anyone who has had any dealings with the Scottish jazz scene will no doubt have come across Haftor Medboe. Haftor has been at the forefront of many new musical ventures over the years, not least his work with Napier universities yearly jazz summer school.

What Haftor is now embarking on is a new music label. Creating a record label in the current digital world may sound fanciful, however, there is a twist.

In this interview, Ged Brockie discusses Haftor’s new plans as well as exploring his musical background, vision and direction.

DO YOU HAVE ALEXA? ASK ALEXA TO PLAY THE GMI PODCAST

Simply say “Alexa, open G. M. I. Guitar Music Institute” or “Alexa, start G. M. I. Guitar Music Institute” and you’ll immediately be taken to the GMI podcast.

You can find out all about the other commands by following the link from GMI – Guitar & Music Institute on ALEXA. If you enjoy the GMI podcasts then please leave a five star on our GoVocal link.

Episode 36 – Jazz Guitarist Tom Lippincott

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04/03/2019

Episode 36 – Jazz Guitarist Tom Lippincott

Tom Lippincott is a highly respected professional guitarist based in Florida, USA. This interview was meant to be broad ranging, however, Tom’s eight string guitar (yes you read that correctly) took up almost the entire show!

One thing that non-musicians should understand is that the world is full of great musicians, however, very few can actually claim to make a living from predominantly playing music. This podcast interview is with one such musician Tom Lippincott.

Tom is an incredibly accomplished musician who also teaches guitar. Just take a look at one of his many Youtube video lessons (link below) and you’ll immediately be struck by his knowledge and ability to clearly communicate his message.

As the headline notes, this interview didn’t get much past Tom’s eight string guitar but we are hopeful that we can talk with Tom again in the near future as there is a lot more to discuss!

DO YOU HAVE ALEXA? ASK ALEXA TO PLAY THE GMI PODCAST

Simply say “Alexa, open G. M. I. Guitar Music Institute” or “Alexa, start G. M. I. Guitar Music Institute” and you’ll immediately be taken to the GMI podcast.

You can find out all about the other commands by following the link from GMI – Guitar & Music Institute on ALEXA. If you enjoy the GMI podcasts then please leave a five star on our GoVocal link.