Music Recording with Perry N.

Hello! My name is Perry and I am a professional classical, flamenco and electric guitarist performing and recording in the Dallas area. I studied with Robert Guthrie at SMU for many years, as well as Brad McLemore of "Soul Food Cafe" and professional jazz musician Chuck Pangburn at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. I am familiar with all styles of guitar from fingerpicking to Bebop/Swing. I teach using a foundation in classical/flamenco style and technique. I have found that for my own career as a recording artist in both the classical, acoustic and electric guitar fields that the classical/flamenco styles are the most useful for developing and training the hands to become a consummate professional. I teach beginner to advanced students of any age. I also can provide pro and amateur electric guitarists an in-depth study of correct hand postures and left-hand/right-hand technique which can help to refine their overall technique and stylistic approach. I can also advise professional electric guitarists on their electronics, effects pedals, and amplifiers to achieve their own individual sound. I also teach Bass, and Ukulele. There are three elements of becoming an musical artist: Intention, Discipline, and Awareness. Intention: Music comes from within the player. Every individual is creative at their core - making music is just a natural expression for the musician just as a bird sings instinctually. If the artist feels drawn to the guitar, there is a reason for it. The key is to awaken the artist within, determine the nature of one’s creative inclination, and guide one along the path to realization of that potential. Discipline: Daily practice and a healthy curiousity about music ensures a steady path of progress and development. Studying songs by various artists, a variety of fun technical exercises and diverse styles to practice will keep the guitar fresh and exciting. Practice is not only a process of physical development, it’s also a form of mental exercise that keep the mind sharp, a form of maintenance to ensure one is an open conduit for their creativity. Visualization of the guitar and performance forms an important portion of instruction, as well. Awareness: The inspiration for a lyric, a refrain, a composition or riff can come from any experience the player encounters. Poring over a record by the idols that inspires one, attending a live performance, a memory or a feeling, the melody in a mockingbird’s call heard outside a window, and any of the sounds in the natural world/ student’s environs can open the doorway to inspiration. Along with developing a high degree of openness, one must also develop the dedication to retain and crystallize those ideas into recorded music/notation/and or publishing. As a recording professional it’s my duty to keep up with the latest technology, useful apps, and venues for publishing and music distribution. When one finds themselves comfortable with the guitar, the music will find it’s way through the player’s hands. The guitar can be the doorway to establishing a sense of inner peace and asserting confidence in a chaotic world. More importantly, playing music is the individual form of communication to create a more harmonious environment in the artist’s world. I see every student as having a tremendous creative potential, and it is my goal to help them realize the full extent of their capabilities. I feel it is my responsibility to assist those who aspire to learn about the musical possibilities and usher them through the door to a world of unlimited creative endeavour. Spanish Guitar lessons: This lesson course developed from the primary foundation of my pedagogical training. It is available for guitarists of all skill levels. Students will learn about the guitar and it’s development from the Pre-Classical/Renaissance origins to the most contemporary sounds in the Classical/Jazz and Flamenco styles. Students will learn theory, music history, posture/ergonomics, right and left hand technique, sight reading, flamenco techniques and rhythms, Latin-Jazz styles and traditional repertoire including Milan, Sor, Giuliani, Villa-Lobos, Escudero, Carlevaro Byrd, Brouwer and more! Guitar-o-metric Class: The fretboard is a matrix of patterns that the guitarist can learn to use to create expressive sounds. The goal of this course is to demystify the fretboard; students will learn everything from chord shapes to scales and arpeggios. The basic course will cover major, minor and 7th chords along with pentatonic, blues scales and more. Intermediate and Advanced students will learn about Diminished, Augmented, Whole Tone Scales and how to combine them with the basic patterns to make new and unusual sounds. We will learn about how the guitar greats like Angus Young, Van Halen, Santana, Django Reinhardt and Pat Martino use shapes to create iconic solos and memorable licks. Fingerpicking/Classical Crossover Course: This course explores the origins of fingerstyle and Travis picking style guitar to their classical roots in the work of Giuliani, Aguado, Carcassi, Carulli, and Fernando Sor. We will also cover works composed by American composers in the 19th and 20th centuries such as Henry Worral, John Fahey, Davey Graham, and John Renbourn. The goal is learn exercises to develop the typical fingerpicking patterns, discover how they are used by the ancient masters and modern artists and find new ways to apply them. Open Tuning Lessons for Folk, Blues and Pop: A course concentrating on the variety of Open and Altered tunings originating with Standard Tuning. Tunings will included Drop-D, DADGAD, Vestapol, Crossnote, Spanish Tuning, Sun Tuning and Moon Tuning. We will learn how to navigate to all of these various tunings from standard, etc. Origins in the work of Henry Worrall, Davey Graham, and blues musician like Skip James will be surveyed. Applications of open tunings in popular music will be discussed including the work of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell will be covered. Slide playing, fingerpicking and strumming techniques will be learned. RaaGuitar Lessons: RaaGuitar is a combination of the word Raag (Raga) and Guitar. I was inspired by the folk performances & recordings of the artists Robbie Basho and John Fahey of the American Primitive Guitar style to explore how music of Eastern traditions and the Indian Classical music tradition could overlap with guitar’s expressive abilities in an authentic way that still has a Western edge. The goal of my raga lessons course is to expand the melodic and harmonic language of the guitar beyond the limitations imposed by major and minor key oriented Western music, and open the minds of guitar players to new terrains of expression. In general, the course utilizes open/altered tunings, hence the Open Tuning course forms a good prerequisite. Open and altered tunings have a tendency to be oriented towards a single key in most Western styles of guitar playing i.e. Open G tuning (DGDGBD) generally forces the musician to think only in terms of the key of the open strings or wherever the capo is placed (2nd fret raises the key to A major = EAEAC#E). When one studies ragas, open tunings are ideal as they allow the musician to explore useful sounds that evoke the true spirit of the raga. A unique aspect of this course is that ragas are not generally used to create harmonies; however, we will learn what chords and harmonic combinations become possible by applying the raga form to open tunings. Ragas or Raags, all have a series of notes, or tones, that ascend and descend, but they also have drone notes, which are called the king and queen notes. The king and queen notes are often sounded along with any rising or falling melodic passages in the determined raga. Every raga has a different set of king and queen notes, and in many cases these are not set in stone and vary by Gharana, or music school of thought, and by the individual Musicians. An example is Malkauns, which has the king and queen notes of Sa (root- 1st) and Ma (4th). A tuning like DGDGBbD (G minor) is ideal for playing in this Raag if we place the root of the scale on the 5th string, open strings can sound freely with notes played on the second string. We will learn about basic Carnatic/Hindustani terminology, a set of ragas and their related scales that are pentatonic as a primer. There are many pentatonic ragas, many of which are related to those already in use in West, but many are also unique. The use of pentatonic ragas is a great way to learn to expand the vocabulary of the blues or folk oriented musician. These will include: Megh, Malkauns, Chandrakauns, Dhani, and more. In addition more raags such as Desh, Kirwani, and Yaman will be covered.