You don't have to be a star to enjoy playing an instrument. I have a young ukulele student I'll call Carl. Carl has been taking ukulele...

Recently I started getting serious about recording guitar and Finale lesson videos. I invested in a Canon M50, which was a big step up...

Finale has a Piano Reduction plug-in, which I don't use. It can be handy for very simple piano reductions, but in 25+ years of...

The father of one of my guitar students spoke with me today after his son's lesson. I'll call his son "Sam." The dad expressed how happy...

I used to have terrible stage fright. Over time, I learned how to manage it and even turn it into a positive. I'd like to share four...

One of my biggest fears is putting myself out there. It's easy to overthink and feel self conscious about starting new projects,...

I've learned from so many guitar books. Chief among them was Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method.

I teach private music lessons to ages 5 through adult. The youngsters can be hilarious! I'm going to start writing down the stuff they...

Losing weight is easy – on paper. Just burn more calories than you take in. In practice, losing weight is anything but easy. It's truly...

I've been music engraving professionally with Finale since 1997. This is an efficient workflow that has worked well for me over the years...

Here's an easy way for new guitar players to memorize the names of their strings. Starting from the 6th string and moving to the 1st, the...

I'm just getting this blog started. Most of my time is spent practicing guitar, teaching guitar, writing guitar books, and recording...