Weather woes and being stood up...

Many teachers will be able to sympathize with the following scenario.

Say you have 4 hours of teaching to do between 3:30 and 7:30pm. Ok, a familiar enough schedule. Then from nowhere, old man winter drops a ton of snow on your city. Traffic is snarled schools close and most sane people are home sipping on hot chocolate. Then there is you. Sitting and waiting for your students who have not called to let you know if they are coming to their lessons. So you sit in your studio waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting... You make calls to remind them all and, of course, you get apologies and sympathy, but no students. Meanwhile you are sitting there bored. Moreover, you have your awful teaching guitar with 6 month old strings on it, and we all know practicing on that thing is not too much fun... How then do you cope...? Here are some simple ideas...

1. If you realize the weather is coming, call your students ahead of time. This will accomplish three things. First, it will let you know whether or not they are coming. Secondly, you may guilt them into showing up. Lastly, you may be able to have later students come earlier.

2. Change the strings on that old gimp-fiddle so you can at least produce a modicum of good tone. This will take some time and make practicing while waiting a little easier.

3. If you have a computer handy shoot some emails or add a new post on your blog. (This one I am actually doing right now.)

4. Persevere and just practice scales and slurs for a couple of hours, like you always tell yourself you need to do anyway.

5. Remember, unless you have awful studio policies you are getting paid to sit there... That's really not so bad when you think about it. Even better, if you manage to practice for a while you are actually being paid to practice. Now that is a pretty nice thought...

Michel Chatara-Morse

Rantucci Competition Coverage

Great news!! I will be competing this year in the Rantucci Classical Guitar Competition. I am very excited and have been preparing for months already. Moreover, I will be interviewing my friend classical and flamenco guitarist Mir Ali. Mir is the Artistic Director of the Competition and an excellent player as well.

OK so here are the pieces I will be playing. Some of you will wonder why I am playing such obscure repertoire, but that is what I am all about. Why play what has been played over and over and over and over and over and.... I would rather play what I want to play weird wild stuff.

First Round - Tear Prelude by Ivanociv and the first 5 movements of The Barber of Baghdad by Oliver Hunt.
2nd Round - Libertango by Piazzolla, the first movement of Instinct by Kirsten Vollness entitled Fight or Flight, and The Barber of Baghdad again.
3rd Round - Third Movement from Instinct by Kirsten Vollness called Altruism, first Movement from Instinct again, the first five movements of Barber again, and Tear Prelude again.

Great stuff all of it. If any of you are interested in Instinct or the arrangement of Libertango contact me at mchatara80@yahoo.com.

Oh and by the way, you should be practicing right now....

Michel Chatara-Morse

Interview with Professor Pam Kimmel

The following is a very interesting interview with Pam Kimmel. Not only is she a great person, but she has alot of experience. Guitarists young and old can learn from what she has to say.

MCM: Could you give a brief synopsis of your career as a guitarist?

PK: I became interested in the guitar through folk music in high-school. I really liked finger-style and I went to the Old-Town School of Folk Music and took lessons there. My teacher there suggested that I take classical lessons. I had always been interested in classical music and I played the piano as a child. I started classical lessons there and after a year he recommended me for a teaching job which I got. He also told me about a master class in Mexico with Manuel Lopez-Ramos, and this was after 1 year of classical playing. It was a month long master class in Mexico and we had lessons all morning long. So it was a fabulous experience and after that I knew I needed to change teachers. So when I got back to Chicago I started with Jack Cecchini who was also at the master class.

MCM: A month long class! That sounds fantastic.

PK: It was wonderful. There were a lot of people there and it was a lot fun, kind of a resort town. The students on the whole, were not very advanced but it was also my first contact with Manuel Lopez-Ramos which lasted throughout my life. Unfortunately, he died last June. So after a while Jack Cecchini asked me if I wanted to teach for him. So basically most of my work has been handed to me by teachers in one way or another. So I taught with him and studied with him for many years. Throughout the years I went to other classes with Lopez-Ramos. Eventually Jack got a job teaching at DePaul and asked me to be his assistant so I did that for a year. This was the first university guitar program in Chicago.

MCM. So you were teaching undergraduates?

PK. Yes. After a while Roosevelt University was looking for a teacher and I started teaching part time at Roosevelt. Jack did too but it never quite worked out. So I quit DePaul.

MCM: What year was this?

PK: I started here in 1972 and developed their first degreed program in classical guitar. In 1975 they offered me a full time position. End of story.

MCM: So it basically was who you knew and the teachers you knew. Could you now talk about your very early teaching? Did you feel that you knew what you were doing? What was the turnover like? Did you generally keep most students once you had them?

PK: It was pretty steady. I felt confident because I had a teaching system that was handed down through Lopez-Ramos and Cecchini. They were very organized and I felt confident following their teaching examples. I knew it worked since they had many successful students. I had seen it work. I knew what books to use in what order. It is good to have a system. It is also good not to stay with the same system forever, but to keep reading and being open to new ideas so that eventually you develop your own system, but it is good to have something to start with.

MCM: What was the system?

PK: It depends on the students. If a student cannot read you need to use a book that teaches reading, Noad or Shearer for example. Shearer was the first book that I used then I moved towards Noad. Once a student could read, Sagreras and the beginning Carruli books were the best things because they complement each other very well. Also scale work, technique work, slurs, Sor studies, Carcassi studies and repertoire that is at the student's level.

MCM: When did you feel that you had finally made it as a classical guitarist and a teacher?

PK: When I got the full time job at Roosevelt University. I wasn’t worried about tenure although maybe I should have been.

MCM: So back to the early teaching did you feel unsure about your future? Or were you always confident?

PK: It was a mixed bag. It wasn’t that hard to make the rent and I hoped that it would all work out. From what I remember anyway, it was a long time ago.

MCM: Were you able to perform as well?

PK: Yes I did.

MCM: What were some of the factors that helped you find performances?

PK: Well I was always involved with the guitar society. Obviously the more people you know the better. For example, a man who was a student at the master class in Mexico lived in Indianapolis and had a connection with the guitar society there. So I played for that classical guitar society. Knowing how to talk to people is as important as how you play. However, you have to be able to play well or it won’t continue. Social skills are very important.

MCM: Did teaching help you as a performer?

PK: Hmm that is a good question. I don’t think so. I think maybe you mean did you learn from your students, and the answer is yes definitely.

MCM: So the Chicago Classical Guitar Society was a big factor?

PK: Well it was one factor. I think what you need to do is to plant seeds in many different areas. I was a member of the guitar society. I maintained contact with my teachers. For an example of good networking, a nice fellow I met at the GFA last year was moving to Chicago. When I got back to Chicago I had an email from him, a very pleasant email just saying it was nice to meet you. It wasn’t phony; he just knows how to network. I got another email a couple of months later. So he is maintaining the contact. For him I am a little seed in Chicago. He has asked me where to get jobs in Chicago. I think that things like your Blog, the Chicago Classical Guitar Society, and maintaining contact with your teachers are all little seeds. Maybe they will grow, maybe they won’t.

MCM: I know that you are the president of the Chicago Classical Guitar Society. How did you achieve this position?

PK. Well no one else wanted it. (Laughter)

MCM: I wasn’t expecting that.

PK: Well when the last President left I got it.

MCM: As a professor and known commodity in Chicago do you actively help students and graduates in Chicago.

PK: Yes, I feel it is part of my job. When people choose to be in an artistic field, it is very difficult. People need all the help they can get. The jobs are not out there. You must create your own niche. You must create your position. You might find a job somewhere but you need to create you own niche. That takes a certain kind of personality and entrepreneurship. In the old days people went around and played and hoped to have an album made. They had business cards and brochures. Today you have a CD and a web site before you get the job. Sometimes the playing is not very good, but they have all this other stuff that makes it seem like it could be good. It is very much the opposite of what it was. The CD had become the business card. As the president of the Classical Guitar society I get about two emails a day from players all over the world who are trying to get performances here. I couldn’t possibly answer them all. There will be a lot of people who you send stuff to that never get back to you.

MCM: Do students ever just disappear off the map.

PK: Oh yes, it is always very upsetting. Sometimes they get a job in another field and move out of town. Often they don’t continue to play. I have had students go to law school I have a student who became a recording engineer. I have a lot of students going into computer work; there is some kind of connection there. Some play pop music and gig that way because they can make money. They find their own way and it might not be through playing. Then there is my student Julie Goldberg who went on to get the first Doctoral Degree in Classical Guitar from Northwestern. I am always happy if a student goes on to get into a good graduate program. People are people and they have their different ways and you never know who is going to stick with it. I had one student who went into computers he was a wonderful player, very sophisticated musically. I saw him years later and we had lunch and he told me he never had that entrepreneurial drive he didn’t like doing it and didn’t want to do it. He just did not have the drive or the desire even though he was a fantastic player.

MCM: What teaching tips could you give to young teachers to attract and keep students?

PK: I think involving the student in making musical goals. What are your goals? What would you like to learn? Here are my goals for you, but what are yours? Keeping students involved in these kinds of decisions is good. Say a student wants to learn some blues or something. What do you do? There is nothing wrong with giving a student some candy after they have had their meat and potatoes. That helps them musically too. When you give them something they want, it keeps them around. It is also good on a weekly basis to give them a classical CD to listen to or just one piece. Even pieces you think they might like to play themselves.

MCM: In your opinion what are one or two of the most important things a guitarist can do to make it?

PK: Well we’ve gone over this but I think networking and continuing to study is very important. Master classes and different viewpoints are very important. I think the one thing I regret is that I didn’t go to many more teachers as I was coming up. It is very good to get out there and attend master classes. There are many ways to play the guitar and many musical ideas you just have to keep learning.

MCM: Excellent advice.

Tips to becoming a classical guitar teacher... Many more to come...

An impromtu end of class picture of one of my beginning Suzuki classical guitar classes.

Hello classical guitar enthusiasts!
This post will feature some simple tips on becoming a classical guitar teacher. I hope this post will give some up and coming young guitarists some ideas when searching for a job.
First of all let me just say something VERY important.

IT ISN'T WHAT YOU KNOW OR HOW YOU PLAY, BUT WHO YOU KNOW AND WHO KNOWS YOU.

What I mean by this is that unless you are very talented and win the GFA or another big competition it is not very likely that top notch Universities will be knocking on your door. On the contrary I know an internationally successful guitarist who won a major competition and still worked for a long time at small music schools before he found a position at a good university. Therefore, how do you get a classical guitar teaching job...

Ok so you have an undergraduate degree and are looking into teaching as you prepare for competitions and performances. You find yourself at a guitar shop teaching Stairway to Heaven and Boulevard of Broken Dreams (uhg! I hate teaching Greenday). This environment is not a good one to further a classical guitar career. Get out!!!!

I know too many classical guitarists with graduate degrees who are stuck teaching at guitar stores like this. It does not further your classical teaching, and in most cases you will make less money per hour. Moreover you have to build a classical guitar teaching reputation in your community. If you only teach classical guitar you will be regarded as a better candidate for future job opportunities.

Most people think of the classical guitar as being "more complex" and "academic" than rock and folk. While this is only partially true it means that most classical guitar positions pay better and most people regard classical guitarist as more "educated". Whereas a rock guitar teacher is thought of as a less educated lower level musician. Let me stress that these attitudes are not my own. I know rock guitarists who are EXCELLENT musicians. However, these are generalizations held by many non-musicians. The very people who will be paying your salary. Therefore use this generalization to your advantage.

Now that you are out of the guitar store environment think about your contacts. There are professors from your school whom you have built relationships with. USE THEM... Most teachers want their students to succeed and will help with getting a job. Moreover, most are established in their communities and may even be in leadership positions in the local classical guitar society. If you are referred by a known commodity to a third party looking to hire a classical guitar teacher your chances of being hired skyrocket. Once you are in the door, you make more contacts and are referred for more positions... A win win situation.

Now that I've reread this, it is getting too long. More tips to come in the future.

Michel Chatara-Morse

Practice.... Hours and hours of practice....

I once heard an interview with Lily Afshar (I think it was her... 99% sure) where she described her time as a student. She talked about practicing for 8 to 13 hours a day.... EIGHT to THIRTEEN hours a day... WOW!! That is some serious practicing, and unless you are extremely focused or have no life at all, this is a near impossibility.
Take me for example, I work 6 days a week teaching guitar mostly. I practice about 4 hours a day. Usually I practice from 9am-11:30 or so, and then from 8:30-11:30 or something like that. With small breaks within the sections. There is simply not enough time for 13 hours!!!!
So here are some ideas that I have learned from teachers and players to streamline practice....

1. Keep a list of problem technical areas or challenging expressive elements that you are trying to overcome. This will keep your practice focused and efficient. As we all know, it is very easy to practice your core repertoire over and over and over and over and ..........

2. Separate your practice into distinct sections. For example, I break my practice between technical work, learning new repertoire, practicing old repertoire, and trouble shooting difficult sections. Keep them distinct and separate.

3. Start practicing new or more important pieces first... This type of practice will really get your brain focused on the important stuff before gets distracted.

4. Take breaks. Sometimes frustration or malaise can slow practice till it is almost useless. Therefore take breaks and come back fresh whenever you need it.

These a just a few ideas that have occurred to me as I was practicing this morning. I will be posting more and more in the coming posts...

Michel Chatara-Morse

Upcoming topics...

Coming soon...

My next post will concern concert/competition preparation as well as practice techniques..

Also, I will be starting a piece on foreign guitarists in the US and how they have made it or not made it as a classical guitarist here...

Moreover, I soon will be interviewing my friend and teacher Denis Azabagic and will be posting the interview here.....

Michel Chatara-Morse

Hello Classical Guitarists!!

Welcome to my Classical guitar Blog. This is my first blog posting so I thought I would preview what I plan to have as content for my blog.
First of all I will be writing exclusively about classical guitar and related topics. You can expect reports from major classical guitar events in the US and eventually over seas. Also, interviews with famous and not so famous classical guitarists from around the world. There will also be a great deal of Chicago classical guitar information in that I am based in Chi-town. As most classical guitarists know, a great deal of their income comes from teaching, therefore my experiences and those of other teachers I know will be posted. Tips and good ideas for class activities and how to teach proper technique and so on...
Basically, I hope to provide interesting and usefull tidbits of information which will interest all calssical guitar enthusiasts.

Thanks,
Michel Chatara-Morse