School + Coffee = Less Time + Less Sleep

My "serious" studying face

I have been very busy getting back into the fall semester of school. Needless to say, a lot of coffee has been consumed and sleep is getting rarer during the week. Still, I hope to have a one take video of a guitar arrangement up on Youtube soon. The hymn recording of Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus is a multiple take with the best sound taken from one of the video recordings. So it is still a "live" video, but the best scene and best sound were edited together, therefore making it a "not truly live" video (in essence, a one take soundtrack and one take video track were put together from the same video shoot). The next hymn that I have been working on arranging will hopefully be shot in one take and the sound from the video will be optimized from that same video shot or recorded on a separate recording device at the same time as the video. Hope to get it out there soon!

Click my name below to go to my Facebook page!

~Native Guitar Joe~

A Few Things I Hope to Accomplish Soon!

I find that views like this one in this picture of a nearby lake help my frame of mind when it comes to thinking of ideas for new songs. I have been using a small idea (i.e. a short melodic line) and building on it. The end result has come through a process of recording each instrument myself on a separate track and then rearranging parts of it. I plan to solidify some of the tunes that I have put out on NativeGuitarJoe-Youtube and sell them on iTunes when I can. I hope to create an actual physical CD to give out and sell too. Currently, I have one album available on iTunes called A Lonely Road Together.

Other ideas I am working on are related but not on the same line as my flute/guitar music. I am slowly but surely putting together guitar arrangements of hymns that I hope to compile into an album. These are simple arrangements that should be fairly easy to play and learn for those interested. You can view an example of my work on Youtube here: Tis' So Sweet to Trust in Jesus

The other project is song work with my bro. Josh. He and I have put together several recordings and released them on Youtube. The pain of licensing and copyright has caused us to take most of them down. (It can cost a lot to have them licensed properly) The one left up (Revelation Song-Youtube) is still covered by our license, but it too will expire and then we'd have to pay to have it up longer. The best and easiest solution is to write songs and put them up, thereby skipping any copyright issues and fees. We'll see where all of that ends up!

Well, just an update to my musical musings and direction.

Native Guitar Joe

I just released a new guitar/flute song on Youtube!

Here is my latest song! Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day here in the US. Enjoy!

-Joe Hooper

Dread scales? So did I... For guitar that is.

Guitar scales have been tough for me to learn. Even though I have an understanding of how they work, that doesn't always translate into practical fretboard knowledge. So if you are like I am and scales seem impossible to memorize, here is a glimmer of hope.

Think of your understanding as a puzzle. You've got most of the pieces, but the picture just doesn't make sense. Those missing pieces are out there! And if you can find them, they might save you years of frustration. These pieces might be in a instruction book, a YouTube video, or as in my case, a professional guitar instructor. I had a breakthrough in my own learning process in regard to scales that I hadn't been able to understand on my own. It was my guitar instructor who supplied the missing piece. (In short, that there is a "rhyme and reason" to the patterns of scales in relation to chords;)

The bottom line? You might be on the threshold of breaking through to a more satisfying experience as a guitarist, but it might take a bold step on your part. Maybe you should take those guitar lessons that you've been talking about for years! Go ahead and explore instructional videos on that one skill or technique that eludes you.

Hope you feel inspired! Now go get your guitar! Lol

Native Guitar Joe