by Jay | Nov 8, 2021 | Classical Guitar Basics, Classical Guitar Lessons, Classical Guitar Teachers, Classical Guitar Technique, Guitar Heroes, Teaching Blog Post
10th Year Anniversary Edition:I’m revisiting some of my best old posts on playing guitar. Enjoy! This is really a post about chasing windmills….and conquering the universe. I want to start of this post with a disclaimer. I have a theory about why...
by Jay | Nov 7, 2021 | Classical Guitar Basics, Teaching Blog Post
10th Year Anniversary Edition:I’m revisiting some of my best old posts on playing guitar. Enjoy! Although many things we do require skill, there’s really nothing in everyday life even remotely like learning, memorizing, and performing a piece of music....
by Jay | Dec 31, 2025 | Blog, Classical Guitar Basics, Front Page, Front Page Slider, Teaching Blog Post, Videos
This is my first post in over six months. The time away wasn’t planned, but it turned out to be necessary. This essay is my way of explaining what happened, what I learned, and why I’m returning to writing and teaching with a slightly different focus. I’m also...
by Jay | May 29, 2025 | Blog, Front Page
What’s with all the variations on Fernando Sor’s Variations on a Theme of Mozart?” The Spanish classical guitarist Fernando Sor (1778–1839) wrote many virtuosic variations on various themes. But his most famous—and most frequently performed—set is...
by Jay | Dec 23, 2023 | Classical Guitar Basics
A New Live Session of Positively Dangerous is now open for Enrollment Last summer’s pilot course was a wonderful time! Students experienced huge improvements and breakthroughs, while I learned a great deal about what worked well and what needed improvement. I’m...
by Jay | Oct 27, 2023 | Blog, Front Page, Music
Here’s my performance-ready version of this amazing endless melody of a piece. I’ve been enjoying Derek Grippers arrangements of Kora music for classical guitar for years, and finally got a chance to try some of them out. Someone once said (I forgot who)...
by Jay | Aug 25, 2023 | Blog, Guitar Lessons
by Jay | Aug 8, 2023 | Art, Blog
When you are learning a piece of music, you have to play it hundreds of times. Over, and over. And over again. The same notes, the same chords, the same fingerings. In one life, you might play the same set of notes tens of thousands of times. I haven’t done the...
by Jay | Aug 3, 2023 | Blog, Classical Guitar Basics, Guitar Lessons
This is a follow-up to last week’s video on “finishing” learning a challenging piece of music. In this video I run through Jarabi, the arrangement by South African guitarist and composer Derek Gripper of Toumani Diabate’s amazing Kora version....
by Jay | Jul 6, 2023 | Blog, Classical Guitar Basics, Classical Guitar Lessons, Teaching Videos
Once you can play something well enough that it’s fun to run through, the temptation is to stop practicing it and just play it over and over. Here is one method I use to keep myself focused on mastering repertoire up until the time it’s actually ready to...
by Jay | Feb 17, 2023 | Blog, Front Page, Guitar Lessons, Teaching Blog Post
by Jay | Sep 16, 2022 | Blog, Guitar Lessons, Music
Read up on Luis de Narvaez at his Wkipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_Narv%C3%A1ez This deservedly well-known work the first known written example of the musical form “variations on a theme.” It’s always been one of my favorite...
by Jay | Sep 11, 2022 | Blog, Classical Guitar Basics, Classical Guitar Lessons, Classical Guitar Technique, Guitar Lessons, Teaching Blog Post
I'm starting up a series of posts on how to become positively dangerous on the classical guitar. Much of what I talk about will apply not just to classical guitar, but to all styles of guitar playing and to musicianship, practice and mastery in general.I want to...
by Jay | Sep 2, 2022 | Blog, Videos
Frantz Casseus (1915-1993) was a Haitian classical guitarist who move to New York City in 1946. Many of his pieces derived elements from the music of his homeland, including this gorgeous piece. His complete works have been edited by Mark Ribot and published by...
by Jay | Sep 2, 2022 | Blog, Videos
Yes, I know that these “daily” classical guitar repertoire readings are not actually daily. Sue me. I do read through repertoire a lot, simply for the joy of it, the curiosity of it. As. result of spending so much time in my life eagerly “reading...
by Jay | Aug 24, 2022 | Blog, Front Page, Performances
This is a Last Minute Concert Announcement for New Yorkers Are you musically adventurous? If you are in the New York area, and are into interesting, beautiful, creative music, go hear this concert at the historic Old Stone House in Brooklyn. There are two...
by Jay | Aug 21, 2022 | Blog, Front Page, Videos
Occasionally I’ll be sneaking in some repertoire by yours truly, because yes, I am a composer who loves to compose. This one is part of a set of 5 short preludes, and I’m particularly proud of it. I set forth writing it as an exercise in pull-offs and...
by Jay | Aug 17, 2022 | Blog, Front Page, Guitar Heroes, Guitar Lessons, Videos
Matteo Carcassi wrote a lot of charming little short pieces, and here is one that I’ve not heard many people play. It’s so short that it’s not even really a Rondo—the main theme only comes back one time. Its form is basically A-B-A. I found it...
