Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Thank you to all of you who have taken a minute to do my two-question survey about my Guitar Chord Course. If you are interested: Click here to take Dr. Dave’s 2-question confidential survey
Several of you have noticed that you can leave anonymous comments and questions. I will answer your questions today, but first thank you so much for all of the nice comments about the blog. It makes these long, lonely hours at the keyboard worthwhile to know that people actually read this stuff. On that note, in answer to the first question, our sysop tracks the visits to the site and he tells me that we have 7,500 core readers, with about half again casual readers.
Why did I develop a chord course when there are so many chord books out there? Well, that is precisely why. Over the years I have had dozens of students bring in 2,3, 4, or more chord books to ask which one was best. My feeling is that you should learn the basics of chord construction. That way you can figure out any chord and spice up your own playing. It is a great way to improve your improvisational skills. Also, I cannot imagine anything more boring than memorizing hundreds of chord shapes!
When will the course start? Another good question. I will leave the survey up until February 14 so please sign up by then. Assuming there are enough people for the course to go ahead (and we are almost there already!) I will email you the details on February 15.
How do you pay? I am not asking for any money yet. When we get enough people I will email you payment options, as well as the final cost. And yes, you can back out if you change your mind!
Finally, a number of you have asked for my qualifications, one way or another. PLEASE do not feel embarrassed about asking! I strongly encourage you to check out ANY prospective teacher to be sure that they know the instrument AND they know how to teach. I guess I should have included my qualifications in the last post but to be honest I feel a bit odd going on about myself. Anyway, here is the “brief bio” that the university uses to publicize the course when I teach it there:
“Dr. Dave has been teaching guitar for over 40 years, beginning at the age of 15. After completing an Honours Bachelor of Music (with a minor in Computer Science) at the University of Toronto, he continued by earning two masters degrees, one in Music (specializing in Theory and Criticism) and one in Computer Science (specializing in music technology). He returned to the University of Toronto to complete his Ph.D. in Education specializing in teaching music using instructional technologies. He also completed two doctoral courses in theory with Dr. Edward Laufer.
Besides playing in innumerable rock, country, and jazz bands, Dr. Dave studied classical guitar with Eli Kassner at the University of Toronto, and attended master classes by Christopher Parkening, Alirio Diaz, Oscar Ghiglia, John Mills, Alice Artzt, and Liona Boyd. He has appeared in concert as a classical guitarist and also as a fingerstyle player. For fingerstyle he has studied with Tommy Emmanuel, Laurence Juber, Stephen Bennett, John Knowles, Joscho Stephan, Pat Kirtley, John Standefer, Jim Nichols, and Frank Vignola. He also studied jazz guitar with Tony Bradan (who was recommended to him by Kim Mitchell).
Dr. Dave has taught as a faculty member at the University of Western Ontario, McMaster University, and Mohawk College; he has also been an occasional lecturer at the University of Toronto. He has been invited to lecture at Harvard, Yale, City University of New York, University of Osnabrueck Germany, University of Western Ontario, and the University of Ottawa, as well as presenting at conferences all across the USA and Canada as well as in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Finland, and Hungary.”
Tags: Dr. Dave, Guitar Chord Course