My methods are customized and drawn from an enormous background of teaching and performing experience.

Contact me at ChuckAnderson202@comcast.net for more information.

http://www.chaplinsmusiccafe.com/

Ticket Link
http://www.chaplinsmusiccafe.com/apps/webstore/products/show/1821146

Make sure you get your tickets early. The venue is very cool but small. Also, there’s a discount for advance purchase.

Unlocking the Guitar: Notes on the Neck
One of the biggest problems for guitar players – Guitar players historically do not know the names of the notes on the neck. I don’t mean the ability to figure out the notes. I mean stone cold knowing the notes – having a perfect mental picture of all of the notes and their names all over the instrument,  This is a great 10 step approach to mastering the neck.

Monster Guitar Chops Volume One
The first in a 6 volume series of books dealing with the physical guitar – Strength, speed and endurance are goals here.

The Six Secrets of Guitar Fingering
My approach to fingering – a 6 principle approach that will help you master the note connections on the instrument. It’s valuable for the improviser, the reader and anyone who plays single notes.

Pathways of the Guitar
The workbook for The Six Secrets – it deals with critical scales, arpeggios, intervals and sequences that ultimately become the tools that every improviser needs.

Master Picking
My approach to picking – the study of the four picking pairs and how to use them. Picking is divided up into Articulate and Legato picking

Mastering the Modes
Ever since Miles Davis, modality has been important to contemporary musicians. Few subjects have been as poorly taught as modes. This book covers the details of modal playing in great depth.

Modular Phonetic Rhythm
My system of rhythm – using concepts from language. It helps make the transition from the math of rhythm to the sonic language of rhythm. Critical for chord comping, solos, composition and reading.

The Private Music Teachers Guide
For those who would like to make a serious career out of teaching. This approach is not a marginal part time job. I’m talking about enough income to buy the house, buy the car and put the kids through school.

Unlocking the Guitar: Strums
A good solid training in contemporary strum techniques. Often called “feel” by drummers, it’s great to improve your communications with other musicians especially drummers and bass players.

Unlocking the Guitar: 25 Open Tunings and How to Use Them
More geared to singer-songwriters who are looking for new sounds to inspire new songs.

Each book takes a topic and develops it from the beginning. Topics not covered yet are chord development, improvisation, theory and melody and chords. These are either completed and waiting for release or they are in progress as we speak.

Since teaching is very personal, the best way to guide someone is to find out where they are and what they’re trying to accomplish. In this way, I can guide someone towards the most effective way to use the material.

This material is a set of resources to be used not a step by step method. I train people all over the world through Skype and correspondence if anyone needs a more personalized approach.

I will also be releasing video clips to demonstrate this material. Look for that feature soon!

This ten track CD will be called “Images for Two Jazz Guitars” Our process is to create the themes, then the structure, then the instrumentation and finally, the arrangements. The themes will provide the foundation of each piece and then Jimmy and I will do what we have done for so many years – we’ll improvise.

The music will be an amalgam of our experiences and the music we love. We’re having a great time working on this project. Jimmy is a fantastic musical partner and a great collaborator. I’ve never heard two guitars work so well together.

Recently, we sat down and started to play. We had no theme, no charts, no idea of a direction. What happened was magical. Luckily, we captured it on “tape” and you can download it now for free! Just enter your email and we’ll send you details (plus other free goodies if you’re new to our email list!)

Though many music schools teach the modes as versions of the C major scale, it is perhaps the worst possible way to teach them. This explanation is valid historically but is relatively useless for jazz guitar applications.

Chuck records Flight from the "Freefall" CD

Each mode is characterized by a specific whole – half step scale pattern, a characteristic scale step and three primary triads. By focusing in on the scale tones while emphasizing the characteristic scale step melodically and the primary chords harmonically, you can get an authentic modal sound. Jazz makes particularly good use of modality. Early jazz use of modality would be Miles Davis and his work on Milestones, So What etc

For more information on modes,  look at “Mastering the Modes” in the Books section.

On my new CD “Freefall”, Flight is an example of Lydian tonality while Diablo’s Dream demonstrates the Phrygian tonality.

Chuck Anderson is part of an elite group: world-class jazz musicians who focused their careers not on performing, but on passing the baton to others. Like the late Dennis Sandole and Charlie Banacos before him, Chuck spent his career focused on educating and mentoring students, many of whom went onto illustrious careers.

Now at 62, Chuck Anderson has returned to his roots as a performer, and in his new CD Freefall, you can hear Chuck playing some of the best guitar of his life. Freefall contains 12 original compositions, 10 performed with the Chuck Anderson Trio. Music After 50 talked to Chuck about the new album, and why he was out of the public eye for so many years.

LRG: What makes this album different from anything you’ve done previously?

CA: This album represents the culmination of a long journey. The Vintage Tracks represented me as a young, over- the-top-jazz guitarist – lots of brash firepower. The next CD Angel Blue showed me more as a composer. It represented a more mature writer and player. After my long absence from the jazz guitar concert world, Freefall is an amalgam of young energy and passion as well as mature writing. It’s my favorite CD of the three.

LRG: Did you write all of the tunes or are there any covers?

CA: All 12 songs are original. Two are solo tracks and 10 are in the trio format.

LRG: You stopped performing for many years. What inspired you to return to performance?

CA: I had been suffering, unknowingly, from severe obstructive sleep apnea for many years. It drained my energy, stopped my metabolism, and caused me to gain an enormous amount of weight. I barely had the energy to teach. When the cause of my problem was discovered, I began sleep therapy with a CPAP machine. With the return of deep sleep, I was able to moderate my eating and begin an exercise regimen. The results of these changes has been a weight loss of 110 pounds. With this renewed energy, I felt that passion and drive that I remember feeling when I was 24 years old.

LRG: You prefer to play in concert settings over clubs. Talk about why.

CA: Clubs have many distractions that don’t serve an audience or the performers well. The wait staff, the bartenders and, the fact that so many people are not there to hear the music distracts the performers and those who have come to hear the music. A concert setting is exclusively intended to listen to music. This is a benefit to the performers and to the audience.

LRG: You call your music “audience friendly, progressive jazz guitar.” Talk about what makes it friendly.

CA: I think that it’s important to consider the audience when you perform jazz. This is not a compromise, but a balanced perspective concerning volume, repertoire, variety, and communication. The jazz world has developed a reputation for unfriendly and distant performers. The programming of the material and the spontaneity of the performance is what I believe makes it friendly. I am not a fusion player. The audience is the only thing that allows us to do what we do.

LRG: What type of guitar are you playing on the album?

CA: A custom Gibson L5. The “Green Hornet.”

LRG: The bass player and drummer both sound great on the album. Who are they?

CA: On bass, we have Eric Schreiber. Eric is relatively new to the jazz world but has excellent training, listens well, and works interactively and creatively with the trio. Ed Rick on drums brings a wide variety of experience to the band. His percussive work is solid and inspiring.

LRG: Although you’re a jazz guitar player, many of your students do not study jazz guitar. Is that correct?

CA: My students have a wide variety of interests and directions. I teach to the unique strengths of each student. I deal formally with guitar, bass, piano, and songwriting. The music business is another frequent topic of discussion in the lessons. I teach privately, as I believe in the power of one-on-one interaction.

LRG: Do you teach part time or full time?

CA: Very full time!

LRG: What does this album mean for you personally, and what do you hope it means for jazz guitar overall?

CA: For me, it’s a return, a rebirth. I hope that it will draw people all over the world to the jazz guitar.

Ben,

I am a veteran jazz guitarist, born in Chicago but based in suburban Philadelphia.

I appreciate how you handle sensitive topics related to the Art of Jazz.

Being in this business for a long time as a musician, educator, author and lecturer, I have a somewhat different take on the subject of jazz musicians and audiences. Though it’s easy to blame the media and they deserve some of the blame, I think the biggest problem lies squarely on the shoulders of jazz musicians and the jazz community.

This community has never promoted or marketed their art and craft at the level or with the same intensity as other musical idioms. This is not to comment one way or another on the musical significance of jazz versus rock – country vs pop etc.

As an example, country music has an enormously popular and important tradition called Fan Day. This is basically a big convention for the fans to meet, up close and personal, their country music idols. Autographs are given, merchandise is sold, pictures are taken. I have never seen a country artist resist this tradition or complain about it. They recognize that without the fans, they would have no career.

Country music plays to the fans and seems to show a genuine interest in them. I understand the differences between country and jazz but jazz still must be marketed with consistency and enthusiasm. The musicians have to do their part in promoting and marketing their art and craft. I am talking about traditional forms of jazz not “smooth jazz”.

Jazz shares many of the same issues with classical music. There is too often a distance and certain type of elitism that prevents audiences from getting “close”.

I hold out great hope for the future because of the “new” music business – the “cyber marketing” and all the tools that are available to jazz musicians across the world.

Chuck Anderson
“Audience Friendly, Progressive Jazz Guitar”
www.ChuckAndersonGuitar.com

If interested, I’d love to send you copies of two of my CDs as well as one of my books. It deals with the subject of development within the music business, the individual and within the artistic community. The book is titled “Music Pursuing the Horizon”
—-
Chuck Anderson
www.ChuckAndersonGuitar.com
chuckandersonguitar.blogspot.com