How To Play The Music of The Jackson Five is Adam Rafferty’s newest instructional DVD for fingerstyle players. Included are four of Adam’s signature arrangements: “I’ll Be There”, “I Want You Back”, “Never Can Say Goodbye”, and “ABC.” The DVD/booklet includes full standard notation and tablature and sells for $34.97 at www.adamrafferty.com. Running time is 1 hour and 58 minutes.

This release is a natural follow-up to Adam’s previous instructional DVD, How to Play the Music of Stevie Wonder [Review]. It follows virtually the same format and offers the same high quality playing and instruction. Adam begins the video by offering up some valuable strategies for how to go about tackling new and difficult pieces including: warming-up, playing slowly, focusing on one piece at a time and engaging in positive self talk while you practice. Adam points out that although immediate results are not usually apparent, after a good practice session your mind will continue to process the music while you are doing other activities. I’ve found this to be true in my own experience, but I’ve never heard anyone else express it before.

After the introduction, each song is shown as a complete performance followed by an instruction segment lasting about 25 minutes. You could basically consider the package as a series of four in-depth half-hour lessons that you can review at your leisure. Quite a value when you think of it that way! Here’s some of what I said about the Stevie Wonder video. All of it holds true for this video as well:

“Adam is comfortable in front of the camera and is obviously used to breaking down information into short, easily understood phrases. There is enough detail given to the specialized guitar techniques used that you can’t misinterpret how to recreate them. Once enough explanation has been given, short sections of the tune are demonstrated at a slow enough tempo that intermediate-level players should be able to start playing along with only a little practice. Adam ends most instructional segments with some performance notes and often points out places where he has slightly changed elements of the original songs in order to make them groove harder and sound more at home on the guitar. The booklet that accompanies the DVD contains very detailed scores in standard notation and tablature. Left-hand fingerings are included for every note and occasional right-hand fingerings are indicated as well.”

The attention to detail given to the right- and left-hand fingerings here is something rarely seen outside of classical circles. Adam takes his time explaining each arrangement and gives specific demonstrations that compliment the written music perfectly. He has clearly put a lot of time into not only the arrangements themselves, but the way in which he chooses to execute and teach them. It’s meticulous but never tedious. Adam’s skills as a performer and arranger have obviously developed since the last video too. The songs in the Jackson Five video are funkier and a bit more technically advanced than the Stevie Wonder portfolio and the collection seems to have a few common elements that are evident throughout. Luscious chords and deep grooves abound. Percussive slaps and funky muted lines are used liberally as well as cool percussion breakdown in “ABC” which will definitely turn some heads.

The only thing that I found a bit confusing at first was the way in which the songs that use a capo were notated in the tablature staff. Most publishers tend to notate the capo location as the nut and notate all other frets in relation to the capo. Instead, the tab here shows the actual fret number where the capo is positioned and indicates all of the fretted notes in their actual location as well. The choice to notate the songs this way actually makes a lot of sense – especially as you will be moving all around the neck – but it may throw some folks for a loop until they get used to reading the TAB in this format.

I absolutely loved watching and working with the Jackson Five DVD. Any fingerstyle guitarist willing to spend time practicing will surely be rewarded with some uplifting new repertoire and gain some new insights as well. I can’t wait to hear what Adam does next. Whatever it is, I hope that he will continue to share his knowledge and arrangements with like-minded guitarists.

Visit www.adamrafferty.com to find out more about Adam or check out his YouTube channel to enjoy more of his music.

If you’d like to hear all of the arrangements that are available on the new DVD follow this link: http://krunchd.com/raffertyj5tunes. You can scroll through the videos using the arrows in the upper right corner of the screen. Below is a short trailer for the DVD.

I’ve been using Altoids tins to create “pick packs” that hold a selection of my favorite picks. I’m planning on putting one in each of my guitar cases and in my laptop bag. Each tin holds an identical selection of color-coded guitar picks:

2 Dunlop Jazz III [black]
2 Fender Heavy [premium celluloid blue moto]
2 Fender Medium [premium celluloid abelone]
2 Fender Thin [premium celluloid red moto]
1 Golden Gate Thumbpick

The colors make it easy to see the gauge of pick you’re looking for. In addition, there is enough room in the tin to hold a Planet Waves NS capo or a Shubb Capo and a few strips of 400 grit sandpaper for smoothing rough nails.

It’s a little nerdy but it’s utilitarian.

I’m a decent fingerpicker, but one of the things I’ve never learned how to do well is to play with a thumbpick and incorporate right-hand muting the way that players like Chet Atkins do. The thumbpick allows for muting the bass strings while maintaining a bright tone, but it feel’s pretty awkward at first. When done right, this approach results in the illusion of two guitar parts: one playing ringing melody notes and another playing a crisp boom-chuck accompaniment part.

To work on the technique I decided to take a well known tune from Chet’s repertoire and work on it in hopes of mastering the technique. The tune I’ve chosen is “Windy and Warm” which was written for Chet by John D. Loudermilk in the early 60′s. I’ve only been hitting the song hard for a couple of days, and I’m having good but mixed results. Sometimes it sounds and feels great and other times I lose it completely. I’ve also noticed that because I’m still very uncomfortable with the thumbpick, I’m unconsciously tensing the muscles in my left hand while I play and pressing down much harder than I normally would on the strings. This tension results in a loss of mobility in that hand and some really painful fingertips. Talk about unintentional side effects!

So far I’ve really only been working on The “A” section of the tune. While I’m waiting for the technique to come together I’m starting to think about how I want to play the rest of the song. There are as many versions of this song as there are players it seems. Even Chet played different arrangements during his career. So while I working I’ll be listening to all of the versions I can so I can decide how to treat the “B” and “C” sections of the tune. Tommy Emmanuel, Doc Watson, and John Knowles all have great arrangements, but I think I’ll be using the version embedded below as my touchstone.

I’ll update with my progress in a week or two. In the meantime if anyone has any tips for this approach I’d love to hear them!

In a recent blog post, Adam Rafferty asked: “Where do you think fingerstyle guitar is heading next?”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since Adam’s post and wanted to share some of my own thoughts about it. Because I spend a lot my time teaching, my comments are chiefly in regard to the way I’d like to see the education field evolve.

Adam is correct that until Andres Segovia came along, most music conservatories did not consider the guitar worthy of the kind of in-depth study that is offered for say, piano or violin. Even today many schools do not offer the guitar as an applied area of study. With the exception of a few schools that focus on contemporary music, most guitar programs that exist today are fairly conservative and offer guitar programs that focus primarily on traditional classical or jazz repertoire and technique.

I completely agree that students must familiarize themselves with history of the instrument and its music and that having a structured approach to the discipline in place is necessary. In addition to music fundamentals, this will include learning benchmark pieces from the classical or jazz repertoire and mastering techniques that will enable the student to execute solo guitar material in a musical way.

On the other hand, I believe that there must be room in the schedule to help students to develop their own individual approach to the instrument and a repertoire that is at least somewhat unique. One way to do this is to have students choose some music that they love and help them to create their own unique arrangements.

Let me give you an example of the type of assignment I’ve given to several students in the past:

Before getting creative, the student would be assigned a piece of music selected by me that I feel will challenge them and help them to learn certain concepts, but that they can master with some diligent practice. Since I primarily teach jazz, let’s say that I have them learn Barry Galbraith’s arrangement of “Our Love is Here to Stay” from one of my favorite books: Barry Galbraith Guitar Solos by Jim Lichens. In addition to simply learning to play the arrangement we’d analyze the arrangement in two ways. First we’d look at the technical side of the arrangement exploring the fingerings in detail to make sure that everything lends itself to giving the most musical result. If we find that a new fingering seems to make more sense than the ones indicated in the book we can try it out and decide whether or not to implement it. Then we’d analyze the musical choices made by Barry Galbraith. In this arrangement he uses a variety of techniques such as: contrary motion, block voicing, walking bass lines, and chromatic planing.

Okay, so hopefully the student enjoyed the piece, has practiced it and has learned a thing or two. Once they’ve completed a couple of pieces in this manner, I’ll challenge them to choose a piece of music from a fake book and use some of the concepts to try their own hand at arranging. If the student is fairly new to jazz, a little direction may be needed – obviously jazz tunes are likely going to make better use of walking bass lines and chromatic planing than a rock or funk tune, but who knows?

Over the past several years I have been pleasantly surprised by students who have come back with really lovely solo guitar arrangements of jazz standards. Other times I have encountered students who seemed at a complete loss as to where to begin and needed more help along the way.

I believe that it is not enough to teach students only the standard classical or jazz repertoire. We have to challenge our students to not only be guitar players but to be creative arrangers and composers. This is what is going to get them noticed and ultimately what will pay the bills. Think about it: Segovia was the first player to be taken seriously as a classical guitarist not just because he was a fantastic guitarist, but because he played works by J.S. Bach, which he had transcribed and arranged himself!

Today we have access to thousands of performances from players all over the world via the Internet. If you’ve discovered artists such as Tommy Emmanuel, Pete Huttlinger, Adam Rafferty, Ulli Boegershausen, Sungha Jung, or Andy McKee in the past few years, I’ll bet you they weren’t playing pieces by Dowland, Bach, or even Gershwin when you first heard them. These guitarists have gained a worldwide audience because not only do they play beautifully, they play material that the vast majority of the public can identify with. The arrangements they play are not taken from any book but were created by the artists themselves.

Now I’m not suggesting that it’s my goal to create the next hot YouTube guitarist, but if a young guitarist is hired to play specific material they had better be prepared to work up an arrangement or two. If they can’t then I didn’t prepare them well enough. And if that material includes songs by top 40 artists, then so be it. I know that the future of fingerstyle guitar will continue to embrace the accepted repertoire but I sincerely hope that we can start to leave behind the notion that contemporary pieces are only novelty pieces and are not worthy of serious study. Depending on the arrangement, these pieces can be just as difficult as any classical piece, and – they can actually help you make a living!