HOMESPUN
Taught
By Happy Traum, Artie Traum.
Level 2
One hour, 45 minute DVD
There is nothing more fun and exciting for a guitar player than having the skills to improvise in a jam session. The trick is to have your fundamentals down so you can be comfortable when you play with others.
Happy and Artie Traum have designed this DVD lesson so that even a novice will be able to play along, but it's filled with a huge amount of material for players at all levels: detailed instruction, good songs, invaluable advice, and the techniques you'll need to trade riffs, use chord inversions, move around the fingerboard and improvise creative solos.
Happy and Artie give you plenty of opportunity to jam along with them by providing rhythmic backup for each song and technique they teach. You'll learn six blues standards in the keys of E and A, along with the tools to allow you to become a better blues player.
Songs: New Stranger Blues, Key to the Highway, How Long Blues, Trouble in
Mind, 2:19 Blues, Move to Kansas City.
During the past forty years, Happy Traum's avid interest in traditional and contemporary
music has brought him recognition as a performer, writer, editor, folklorist,
teacher and recording artist. He has performed extensively throughout the U.S.,
Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has appeared on recordings as a featured
artist, as a member of various ensembles, and as an accompanist. He has played
and recorded with Bob Dylan, Chris Smither, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rory
Block, Jerry Jeff Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel
and innumerable others. Happy is the author of more than a dozen best-selling guitar instruction books, has written numerous magazine columns and articles, and for three years was editor of Sing Out! The Folksong Magazine. He and his brother, Artie Traum, have been playing as a duo since 1968. Their first two Capitol albums, "Happy And Artie Traum" and "Double Back," are widely considered to be classics. Long-time residents of Woodstock, NY, Happy and Artie co-produced several important records for Rounder, featuring some of the area's finest folk and rock musicians. These included "Mud Acres, Music Among Friends" and "Woodstock Mountains." Happy and Artie's album "Hard Times In The Country" featured liner notes by Allen Ginsberg. In 1993, Happy and Artie released their latest duet album, "The Test Of Time," featuring traditional and contemporary songs backed up by some of Woodstock's finest musicians.
Happy's solo albums include "Relax Your Mind," "American Stranger," "Bright Morning Stars" and "Friends And Neighbors." A compilation CD, "Buckets Of Songs," has been released by Shanachie Records. In 2001, “Bright Morning Stars” was reissued in CD format in the U.S. (Lark’s Nest Music) and in Japan (Slice of Life Records).
Perhaps Happy Traum's most important and lasting musical contribution has been Homespun Tapes, which he and his wife Jane founded in 1967. This dynamic and growing mail order company has a catalog of approximately 400 different music instruction lessons on audio cassette, CD and video tape, taught by top professional performing musicians. Happy produces all of the lessons, and brings to Homespun his many years of experience as a popular and productive member of the music community.
Artie Traum is an award-winning guitarist who has been featured
on over 30 albums. His latest release, "South of Lafayette," is a "hip
fusion of folk and jazz esthetics," writes Sing Out! Magazine. "Letters
From Joubee" (1994) spent six weeks at #1 on the smooth jazz radio charts. "Meetings
With Remarkable Friends," with The Band, Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Tony Levin,
Laurence Juber, John Sebastian and other top musicians, was awarded Best Acoustic
Instrumental Album of 1999 (NAV Award) and voted Best CD of 2000 by Hudson Valley
Magazine. In 2001, Artie released "The Last Romantic," which was placed "on
this year's list of best releases" by Jazz Times. Performing since the 1960's, Artie Traum has worked with his brother Happy Traum, songwriter Pat Alger and The Woodstock Mountains Revue. Artie's songs have been recorded by The Band, David Grisman and Tony Rice, among others. He has produced CDs for Tony Levin, Laurence Juber, Livingston Taylor, Diane Ziegler and many other top artists. Artie has performed at dozens of festivals, including the Catalina Jazz Trax Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival and the Newport Folk Festival, and has composed music for film and TV shows.
Artie Traum is a popular clinician for Taylor Guitars, performing guitar workshops
around the world, and his instructional materials continue to be best-sellers
for Homespun Tapes. "Artie Traum has the natural, soulful touch that other
guitarists only dream about," says Donald Fagen of Steely Dan.