HOMESPUNStrums, Patterns, and Grooves for Acoustic Guitar
Taught By Bob Brozman.
Level 3
70-minute DVD or VHS, includes tab
Bob Brozman's fascinating lesson will help acoustic guitarists of any style and genre look at the guitar in a whole new way. Bob explores the many aspects of rhythm guitar and what makes a good "groove." He helps you develop your coordination through a variety of drills, leading you in hand- and foot-tapping exercises so that accents, swing rhythm, polyrhythms, triplets in blues playing and other meters become second nature.
Moving the exercises to the guitar, Bob shows how to incorporate these techniques into songs using strumming patterns, string slapping, fret tapping, hammering, damping, and other devices that will put emphasis and movement into your music. Fingerstyle players will be especially intrigued by the ways that Bob works these subtleties into his blues and ragtime picking. Among other things, you'll learn how to incorporate blues, Caribbean, New Orleans, calypso and other rhythms into your picking and strumming style.
The ability to change and improve your instrumental arrangements through rhythmic variations is at the heart of this lesson. This is aptly demonstrated by the fact that Bob has improvised all of the music on this tape, proving the power and spontaneity of good rhythmic guitar playing.
A WORD FROM BOB BROZMAN
"In my life as a guitarist, I have found that rhythm and feeling is what captures the hearts of audiences, far more than all the scales in the world. Rhythm and intention of attack give life to guitar music. The best riffs and solos still tell a story, even if you remove the pitches and just hear the rhythm of the phrases. Paying attention to rhythm has, through increased muscle awareness, enabled me to continue my progress as a musician and take on more difficult musical challenges. It is a pleasure to share these ideas with you. Use them to make your own music more dynamic while learning to stay 'in the pocket' of the groove."
Student Review:
"I just received your Rhythm in Your Riffs video from Homespun Tapes
- Wow! I had no idea anyone could get that kind of sound out of a guitar. Your
opening performance stopped my 11 year old daughter in her tracks and she joined
me in the clapping exercises." - John Gerlach
Bob Brozman is a master of bottleneck blues as well as Gypsy
swing, calypso, ragtime, Hawaiian, Indian, African, Japanese/Okinawan, Caribbean
and other World Music styles. He has been called "an instrumental wizard" and "a
walking archive of 20th Century American music." Bob maintains a nearly
superhuman schedule throughout the year, touring constantly throughout North
America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. He has recorded numerous albums
and has won the Guitar Player Readers' Poll two years in a row in both the blues
and slide guitar categories. In 1999, he co-founded International Guitar Seminars,
which hosts over 120 students annually at sites in California, New York, and
Canada. Bob is also a linguist, anthropologist, and ethnomusicologist, lecturing part- time at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He is starting a foundation for the purpose of getting some of the western surplus of instruments and other musical supplies directly into the hands of musicians in third world countries in Africa and Oceania. For more info: www.bobbrozman.com