Narrowing The Field
May 28, 2020
Attempting to decipher the hard bop masters has often felt like a sustained, intentional effort to decode a seemingly impenetrable art. Given the high esteem I hold that music in, and how long it has loomed for me as the apex of improvisation in...
Schroeder Gets The Last Word
May 21, 2020
I grew up in a house with basically three kinds of music: Tin Pan Alley tunes, folk revival records, and an assortment of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin piano pieces. The first and the third were generally courtesy of my dad, who played all of it...
The Flying Car
May 15, 2020
Even before the pandemic, I was considered the tech and fixit guy in my house. Which is not a good sign. I do know how to fix things, sort of, but in a "look,you can do this thing with corrugated cardboard and packing tape" kind of way. What few...
Coffee and Fireworks
May 07, 2020
I used to play with this drummer and songwriter named Dave Bush in New York, and to keep things clear, our mutual musician friends referred to us as Dave H. and Dave B. Over time, this became shortened to our respective last initials, which saved...
Boundaries and Creativity
Apr 30, 2020
Some friends of mine have just started a new songwriting group. I've done live song groups before – this new one, in fact, is inspired by Jack Hardy's long-running Houston street song meetings, which several of us used to attend in New York....
Indirect Listening
Apr 23, 2020
Every six months or so, I put on Louis Armstrong and wait for two of my main philosophical impulses to slug it out. On the one hand, I'm for listening to the things that just hit you on a gut level. Be honest with yourself about what you ...
"Who's It For, What's It For?"
Apr 14, 2020
The studio where I've been shooting my new Youtube live streams is only ten minutes from my house. Last fall, when it was still a half-hour drive to work, I would get on various podcast jags, including Seth Godin's "Akimbo," which made for some...
Last Call For The Fingerstyle Five
Apr 14, 2020
According to my friend Tim, there was a college professor in the William Patterson jazz program who began every sentence with the word "Dig." As in,
So Not A Marketing Email
Apr 14, 2020
Word on the street is you can't make an omelette without shattering a few eggshells. Inside the sanitized cocoon that is the Fretboard residence, we know this to be true, because omelettes are one of those foods which pass over our children's...
Improvising on "Key To The Highway"
Apr 13, 2020
I feel like I've spent more time thinking about improvising than almost any other aspect of playing music. Some of that time has been spent wondering why I couldn't do it any better, some of it has been spent wondering if it was even possible to...
