July 3, 2026

Due to changing circumstances on the home front, I am moving and purging a lot of stuff. This means over 60 years of musical memories in books and instruments. In honor of July 4, we are encouraging people to learn, or improve their music reading skills. We will be starting a new Challenge, hoping folks will devote five minutes a day for the rest of July to tackle that obstacle that so many consider unconquerable. Our Guide To Reading Music is a great place to start that journey. We are also offering our Beginning Classical Pieces at a big discount this week.

My trip down memory lane today started with the books I learned to read from- The Mel Bay Classic Guitar Method. Then I brought out my next generation of books- The Renaissance Guitar and The Baroque Guitar from Frederick Noad’s series. There was even a cameo with my first guitar- a Mexican classical that is completely unplayable now.

Today’s theory excursion went into an easy way to learn and remember the notes on the 6th and 5th strings, which is really useful when looking for barre chord positions. There was a review of the five main members of the ‘E’ and ‘A’ families as well. There might be good cause to watch that part with pencil, paper and guitar in hand.

Happy Fourth Weekend!

Neil