SPEAKER_02 0:43

All right, here I am today in uh Wyoming. Wyoming. Wyoming. Wyoming, Wyoming, like the state, Delaware with Jim Rizak. He got everything right. I got it right. Okay, cool. Jim, I know Jim. Uh we haven't seen each other in for years. Yeah, I feel like.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

It's been a couple years. I went up to the fire a long time ago. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Yeah, from when I used to host the open mic at the fire. So we know each other. He is a guitar teacher. I know that. He's also a musician. He writes, uh, he records himself. I don't know if he records other people. So we're here to talk to him today just to hear about that side of life. Um, so how long have you what do you do more? Do you do you te do you teach for a living?

SPEAKER_04 1:24

Or yeah, so I like that question. I because I answer it a lot, so I had to come up with a quick answer. Um teaching pays the bills. I have 45 students teach bass, guitar, ukulele, a little bit of banjo I'm getting into these days. Um but um uh that's and in between, you know, if I got a couple hours in between my morning students and my evening students, I record and I write and I write and I write and I record and I mix and I do everything myself, you know. Not by choice, just by necessity. That's how it happens, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Yeah, yeah. I know about that. Do it myself life. Yeah. So are these students from like all over? Are they here in Delaware?

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Uh most of them from right around here. Uh, but I do have some virtual students. Uh teach someone down the beach, buddy Dave. Um, I teach my niece in Virginia, and uh so I do a little virtual teaching too, but most of them are from local. Uh a lot of adults, believe it or not, like in the mornings and stuff like that. Uh yeah. Yeah. What inspired you to start teaching? Um, I I actually first started teaching back when I was in um uh college as a kind of a side gig, just to like on the weekends, earn a little extra money. Um and I always treated it as such, just a side thing. And then I'd fall out of it for a couple years and then I I'd do it again. And you know, as my kids were coming up, maybe when they got to a certain age, I thought, well, let me teach a little bit more again, just to bring in a little extra bucks. Um but then about uh thirteen years ago, um, one of those, you know, twists of fate, I lost a job and tried to do it from home, but wasn't having success. Uh so I thought, okay, well let me just teach again. And then kind of uh this is like kind of the universe we were talking earlier about the universe, uh stepped in and made me very busy doing that. And I had next thing I know I had 25 students. I thought, man, I d I still don't have a job. I have twenty I have twenty-five students and um you know it's a funny business because it's up and down.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Um you can't always plan, you know, when it's gonna be busy. Uh and so I thought, okay, well, let me just see if I can I went and got a brick and mortar place instead of doing out of my basement with traffic going through. And uh within a year it had doubled that. It was like up to about 50 students. So uh that was you know, 12 years ago, and that's been what I've been doing. Uh and and it's perfect for someone who wants to write because when I had the nine to five working elsewhere or another company or whatever, um you know, uh you'd come home with plans. Oh, I'm gonna finish that song or I'm gonna get to it.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

And you're like, I know. Yeah, I I get that. How long have you been playing guitar?

SPEAKER_04 4:19

Um uh got a guitar when I was in seventh grade for Christmas and you know, did like everyone else does, you know, learn, went, took a lessons for a couple years, and then started learning by myself, joined bands, started playing, got pulled into an open mic during college, and you know, so was this in like the 80s or just um very well we don't have to I mean obviously, but I'm just curious because I know what music we're seeing, what what decade we're gonna do. That was uh in uh in the 70s.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

It was a whole nother time than now. Yeah, like people learning guitar now, it's great because we want to keep the music alive and the guitar alive, but back in the day, it that's all that was. It was there was none of this tech all this stuff that we have now.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

Right. And when you wanted to learn, you couldn't just say, look at your phone, let me look up the tab.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

You didn't even have uh pagers yet.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

All you have is that landline and and that's it. Right. We carved it in stone, yeah, or like the GPS, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Remember life before, you know, yeah. Get the map out, you know.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Run off the map quest and have them on your desk.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

I don't know if I would have traveled here.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

I'd been like, nah, I'm good.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

That's funny. I remember when G, you know, my I would like when they first started driving, I'd want to print out maps for my sons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was a map. No dad, no, no old man. Put those maps away. But uh no, it was uh I remember the first so the 70s so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I mean you were coming right out of like, you know, rock and roll was just being found, uh singer song, all that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

Right. I um, you know, in um uh I remember learning my first what I considered first cool song. This will help you date what's going on. Um back then the Philadelphia Inquirer would have a song in their Sunday paper with the chords, like John. I learned John Lennon's Imagine. But the first cool song I learned was Heart O'Go by Neil Young. And and that's where I learned it from the newspaper. There's no internet.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

That is so cool that the newspaper did that.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

Yes, and and and and I bet nobody but maybe guitarists remember that. You know, it was such a cool thing they didn't have to, but there I was looking forward every every Sunday you learn a song, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

That is super cool. I didn't I never knew that was a thing. Yeah, good for the paper. Shout out to the Philadelphia Inquirer for caring back in the day. You're right. I mean, they might still care, but no one's put no one's putting songs in the in the paper now. But no one's probably gonna really get in the paper now. Um, so yeah, and then you also write your own music, right? I was listening to some on the way. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. It was cool. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:51

I um I had um The dog song.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

I heard that on the way. I I only I only heard like uh maybe like four. I was like, oh, let me check him out real quick. And yeah, that dog song, that was that was that was funny. It has a little it's a little catch that like normally you don't want to say about your dog, but it makes sense to what the song is for the songwriting.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

The song was originally called that catch, that catchphrase, but I thought, no, that's like telling a joke and giving the punchline away right before you tell a joke. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Um catchphrase, we don't even want to say it because you sound like a horrible person. You gotta hear this song, and then you'll and then you'll know. Look at the dog song.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

It's a good, it's it's that's one of my favorite stories. Uh uh people say, Why you when are you gonna record that in the studio? I thought, I don't think I am. It's a live, it's a live performing song. The first time I played it, I was at the library here. My mother was there, and a couple of good friends who were dog friends, dog people, and the the deafening laugh, I you know, because you don't know. That was the first time I played it.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

This is either gonna Now, was that about a real dog or you just wrote the story?

SPEAKER_04 7:56

No, it was about a phrase. Uh I'll go ahead and say that. Yeah, that's yeah, what's up? The phrase was life begins when the kids move out and the dog dies.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

Because you can't go on the cruise if you got to stay home with Fido and put stuff in his ear.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

The song, also so everybody knows, was talking about at first how you know he got the dog, becomes his best friend, which we all know that experience. If you've had an animal or a dog, and the dog now is everywhere. It's like what about Bob? It's like that movie, right? Like the dogs, you're always going home, the dog's not a big thing. You open the door, there he is. Waiting outside the bathroom door. And so, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

Yeah, and and the I'll go ahead and tell them the catchphrase is so it's like I never had a dog. I never had a dog when I was a kid. Uh, now that I'm much older, it's the first thing that I did. I found myself a shelter, rescued me a mutt. He was in a cage all alone, chewing on his butt. Anyway, he followed me to the car, he followed me back home. Ever since that evening long ago, I've never been alone. He waits outside the bathroom door, he sticks to me like glue. He loves me so aggressively, I don't know what to do. And then a very slow rollout. So now I'm waiting for the dog to die. And I have had some people have taken umbrage with that. I had this nice lady waiting for me at that night I played it. Everyone else is laughing and they're crying because uh ladies waiting.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

And I like the live recording aspect of it.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Oh my gosh. And there's a lady waiting outside the the library door for me. She was waiting for me, waiting for me to back up all my gear, had her phone. This is my this is my dog Froofy, and I don't appreciate the.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

I'm like, oh no, I don't want the dog to die. Someone come at you. No, we yeah, it's not a real one. He's a very loving guy.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

Like one guy gave me the thumbs down at some point. I'm like that. They couldn't, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

It wasn't serious. Not what's really, I mean, obviously, it's a tragic, sad thing when that happens.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

No, we don't want him in the world. We don't want him, it's just okay. You're 14, one foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel. Let's let's move this thing along. I got a cruise I'm gonna be on. Exactly. We got some living to do, yeah. Yeah, Fido's like struggling, yeah. So anyway, yeah, but uh but I appreciate you you listened to it because uh I loaded some stuff up early on when I was started I started writing about 16 years ago. I never wrote songs, uh always one was in cover bands, rockabilly bands, even a country band. I you know, and that was good enough. If you're a guitarist, you piddle around with stuff. Oh, this may but I didn't have the urge to go back and finish that. And about uh maybe 15 years ago, 16 years ago, I joined a band called the um uh it was called Runaway Train, and it was an Americana band. I played that guitar behind us, that cigar box slide guitar. And this one? Oh no, it's back there hanging on the wall.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Oh, behind the sign, I can't even see it.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

I'm pointing to something you can't see. How's that for TV? Right there. Imagine.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

There's really one back there.

SPEAKER_04 11:02

But I played a six-string banjo, I played that, I played a telecaster, and it was a fun band. But two of the people wrote songs. I thought, I can do that. And I went home and finished three little pieces that I had for 10 or 15 years, and ever since then I've been writing, and I found uh I found my passion, I found my voice, and uh there's been writing, writing, writing, and just now you just do a lot of storytelling?

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Is it is it stuff that's personal or is it all kinds of like whatever?

SPEAKER_04 11:31

I think everybody writes from um from personal at least that's where the idea is born. Right. After that, I I made I told my I gave myself permission not to handcuff myself to all the facts.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

I'm thinking of I always love when I give myself permission to do what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

It reminds me vaguely of a of a of a saying a plaque in my mom's kitchen. She's Irish, 100% Irish. Uh Irish diploma definition of Irish diplomacy is the ability to tell a man to go to hell so that he looks forward to the trip. So I was like, it's double speak. But anyway, I gave myself permission to because if I if I write about uh if an idea comes up about heartache or love or whatever, and then if I allow myself to use other people's experience or or just make something up, my you know, sometimes it's a better song than just my life. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

And there's only so many things that you can write about with your own life, or you need to write in a way that people can make the story be whatever they want it to be.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

That's that's what I I you know, leave enough holes where the person can make it their story. Yeah, that's yeah. But yeah, so I started writing and writing and writing, and then I realized okay, now I gotta learn to record. So, you know, I had to do a little bit of that, you know. Yeah, and that's been how's that going? Uh it's uh so that's and that's what I was getting at. Some stuff I loaded up, I had the temptation to maybe take off of Spotify and stuff. I thought, no, that that's hanging out there. I because I hear some of the early stuff and I go, oof, I just didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Yeah, the the recordings were all different kind of that I heard out of the like five that I heard.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

And I thought, oh, I should probably take that down. But someone I read somewhere, someone said if you leave that up there, it drives you to make sure that before you press that finish button on the next song, you're gonna say, Do I want this to sound like that?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

No, what would it what was the thing that was making you feel that way?

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Well, I think uh like mostly vocals. I didn't know how to record vocals, they were really crisp, literally, you know, uh I didn't know how to warm them up. And so you know, you you study it. You gotta, you know, you uh you practice.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Yeah, they sound very the ones that I kind of heard sound very like um like old recordings.

SPEAKER_04 13:43

Yes, yeah, like because I and I some of that's intentional.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

I was gonna say I also kind of like the way it sounds. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

There were a couple I put some filters on to make it give uh there's um I'm gonna do a shameless plug here. I did I was I did a theme song for a podcast called Mucky Landing.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

I actually think that I is that on the thing?

SPEAKER_04 14:08

Yeah, where it sounds like it sounds like Tom Waits almost. I might I might have heard that one. Real gravelly. There's noise in the beginning, like shh, like almost like rain. Um but that was recorded on just a portable um recording device and uh um but yeah, the some of the some of it I intentionally did that, but but others like I thought, oh I overuse the compression or I didn't use compression, whatever. And you you're just learning, so you have to, you know, I do know you have to practice.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

I've spent many many hours learning.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah, yeah. It's a thing. It's a thing. Um so let's get back to the guitar teaching. So what what's your approach? Like with beginners, with advanced uh like what what's your approach?

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Well, I don't I don't have a cookie cutter way of teaching everyone walks in the door. And this is no offense to anyone who's gone to taking you know higher education. I've I taught a couple of guys years ago, local guys that have gone on to teach, and they very successful, you know, when they were kids, I taught 'em. That's how old I am. Um and they're doing it now. Um and I d and not just them, but there's some other people that teach as if I'll give you an example. Someone goes and they study they love the guitar and they go and they study it at Berkeley School of Music. And then they come out, they come to little Wyoming, Delaware, or Camden, or Dover, get a job in a store, and they teach everybody as if they're going to Berkeley School of Music. And I'm thinking, you know, that I teach I teach a guy that's in his 80s now. I teach someone, you know, a lot of people in their 30s, 40s, whatever. They're like they had a guitar around for years. They've used to play in college. They just want to get in and the kids are older now, they got some time, they want to play and have some fun on a port. You know, you don't have to, okay, let's start with the circle of fists. Nothing wrong with that. I love teaching theory. Uh, I do it very conversational. I I use uh on the back, uh I I teach chord progressions with a baseball. That's another thing that uh isn't in the camera. Okay. Hey, and I got I got an elephant over here and over there.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Right, right. Yeah, you just can't see the elephant, but there is an elephant over there. The elephant in the room.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Oh, look, the stones are here, and then they're listening to We're not lying.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

The stones are here.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Uh but but so I I I like teaching, you know, I I think I tried to make it like speak, you know, just like a conversation, like, you know, think of uh think of your first chord you're at, you know, uh the key signature is home plate, you know, and then the first object is the first, you know, your first intention is to get to first space, but eventually you want to come all the way home, you know. Yeah, teach like stuff like that. Uh but I um don't get me wrong, we don't do it's not goofing around. I don't let the student completely say, This is what I want you to teach me. No, I I I love opening doors up for them, you know. But uh so I um I love teaching bass. Um I love recording bass. God, I I that's my favorite part when I'm recording is to do the bass line. But I love students. Um I try to get into sooner than later, and not letting them wait six months or so, but I try to get into a little let's play with the teacher, let's jam. I'm gonna I'm gonna play some chords. You play that scale, just play the scale in order, just go back and forth, back and forth. And and then we, you know, teach a little improvising before they you know instead of waiting like five years, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah, just to start applying what they're learning. And what you were saying about like, you know, people coming out of Berkeley and teaching. I mean, the thing is it's like you have a lot of experience. So even like someone like me, there's as you get older you realize you you you you might forget how much you know, but because we know what we know, we can teach how we teach. You know what I mean? Like if someone's just coming out of school, it's like I know when I went to school, you come out and it's like you only know what you know, and you think you I never thought of it. You think you know a lot, right? But like there's so many things you don't know. School in this field in music, they just give you it, shouldn't even I say this in a lot of podcasts. Like, and I can't I say it, but I went to school twice and I have a the Grammy, so I can't even talk the smack that I talk on everything. But like in this field in music, I mean it's really a thing that you let you learn hands-on. It's not so much you go to school and they can fill you with all the theory and all the stuff, and but until you can actually apply it, it doesn't really click.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

Well, you you just made a really good point, a really good point. I just I never thought of it that way. But fresh out of school, you're teaching closer to the way that someone taught you, which might have been a great way, but uh that's all you know. As you start getting more experience, you start like your own. I I just you made me think of something I say almost to every student. I say, I I teach a lot by what was taught to me, but I teach even more by what wasn't taught to me. Because there were times like I remember getting a guitar in seventh grade, and I went to the Mel Bay, you know, whatever, and then uh, you know, got through the first six or six strings, the first book. First six strings. I got through the first book.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

I thought maybe the book was called the first I thought the book was called the first strings or so. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 19:26

And then but um, and then I I went to some guy who was just teaching me licks and stuff like that, and but there were things I wish someone pointed out, like the like the whole way everything can move, not just you know, like you take a D shape and move it up and the neck. And as long as you're not playing the open strings, it's still there's a D, then a D sharp, then an E, then an F. Yeah, you know, and I'm like, God wow, if I had known that, I would have been dangerous, you know. Right. Um But uh there are I do teach a lot by there are some things I have floating around my head that are um things that I want to make sure someone learns sooner than later.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

So they don't have to it's like something that you learned along the way that you're like, hey, let me tell you this. Yeah, that's because it's gonna take you a minute. It's it's they might figure it out, but they might figure it out down the right down the road. What if one of your um students like are is fr do they get frustrated or aggravated ever? Or yeah, yeah, yeah. And how how do you uh calm them down?

SPEAKER_04 20:23

So let me just turn the backhand across the room.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Like score it, score.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Usually I say, Hey, have you ever thought of piano? No, I'm kidding. No, uh the you know, oddly enough, the it's the adult students that come in. I have a theory behind that. You know, the adult, you know, he goes to Lowe's and buys a big box that's called gas grill, and he takes it home and puts it together. Step one, do this. Okay, step two, put these two together. You know, if you follow it, well, not not if you're me. If you follow it, you grill won't blow up. It's put together and there's no no extra parts, hopefully. But um, and and some of them expect that they I have actually heard uh so this is to all the uh the adult big uh learners out there. Don't you know be patient with yourself because some I've actually heard I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard, you know, I'm doing just what you told me, and it doesn't sound like you maybe you need to that's the first like a sign.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Every time you say this, yeah, you give me a dollar.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

Oh, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Okay, not continue. Oh boy, you know, I'm always I'm a hustler. I'm a hustler, you know.

SPEAKER_04 21:39

So that'll work.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Right, right. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Um, so anyway, they um I I I tell them, you know, I you know, when I say to a student, now it's gonna take some time, they nod their head and and I catch them and I said, now you're agreeing with me, but I really need you at those moments to realize, you know, that it's gonna take time. Because you're nodding your head, but you're think you're still thinking, Yeah, but by next week I should have this down. You know, stairway to heaven, I should have an So um I I that's part of a lot of what I do, you know, is like reassure them, tell them to be patient with self. Some do get uh still get you know a little bent out of shape, but not not bad. Some you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Yeah. Um do you do you have them practice to a metronome? Do you feel that's important?

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Um i initially, yeah. The everyone will tell you any teacher worth their assault will say, hey, you know, practice with the metronome, especially the I don't know if you know this, uh, but a lot of the smart speakers like Alexa and stuff like that have I I found this out by mistake. One day I'm sitting here and I said, Hey, Alexa. Don't say it too loud. No, no, I have a different name on it. And the reason I have a different name, because the knuckleheads, especially the little boys, they come in here. Hey, Alexa, tell me a joke. Hey, uh do a beatbox. I'm like, shut up, we got a lesson to do. Yeah, Alexa, do a beatbox. Uh Alexa, and I'm like, yeah, uh, no, I don't. Just kidding. Uh but uh so I tell them that, but I do I I I say, hey, metronomes are very important. Every teacher will tell you that, but learn, don't jump right into the metronome when you're brand new. Because sometimes guys will be super frustrated. That's the most frustrated. I said it's and when you do start it, realize it no matter how perfect you think your timing is, especially you guitarist playing in your bedroom, playing all solos. Yeah, like it's it needs work. So just realize that those two things. You got to be patient and realize you're you're not as good as you think you are.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

And it's definitely like it depends on this. Yeah. Watch on your show and the Starbucks logo. We don't want them coming after us.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

Fun tips from Jim. Yeah. Well competence boots.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

It's also I guess like exactly what you want. Like, let's say someone just wants to learn so they can sit around a campfire or whatever. But if you want to be in a band and you have these dreams and these goals, it's I think it's very important to learn that metronome to to lock in and and yeah, especially when you go to recording.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

Oh, yeah. I I've I've done I still do it. I I I'll play to a metronome and like I get a little frustrated. I'm like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Yeah. That's why. People don't realize that if they never. I just uh I was saying before the podcast, this guy that I brought in record a song with him to to just learn my way around the studio. And he plays he plays out all the time. I mean, covers like every week, like multiple times a week. And I don't he never played to a metronome. So like that was a really frustrating part. He ended up getting it, yeah. But he realized because he never actually was in the studio either. So he didn't realize what's involved. It's it's way different than live. And yeah live is a lot more fun, right? I think as an engineer, as a performer, as anything, yeah, it's way easier to to just go and play than to actually record.

SPEAKER_04 24:54

My brother plays bass when I go lately here, especially my brother Joe plays bass with me. The poor guy. You know, we'll practice something and then uh I'll throw an extra couple measures at the very end of a phrase before jumping into it. And he's looking at me. I said, Hey, you know, I told you there'd be days like this. And there's gonna be days like this.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

But who are some of your inspirations like that you grew up on?

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Um, you know, I for years I was so afraid of being that old guy that always talked about the Beatles. You can see a little another thing off camera, a little shrine near to the beetles.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

There is a beetle. We can take the camera off, maybe at some point, and we can show them everything.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

I named the cat Ringo. Uh, but I got a lot, and and I really I always like to see. Ring is outside. Sorry, Ringo. Yeah, yeah. Ring is outside, yeah. Uh, but they um uh they continue to inspire like they're writing what they what they knew, what they didn't know, what they tried. You know, I um reading a book right now, uh John and Paul, which describes their relationship through their words. And I know there are thousands of books on the Beatles, but this one's different. Um uh but the guy that made me want to play guitar, um, a couple of guys, uh um stickers off. Yeah. Oh, I'm gonna put that right there. See that?

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Uh that's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Uh John Fogarty was. I remember being 10 years old. I know the name.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Who is that?

SPEAKER_04 26:24

CCR. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Oh, yeah, okay, okay, yeah. I mean, I I know. I'm horrible with names and band names, so I'm like, I know that name.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

He's a personal friend of mine, and he's like, uh he's over there too at the stone. Okay. Uh but uh I used to love that sound. Uh uh the licks he came up with, and they weren't like, you know, playing behind your head, double tapping or anything, you know. But he I I think that Keith Richards, you know, as far as guitar playing, but groups, uh, yeah. Um, I'll tell you what I liked, and and you know, if you listen to my music, uh there a lot of people have problems putting it in what category does this go in. Um, and I I blame some of that on uh Chris Isaac. Yeah, I'm blaming you, buddy. Um in the 80s, and I had my claim to fame was that I discovered I didn't discover, but you had a good time in the 80s. I started Yeah. Let's talk about that on another.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

We said we weren't gonna talk about it. Um we um he came out in the 80s and uh he very much looked like Ricky Nelson, sounded like Elvis, and Roy Orbison rolled into one in the 80s, you know, big hair time, you know. And I'm thinking, hmm, is this guy? I like him. I liked it like five years before anybody, any of my friends had heard Wicked Game. I was listening to him regularly.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

I didn't know he was around that long.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh look up Silver Tone and Chris Isaac's self-titled uh album the before Heart Shape World, which is the one that Wicked Game uh, you know, uh was on the in dark and and you know had that Roy Orbison scariness to it with um, it was just I'd listen not to get I I was going through a really rough worst time of my life, probably. And I would listen to that on a Walkman cassette player at night in the dark with headphones on, you know, and just uh it would but it's just cool stuff. And and that's been him. He's done that, you know, that that almost yodeling kind of singing, uh, but and and you know, I would have thought, no, he's not, you know, I love him. I don't think, you know, how's someone like that gonna make and here he is, he's still around doing it. And that that kind of reinforced what we all say we know, but don't always follow. Like, you know, I every now and then I've years ago I found myself trying to write someone else's song, someone else's style, and that that might get you some success or financial security or whatever, but that doesn't, that's not the soul, you know. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't make you happy at the end of the day. But that's yeah, and that playing I love when I get a student that I come across as express an interest in something like you know, like Rockabilly or Blues or something like that. It's like, oh, you like that?

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Well, let me tell you, you know, like uh did you listen to any Bowie? Oh yeah, because I was gonna say the way that you mix your vocals, uh, the little bit of Bowie that I've heard. Um, I used to have one of the albums, I don't know if it was like Stardust or something. Ziggy Star. Oh my but like the way that you have that slap on your vocal reminds me of Bowie.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Nah, that's the best compliment.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

That's one song I was like listening to the few songs I listened to years on the way, I felt like each one kind of had that slap that reminded me of the album I had. Is that what it is? Ziggy Stardust or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 29:48

And the Spiders from Mars. Oh my God, can I tell you a story about that? Uh um, so senior year, uh my dad, I mean my dad's fiat were going someplace, and he's talking to me. So, I come from a family of seven. By the time you're in high school, you didn't ask for Christmas gift. You got what they gave you, and they always came from the boomer land. Yeah, and they always treated, you know, we they always treated me great. So my dad's, and he couldn't keep a secret worth anything. And he and he's like, So, Jim, what do you want for I'm a senior year and I'm looking out the window. He says, Well, what do you think you want for Christmas? I don't know, Dad. Get me, you know, you know, I'm happy with whatever you and mom, you know, we're fine. He goes, Well my dad was from New York, so he pronounced the word the way I'm gonna say it. He said, Well, you think you might want a stereo? And I thought, yeah, dad. I and I knew I was getting a stereo. So, and it was one of those things with you know, you got a record player, um, no cassette, eight-track, and a radio. Yeah, from Christmas on, the rest of my senior year, every day I came home and I played that album. Oh, did you? Oh, yeah. I can, you know, when I hear a song, I know which one is coming next on the album, like a lot of people. Yeah, and flipped it over and played it every every day a senior year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

A great album. So yeah, you're yeah. So I thought of that album while listening to your music.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

Oh my god, there's some great stuff. But yeah, oh, I'm and you know, his writing, uh, you know, he was he was deep into the whole um surrealistic uh movement and stuff like that. And I thought I read one time that's how he wrote. You know, you'd just go into a room and write phrases as they came into his head. Not necessarily. You asked, you started this by asking, uh, do you consider yourself a storyteller? And I I don't. I I have always uh yes, I get it. I've played showcases with other songwriters where it's called songwriters and storytellers, and I like that. And I have a friend Saul Knopf who's really good at that. Go look him up. Um what's his name? Saul S O L Knopf. K-N-O-K-P-F.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

K-N-O-P-H or P-F.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

Oh, it is P-F. Sol Kanoff. Um really good. He's been he's a really good songwriter. Just look him up. Um but he he does that very well. But I I have a different approach. I I consider myself a painter, you know, like uh maybe specifically an impressionistic painter where you have to you have to squint to see, you know, like monet. That's a monet. Yeah, like a monet, you know, it's you know, if you're too close, you you can't see what it is. You have to back up and you go, Oh, I get it. It's a bunch of ladies in big dresses by a river, you know, yeah, something like that. But um with parasol umbrellas, but I uh, you know, and and big into leaving enough holes in there for people to make it their own painting, their own story, whatever. But that's yeah, that's kind of yeah, that I get off. Boy, you really you do a good job.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Yeah, no, it was because we were talking about David Bowie for a second. Yeah, yeah, I'll keep you going. Give me my job. It's my job. How do you feel that being like a musician and a songwriter and everything, um, how do you feel that that like incorporates does it help you become a better teacher? Like if you were just a teacher, do you think that you would have as much that's insight? That's a great you your questions are great.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

Um, they really are. That's that's great because um, well, let me let me talk about pertaining to music, but I will get that's a great question. Um, there there are students now, you know, with you know, with all the shows like American Idol, The Voice, and you know, and all the young ladies who love Taylor Swift that come in my studio. A lot of them are trying out songwriting, some of them on their second lesson. And I encourage them, I say, go for it. I only know one chord, but I wrote a song. Let's see that.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Yeah, sometimes you only need three, four chords. You know, some songs less is more, and that's what they need, you know.

SPEAKER_04 33:48

You ever listen to Smokestack Lightning by Alan Wolf? It's one chord the whole song. Yeah, but uh yeah, so a lot of that, you know, I I will tell them, I'll share with them. I said, you know, you don't, you know, songwriting starts in here, and and then you get this involved, and and maybe a little routine. Like if you want to be a songwriter, get yourself a journal, and you know, and encourage them, you know. I I hold off on telling them, you know, music is a lot like math. I I wait on that one because it is, yeah. That's what I said. You can just see their little faces go, I hate math.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Damn it. Just my escape. Well, the four it's the numbers.

SPEAKER_04 34:26

It's it's all connected. No, it is, but so but I uh so when those opportunities come up, but with guitar, yeah. Uh but I think I am a better teacher because of that, and maybe because the whole math thing, you know, you look at I never thought of music as math, and I realize uh, you know, teaching is about showing different perspectives. Uh like a history teacher or you know, you know, some of these and you can always tell the great teachers about the teachers that the students talk about from their school public school, whatever, oh so and so. And you hear some of the names keep coming up, and like that must be a good teacher. And I think it's the ones that my brother Joe's a really good teacher, he does that, you know. Um life yeah, I think experien I think if you were just uh teaching facts, I don't know if that's the way to teach. I think everyone has to bring their life into whatever they are teaching.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Yeah. And when you say the math thing, I just always say it's like you can't think about it. Like like math, I don't even know now because they're teaching the kids to do math differently than they taught us. Yeah. I think we have the same schooling, but these kids like I live with um an eight-year-old and a four-year-old, and the eight-year-old, she comes home and I'm like, let me show you, and but they're teaching this bizarre. She has to draw all these circles. I don't even understand what's happening. And I'm not a parent, and I don't have any kids, so I don't need to understand, but it's crazy because I'm like, well, you could just do this. Uh, but the whole thing is at first she was getting frustrated because, and I was like, just don't the people that don't get math, I just say, don't think about it. Just you just gotta do the numbers. You can't think of why this and this and this and how this happened and this formula and this. And I think music, like when you learn theory and and all that, it's like you just don't think about it. Like you can't think about it, like just learn it to become second nature. Oh my gosh. And then just you just naturally do it. But if you try to make sense of it, I I have no idea how we got how we got here, but this is what the humans figured out from what we were given.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

Oh my gosh. You um so I have some adult students that are insert joke here, smarter than me. And they um uh I have one student who he'll get stuck on something, and I'm thinking it's not because he doesn't get it. He's like almost unfortunately in his own way. Yeah, he's getting his own way, or putting up an obstacle that I said, yeah. Um, I had another student that I would teach her the simple pattern, like, look at this pattern. Two, four, one, four, one, you know, with my fingers. Okay, so uh when I play that, that's the four is that the four is that the is that the D is or is that knee flat? Um and I I'm stop, don't think, just memorize the pattern, and then we'll like but they yeah, you're right. Some people just want to like they hear it's like math instead of making that that helping them make it them understand it, it makes it worse, you know. Like, no, no, that's what yeah, but anyway, and I suck at math.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Yeah, there's so many sources now that people can can teach themselves a lot of things, um, especially YouTube, obviously. So, how do you feel that um having a personal like actual interaction is better is better or worse or equal to someone just using YouTube? You mean oh, okay. Yeah, because some people are like for teaching and I mean that's what I mean. Guitar I'm talking about, yeah. Like even I, like when I'm making things, I I go to YouTube. Oh, how do you because I have all this software I didn't go to school for it? Oh, and I only go to when I need to know something.

SPEAKER_04 38:03

Boop, right there it is. You know, you can select surgically, pick what you want to study, you know, and not have uh so you know how you go to the doctor and you got like, you know, I said, Doctor, I got a I got a problem with my shoulder, and I think I read on the internet, it's the and the doctor gets mad at you. Stop going on the internet. I have the opposite Google. I have the I have the opposite approach. You know, the doctors don't want you, you know, diagnosing yourself. But I tell my students, I said, look, you know, if they had if they had Google and then if they had the internet when I was a kid, geez, it probably would have never done anything else. Just looked up, you know. Uh I I encourage them. I said, You're not gonna hurt my feelings if you come in here and say, Oh, I was watching Justin Guitar or Marty Schwartz, or you know, I looked up this. I think that's great because it usually gives us something to talk about.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:55

They were talking about uh, you know, power cards. Do you know what power cords why they call them power cards, or do you know what power no? And okay, let's talk about the root and the fifth. You know, then I I have something that I knew that I can tell them to so it's all good.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

So yeah, unless it's like an interactive YouTube, the thing is, yeah, they could watch it and they can learn, but doesn't mean they fully understand everything, and then you guys can talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Yeah, and that's how there might be some channels where you're actually it might be live and they can actually chat and interact with the channels.

SPEAKER_04 39:21

And usually they're trying to do it in a certain amount of time where I have them week after week, so I can like, you know, we can talk about it more. But I I'm not definitely not against it. I think it should be a part of their learning process, but I I do like the you know, I can lean over in a seat and say, No, I said put your finger there.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Not you know, and I and and Alexa, play What are some of the like the biggest like like most common mistakes that people make when they're first learning uh guitar?

SPEAKER_04 39:50

Um the the really early ones where they try to play everything with one finger. Look, I learned smoke on get those other fingers involved. Right. Um the uh the understanding, they've heard some words like octave, and that one kid swore to me that the octaves were the harmonics you play at the twelfth fret. I said, Well, the twelfth fret is the octave, but those are harmonics. No, they're octaves, and they're octaves up here and here.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

And I said, No, it's well it's like an octave, yeah, but not an octave.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

Right. I I said, you know, this is a different is we're gonna get into some physics. So you th so math and physics. So so uh smarter than you think, Jim. Yes, I am back to the Bowie days. Yeah, yeah. Hey man. Um uh but God, this is fun. What uh we were I forgot what we were talking about.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

No, well, we were talking about the most I could tell you what I did. I was talking, I I was to tell you the the most common. Well, so I got my first guitar. I was like, my mom bought me one like 1994, and um I taught myself. And it came with like it was a rock power pack, so it had the book with like Guns and Roses, like couple, and it was like the rhythm of like Guns N' Roses. Um uh I forget there was four songs in it, and um I taught myself, and so I learned and it was great, it was all a sudden. I was a huge Nirvana fan when I was a teenager. Learning Nirvana songs and a lot of it was just basically power of chords and everything.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

And one day I'm I was watching Teen Spirit, uh Welcome in the Jungle, uh Wonder Wall.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

Whatever it was. I don't even think Team Spirit, I think that I don't even think Teen Spirit was in this book. That's how like that's how you know, like Teen Spirit hadn't made it there yet. But um then the one day I was watching Nirvana, I was watching like Kurt Kurt play, and I'm like, look at his hands. So I taught myself completely wrong how to play a power chord. Oh, oh so then I had to, yeah. So I instead of like, you know, I had, I think I just had these fingers.

SPEAKER_03 42:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Like I had them, and that sucked. Yeah. Because I had like I literally learned how to play, and then I was like, wait, Kurt's not and then I and then I had to like unlearn that way and then play it the right way.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

I will correct a student on something. I'll say, hey, you know, I noticed you're playing with your pinky, you're allowed to do that. But here's I play the two power chords with this finger and this finger. Well, well, I saw this one guy, and he and and I said, Yep, you'll see some very famous guys playing it. So there's no wrong way. What I tell them is the it's not like I have the right way and you don't, but whatever you do, make sure it's consistent. And and there are things I'll tell them um, like the wrist, when that risk comes up, you know, trying to make an F-chord. I said, No, no, put drop the wrist.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

I do this you gotta build the build the show.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

I do a whole thing with the um one of the things they have.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

I bought one of those things back in the day when I was exercise the fingers. Is that still a thing?

SPEAKER_04 42:52

Grip mass, it is.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Yeah, and they've got it is it still called is it still the same company?

SPEAKER_04 42:56

Grip master, and they've improved it. They good for them. Adjust each individual string you can adjust or a finger, you can adjust it.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

Oh yeah, I just have one with springs like from the 90s.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

I think it has a compass in it too, or something.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

It probably even has like the pressure, like eight pounds on your not eight pounds, but you know, like Schwarzenegger.

SPEAKER_04 43:15

But um they uh they some some of them fight me on the wrist. So I came up with this thing I call a crazy glue. I tell them, you know, do thumb thumbs up is good, hitchhiking is bad. Good, bad, good, bad. I do that.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

Hitchhiking, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

Because if they're holding a guitar like they're hitchhiking, they they're they're this is against the neck, you know.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Oh, is that the difference? Is that what hitchhikers do?

SPEAKER_03 43:37

Yeah, like she's a lot more hitchhiking.

SPEAKER_04 43:38

Like she's never hitchhiking.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

There was a lot more hitchhikers than you dad. Yeah, well, I wasn't hitchhiking.

SPEAKER_04 43:44

No, my dad always said, Don't ever let me hitch hitchhiking. And you never did. We wouldn't consider it, but like it was a bad idea then, it's a horrible idea now. Oh, yeah, let me get around with it.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Well, no, it might have been a really bad idea then too, because bat yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:57

But as bad as it is, I I so This, when you see you're doing this on the, you know, with so you could so what are you supposed to do? I bet you might play wrong. Thumbs up is good, right? Thumbs up. You imagine glue, and then I have to tell the young boys okay. So thumbs up.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 44:11

Yeah, like literally thumbs up. Uh-huh and you're gonna imagine a drop of glue right there. Okay. Don't go glue and I suspect it's oh, because you don't want to get the glue on because then you're stuck. No, yeah. So it's stuck. Now I do this with the adults, I don't make them, but with the kids, I you know, you and you glue that to the back of the guitar neck behind the second fret, and it automatically puts your wrist below the fretboard and your hands are curved. I said, see, that's a good place to start. You know, you can you can monkey with that a little bit, you know, a lot, especially, you know, people with bigger hands and the you know, so I don't but the little kids, just to get them the idea, giving them a little instead of like, well, let me do it the way I want, you know, that's mostly it, you know, like get form some good habits, you know.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

What's one of the like most common bad habits that people have?

SPEAKER_04 45:02

Well, that that, like they'll they'll hold the guitar like a baseball batter, so like they got a death grip on it. But um, other than not practicing, you know, that's the other thing. Uh I'm gonna give you a word about that. They I uh in my day in my day, like Homer Simpson's grandpa too. Come on, grandpa. Uh that was good. Oh, I I do a really good Homer.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Can you give us just one more?

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Uh I'm not directing this towards you. Okay. Okay. You're yoppid. How's that? That's pretty good, right? Okay, I'm out of here. I'm gonna like just danza, and not a good news. I'm a little gringo.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Well, the steps and I'm done.

SPEAKER_04 45:45

Thank you. Uh no, uh, so uh I have students that are so busy, they got like tons of other things going on, like uh uh dance, which is fine. It's good to have you know idle minds, the devil's workshop. I get it. And that might have been what we were like back then, but it's almost like some are so busy that you know I they don't they think going to lessons on a Tuesday night, that's guitar. No, you got to practice at home, and they don't. So I know that's why you're stretching the question or I'm reinterpreting the question, but their worst habit is that they don't have the habit of practicing.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

I know it sounds and that's and that's a lot of times why it's harder for older people to learn something new is because your time is less. Like I know when I started playing guitar, I was a teenager, and I every day was in my room. Right. And that's all I was doing after school, besides probably like, you know, smoking a lot of weed and whatever else you did in high school, you know. But come on, we all went to high school.

SPEAKER_04 46:43

I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

I mean, some of some dropped out, something study home, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:48

Something to make it in weed and study home instead of doing weed. Like a never, never, you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

We usually just try to skip out. But um, but yeah, that was a very important, important part. Like it was literally, and so you know, when you're trying to learn stuff when you get older, it's hard because you don't you can't to have that dedication is is yeah, is hard. So if they're doing it when they're younger, that's that sucks.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

So I I could I learn not to fight, I I could be the teacher, you gotta find time every day for a half hour, you know. Instead, I I find myself, I'm not crazy about it. The the ones that are really want to do it are gonna do it, they're gonna find time without you know, but I they have the burning passion.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

I help they've been blessed with the burning passion of music. God bless. You good luck, you've got it.

SPEAKER_04 47:33

You not so much. But um uh yeah, the there's some I I help. I say, look, in the I say, what time I ask them about their schedule. Well, uh one and one, yeah, I got a couple kids coming. Well, I I was busy this week, I couldn't practice. What were you doing? Well, um, I had to go to school and I had homework and I had to eat and uh sleep, and I'm like, you're not winning me over here. I'm calling crap on that. So so I would tell him, I said, Look, if you're ever finding yourself getting ready for school and you have a like I in my whole high school, you know, I I would be the first one down to the breakfast table eating, you know, because I had seven brothers and sister, and uh uh I was in and out, and uh so I was left sometimes with 10, 15 minutes, and that's where I started, like little increments of time. I said, uh, you get home from school if you're not doing any. Well, I usually play video, have a snack and play video games. Okay, uh you've just lost yeah, somewhere on there, give me yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

So you want to do like your son and you want to that's another right kind of career. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 48:38

Video games, but right I I tell him, uh uh, if you haven't, if you're crawling into bed, I want you to visualize your feet sliding into the sheets and you haven't played in two days. You need to jump out, pick up the guitar. I don't care what you do. You don't even have to do our assignment, but you need to play for two minutes. And they look at me and I think they're not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

But I think I've planted something where you know at least they're thinking about my god, you know, I feel guilty. I gotta go play for two minutes for Jim. Yeah. Right. Do a lot of your students have um I'm I'm assuming they have guitars because they have to practice. Do they do you feel like they feel ever like they need more expensive gear to be better? Or like, oh, I'm gonna get that and it's gonna be better.

SPEAKER_04 49:23

I I have uh one student who is uh in high school and um right from the get-go, I could see he had the disease, the what we call he had gas, gear acquisition syndrome. He would like talk about stuff. Uh I need to get I need to get something he heard. I need to get a gate. I need to get this because I want to play this one song. And I'm like, you know, I said, I don't want to be the guy always bursting your bubble, but you know, you're you're and he's already got a bunch of guitars, and I you know, I said what you need is put the time in to learn the answer. I need this. I and some of them just have that. They want to, it's fun to buy. It's like, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

What's one guitar or piece of gear that you recommend that people do get? Like, what's a good starter?

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Oh, I like that. Um so if you're starting, uh just um I'm gonna I'm gonna answer a question you didn't even ask. But uh sometimes I get asked by parents, like, uh, my son wants to play electric guitar, but we're telling him he needs to start with acoustic, right? And I'm like, well, how old is he? 15. Give him the electric. If he wants to play electric at 15 and you give him an acoustic, you might as well be giving him a clarinet. It's not the same instrument in his mind, yeah. Um, but like uh with a a smaller student, yeah, get him don't don't muddy the waters with uh uh amps and cords and stuff, get them the acoustic. And I I recommend as uh I'm gonna recommend a brand here, but uh uh Yamaha makes everything they make is good from their starter instrument and affordable, right? Yeah, um, and they make some high-end stuff, um keyboards, guitars, whatever, but they have a three-quarter size guitar I absolutely love. It's FG Jr. That's right. Yamaha, I'll be expecting that check. Mail that to 200 Southern Bills. And I expect half of that. So yeah, we'll I'll be giving you up. Both of us are getting bupkies. But uh they uh uh they just make a guitar that as an adult, I've seen adults play these guitars. They're not a kid's guitar, they're a three-quarter size guitar. I stand by that because I've seen adults like with arthritis, you know, play these things. They're more comfortable to hold, they're like a parlor guitar, and they sound great. And 20 years from now, they can still be sounding great, you know. So that's one that I would recommend as a starter. Um, you know, when you get there's all kinds of stuff when you get into electrics, uh, you know, stick them with a name brand that's that's you know.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

I have a Fender Jagsting.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

So I like that guitar. Right. Well, I got it in the late 90s, right after he had passed, they put some out for sale and then they quit selling them. I don't know if they sell them now.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

Um, they quit selling them. Um and so yeah, I'd got one actually half for half the price, and I still have it. But the good thing about that guitar was the neck is small.

SPEAKER_04 52:20

Yes, yeah, I forget what uh oh yeah, because some of those fenders have uh big baseball bat necks, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Yeah, though he combined the body, Mustang, and uh Jaguar Jaguar and made a jag stang because yeah, because he had small hands.

SPEAKER_04 52:36

Fenders were always known for that. They called him Frankenstein, and we we we would take uh like I want to play a telly, but I want to put a strat neck on it. Yeah, and you'd slap a strat neck on it.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Does anybody ever want to try to find their own sound? Like their own, or is it kind of like they're learning and they figure it out?

SPEAKER_04 52:53

No, I a lot of them uh well, like you mean my students, yeah. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, um, most of them are are and I don't mean this in any negative way, but most of them are trying to sound like their favorite artists.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Oh, of course, that's how it starts. You're inspired by them.

SPEAKER_04 53:10

Some of them may even be coming in dressing like Taylor Swift, right? You know, like you know, yeah. Uh that's funny. It's part of being it's part of it.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

It's how it starts.

SPEAKER_04 53:19

Oh yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah. We all, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Um so they're kind of like, yeah, they're they're they're their role models is do their sound. But you know, the thing about that is that's forever. Like, think about yourself and your role models. Like, whatever you learned on and whatever happened, like there's gonna be a piece of you in it, but you will forever have the sound of your generation. Well, maybe, maybe, maybe not everybody. Like me, I will forever, if you give me a guitar and you give me whatever and I and just play something, and uh it it it's gonna sound like 90s grunge rock.

SPEAKER_04 53:55

Right. I got a good Taylor Swift story. Um so when I first got into songwriting, um I was into it a couple of years. I said, Oh, I better register it with AskAp, you know, one of the performance rights thing, which I did. And then one day, one week in the mail, I get five days in a row. I used to I was collecting them until recently. I think I took a finally just took a picture and threw them out. But I get these things from Spotify, this is forum, and it says requests for licensing. Like I flip it over and it lists the writer, Jim Rizak, artist, Taylor Swift. I'm like, and and without because I I'm the kind of person doesn't read or proofread or read something like I jump to jump to conclusions. Yeah, look on Facebook. I did that all the time. Um and I said, Does this mean she wants to record one of my songs? Yeah. And I thought she wanted to record one of my songs, and that that lasted for not even 15 full seconds because I before I realized that can't be it. And um I looked the uh the song was uh I wrote it one of the very first songs I wrote was called Kiss Me Like You Mean It. Because it had the word mean in it, and she wrote a song, You're Mean and a Liar, and you know that's a good character. And I was thinking that cannot be the reason why this is in the computer age, this they couldn't have made this screw up. So I called Spotify. I said, Hey, uh, I think there's been a mistake, and she goes, No, that's that is a legit form. I said, She said, I'd recommend you contact Ascap. So I did that. I could only contact him via uh uh email. So I sent him an email two days later. I said, Listen, I think this is what happened. I think you mistook her song mean because it's in the title, uh, and I have the word mean in my title. Oh my god. Somehow that you got it mixed up. Two days later, I got an email back, basically my own words coming back at me. Uh, what happened was we mistook uh, you know, exactly what I so I shot back and I said, Okay, I'll cancel the uh the order on my new yacht, thinking I was being funny, right? I crickets, they didn't even respond. I was trying to, I said, you know, for a split second of my life, you had me. I thought my ship was coming. You were like, but I got fire every day. Like, like, you know, hey, we need licensing permission on this song.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Like, wouldn't that ridiculous if that even happened?

SPEAKER_04 56:36

Sons of Taylor Swift.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Um, so there's like there's creative people and there's talent and there's technical people, right?

SPEAKER_04 56:48

Yeah. Um I'm none of those.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

I don't even know if I really have a question. But the interesting thing is, like, when I used to play when I was younger, I like to just play. I don't like to play other people's songs. Like, I mean, I learned a bunch of Nirvana songs and some Sublime songs when I was a teenager, but I just like to jam on the chords I know, and I just like to whatever. Um, and there was this one kid that I used to jam with in high school, and he knew all the theory. He was a sick guitar player. He probably still is a sick guitar player, and stuff that I couldn't do because I never even trained myself to do that. But like the thing was, and he'd want to jam, and I'm like, dude, I can't jam with you. But the reason he actually liked jamming with me, because he would say, You, but you're creative. Like, I can't do what you do. You know what I mean? Like, he's like, I can be technical and I can do what theory says, and I can do what is written down, but I can't just play.

SPEAKER_04 57:40

I yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

So then by me just like strumming, because that's what I like to do, then he can start just doing what he does just by my creativeness, you know, which is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_04 57:49

I'm gonna point to people like that. I'm gonna point to something off camera again. This there's a piano over there.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

Yeah. There there is.

SPEAKER_04 57:57

There is it really is piano, a messy, junky piano. No, it's not. Uh three months. Three three three months after I you see the sign on it, music is what feelings are sound like. I yeah. Um that's why your music sucks. So uh my uh three months after I opened the studio, about uh 12 years ago, I guess it was. Um my a friend of mine, Jeannie, uh said, Hey, Jimmy, that's what old friends call me. Uh, I I know someone's giving away a piano. I thought for your studio might be perfect. I said, Yeah, it'd be great to teach, and I can refer to theory. So lugged this in with the help of my two sons and my brother Mike. We lugged it in here. Um uh one day she came in and to check it out after I got it tuned. She goes, Oh, oh, this plays nice. And and uh I said, go ahead, play some little play some uh play some three chord 12 bar blues and I'll just jam. She goes, uh do you have music? I said, No, just just just jam. She goes, She's played since she was a little girl, she's my age. She said, I I don't jam. Now I've always admired her for her reading. She can look at a piece of music and hear it, you know. Oh, ooh, I like this, you know. Yeah. I've seen her do it in the store. She'd come in and look at stuff, and it just amazed me how talented she is. But yet she said, No, I can't do what you do and just riff and jam.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

And like, wow, and it's a crazy because you can teach you can teach the technical and you can teach all that, but you can't teach uh creativity.

SPEAKER_04 59:34

Yeah, it was yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Right? It was kind of like I was gonna say something from that. Like with being a bartender, like you can teach, you can teach all day long how to make the drinks, this, this, that, and that, but you can't teach personality. So, like if you have a horrible personality, that's that's a huge part of the job is personality. So it's almost like the same as I mean, do you feel I don't know, maybe it is the same. Like you, there's people that are technical and there's people that are creative, and and what I don't really necessarily know how to create.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:03

What I admire about the people like me would admire about the technical people is that you know like a lot of discipline and and just sitting down, running the scale, running the scale, you know, went into that. You know, it used to be like, you know, some of the stuff that people like me say about technical people almost sounds like sour grapes, like, oh yeah, but there's no soul and or whatever. You know, I I once heard a guy at an open mic just, you know, and I'm like, and I'm zoning out, like thinking, okay, I'm I'm not really enjoying this. I made the mistake of just suggesting that to someone, not that person. Like I said, yeah, but I'm I'm not getting into it. Oh, just sour grapes, you can't do it. I'm like, okay, that's not really it. I, you know, I just shut up, you know. So but uh they'll probably make for good like studio um musicians. Yes, yeah. And and there are times when you need that. You want to blow stun guitar, you know, just blow them away, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:54

But uh do you feel it's a realistic like with your students and stuff that they can um uh like make a living from playing guitar?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

Um I just had a conversation with a uh she's in her early twenties with one of my students who started taking lessons. And she said she came in here one day, but didn't even take the guitar out and said, I want to talk to you about careers in music. And I was like, uh, I felt like I had to give her answers, but no, I end up being honest. I said, Well, you'll people will say, I said, you can look that stuff up and you can pay for information, and they'll say stuff like, Well, you can be a sessions musician or you can you can uh you can be a concert promoter or someone that uh a sound man. I said, but realistically you have to look at geographically where you are. Are you you know, is there enough business where you are where you can do that? I said, some can be do done virtually, but I do have people. I said, you know, you know, you'll end up uh you know, look at me, I'm teaching. You know, I do I consider myself a songwriter first and foremost, but yet I I pay the bills by teaching, you know. Um and you can, I have another shameless plug. I I was fortunate enough to get a song in a horror movie, um trying to get a second song in another movie is is is tough, you know. Yeah. So you know, I'm not making a living out of that. It got the one deal, but that's doesn't make you a living. That makes that's a one check, you know. So uh you know, uh and that's that's an effort. So I I I you know I I'm very honest. I say it is easier. One time I worked, you know, I was working in a music store. Is that doing what I want to do in music? No, but is that helping my knowledge of gear and and and connections with people?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

Uh, you know, so yeah, I guess it's more or less like what they want out of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Like a lot of these people I talk to on this podcast all have um full-time careers that have nothing to do with music, and then they are doing their music stuff on the side. Where I like went this other direction and make a living from music, and uh I figured it out. It just I mean, it took a long time, but right. I figured it out, and a big part of that was becoming a DJ.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:23

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:24

Like you don't really know, it might not be exactly what you think, like, but as long as if you, you know, the guitar, if you're playing guitar and that's what you want, you want to be in a band. Depends on what you want. Like some people like the reasons they have these side jobs or these careers or these jobs, and then because they don't like let's say because they don't want to be in cover bands, they don't want to, you know, you know, like me as a DJ, I don't play. I I don't have time to um make music uh very often. And and so I'm open format, but I'm basically a cover band as a but a DJ. And it's it's it's it's it's okay because you it's easy money to me. It's easy money, but it's like you're not expressing yourself. So I get it when these bands and these people say to me, you know, no, we have jobs because like we're playing and we're writing and we're creating, and we're only throwing a couple covers in because that's they that's what they want to do. That they don't find satisfaction in just sitting for three or four hours and playing other people's songs, which I get. Right. So it all depends on your direction. Like being in a cover band would uh get you closer, you got to know what you want at the end and trust the process to getting there, pretty much.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:30

And and some of it isn't is making sure you're not you don't you don't give in totally uh you don't give up your dreams totally. Um again, I have a friend who you know same guy, really good songwriter, but he as hard as I work at at getting students, he's getting gigs and and he plays all the you know all through the month, every month, you know, and he's road dogging it, you know, going to you know, and yeah, playing all the all the favorites, but more nights a week, he gets the opportunity to still play his own songs in front of live people, you know, throw and and now people know that and they request it and they say, Hey, can you play that song about your dog? That's how a lot of people will get their own. And I think that's that's what a what a great you know, you're playing music, you know. You're and you know, you can get in your head about it. Well, I'm not playing my own stuff, and so who cares? You're playing music, and then you know, you play a Van Morrison song, and then you go and you play one of yours, you know. It's like it's it's still yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:34

It's it's it's how you have to throw in the songs that people know because it seems like the mass people want songs they know unless there is a collection of people, yeah. That and hopefully with what we were talking about before this podcast, with my all my you know, the idea I had with getting everyone together and yeah, keep growing and and every year and every year, I'm I'm hoping to grow also that that that audience and like uh the people doing shows. Like, you know, we'll see what happens. But if we could get more people, like the the gem that I brought up and where it's located, it's like if they could get more people in that area to care about music, but like I guess I guess like we can only expect so much. Like we're like Jason and I call from Drowning Fish, like with audio engineering, we call it a disease. Like you said disease earlier, and that's why I understood what you meant because it is a disease. Like audio, like you were saying with the gear, gas, but like with audio engineering, it's it's a disease. Like you you get in that room and you're recording and you're mixing, and it's all you're like you're there for hours. You can't even believe it's already been eight hours, and you're like, this is crazy. And I'm still like only at this point of this, and it's a disease because you actually don't want to stop. Right. And then you go home and you're just thinking about that mix and you're thinking about whatever. You're thinking about that piece of gear that you want, you're thinking it's a disease. So I can't expect everyone to have this disease, I guess, in your average day people, but like how do we get the people to, you know, more people to care about that NDC?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

Because there's so many good bands that sometimes don't you feel like it's and I'm not being negative here, but sometimes it's almost like what's the expression, you know, getting, you know, getting blood from a stone or whatever it is, you know, you're squeezing something in, you know. Um uh around here uh in Dover, Delaware, there was this wonderful old theater and had different approaches over the years trying to renovate it, revive it, you know. Um, and it uh there was a couple of people from uh the community that said, you know, God bless you guys for trying, but I don't think, you know, come on, this is Dover. We got the airbase and their influx of new people all the time. And it it, you know, I'm not saying it's hopeless here, but it is it's a challenge. Anyway, some people are less of a challenge.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

It's it's it's because I have this problem that people have is that you could see it. You're like, but I could see this happening. Yes, it makes so much sense, but like, does anybody care as much as you care?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:07

Right. You know, so then you see an event and no one's showing up for it or or lack lackluster, uh until it's a known name, and that's just how people seem to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:19

Um what makes a great guitarist to you?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:24

Ah I there have been licks that I have, you know, felt like I heard that and I'm like, oh my god, what that aren't the most this goes back to our technical thing, that aren't the most technically, you know, uh challenging riff. It's just oh my god, it's like a phrase, like a turn of a phrase, uh words. You know, oh I wish I had said that. Um I don't know if I'm even answering the question, but there's uh the something that makes me like I like something that's catchy. I I'll take that over um something that doesn't have to it might only be a couple of notes as opposed to a blurry of you know you know yeah um that's what they always say less is more, right? Yeah, to me that yeah, like there's you know where you're just hanging on one note, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:17

Yeah. Little feedback. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:20

Bend a hammer on hammer. You did play, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I still can play.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:28

I gotta, I gotta, you know, I'll play again one day.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:32

One one of the things I like to uh I I'll you haven't asked it, but like sometimes because I play and teach, it's kind of fun. Like uh I play a coolest little place right down. You can hit it with a rock from here. Trey Sorele Dolce. It's a it's an ice cream parlor uh mini golf course. And this is the C coming up on the season. Um I was fortunate enough to be probably the first guy to play there on a Friday night. And they're bigger now. It's been there about 15 years under their belt now or something like that. Uh maybe not quite that. And because people talk about support, they took their chance and had people like me play. And people started coming. You know, if you build it, they will come. They start bringing their chairs and listening and facing you, and like it's more more so than any bar I've been in. Maybe not a concert where you play a songwriter thing, but they come and and they listen to you and they clap and they and you interact with them, and then next thing you know, they're doing music on a Saturday and then a Sunday from May until October. And it's like it's it, and that happened because of the support.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

You play like covers and original?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:50

Oh, I I I go there, I play mostly original. Yeah, because it's so yeah. That's good. That's good. I do have fun though with uh I do covers. I'll do like um Seven Nation Army, but done like slow and like Tom White's kind of like, you know, yeah, you put your own uh flavor on it, or whatever. Yeah, but um, but I like that I play somewhere like there, and I can have a student sit in with me and their families there, and it's like you know, they feel like oh my god, I'm you know, yeah. That's kind of fun thing to do because I do both of those things, both play music and teach.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:27

Yeah, that's cool. Do you guys have much of a scene around here? Do you have any little venues or anything?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:31

Um there are so there are, you know, the um there there's a winery down the road, about 10 Harvest Ridge Winery. They support live music and have live music several times a weekend, especially on a night inside and out. Um there uh there you it used to be a bigger band scene around here years. I'm not saying that's gone away or anything, it just doesn't seem there's as many places for full bands to kind of uh really kick kick it here. Um there's uh down the road a piece is a really great listening room. Uh it's called the listening booth. They big supporters of uh live original music. Um that's fun. Uh they've been around for a while, but there's um uh the Dover Public Library has uh once a month has some kind of uh live music. Um but yeah, there are places that uh the parks and rec place like downtown Dover, Killen's Pond, stuff like that. They're you know, they're doing all kinds of stuff like that, you know, especially with the weather, it's about to break. Yeah, it's about to be the season. You'll see more of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:47

Season of the festivals.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:48

If um are you taking on more students? Yeah, yeah. Always so how so where how do people find you if that's a thing they want if they want lessons? Because you don't you do them virtually too, yeah, yeah. I do because I know I won podcast guest last season, she was talking about guitar lessons. So maybe that could happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:07

Yeah, I I definitely do virtually. JimRezak.com is my website. And then everything can probably be found there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:13

Do you have anything else you would like to talk about or share or or plug or anything?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:19

Um, well, uh you mentioned plug. The uh the website has my uh upcoming shows, and I am gonna be playing some of those aforementioned, I love that word, aforementioned uh like Killen's Pond, Dover, downtown Dover. I'll be playing there again. Um just found out that um uh don't have the date yet, but I'll probably be playing at the Freeman Arts Pavilion about an hour and 20 minutes down the road. Um, that's a really neat place. Um be I'll be playing Harvest Ridge Winery quite a bit and the um uh uh Treserelli here in wonderful Wyoming. My dad used to say, Don't blink or you miss it when when the family was driving through Wyoming, Delaware. I always I always tell people if uh this is a kind of place where if someone told you Norman Rockwell was born here, you'd believe it because that that's exactly the kind of town, you know. You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

I don't know who's Norman Rockwell. I'm horrible names, movies, TVs, artists, everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:23

Look at my artist. He did like um it was Saturday evening post. He'd always did the covers, and there was like a policeman sitting, speaking of ice cream stands, a policeman, big policeman sitting there was a kid with a obviously had a hobo stick, you know. He was running away from home, and a cop was buying him ice cream. It's like kind of tear-jerking slice of Americana. Oh boy, I gotta teach her everything. I know, yeah, morrible. Yeah, no. I only know a couple things. You'll recognize it, you'll see it. But Norman Rockwell wrote uh did illustrate he was an illustrator. Okay. Uh and he did scenes from America, real American life, like like little old white. Okay. So you're playing music outside here in Wyoming, Delaware, right next to the train tracks, across the train tracks is someone's uh railing on their house that has the the flag, you know, the the little flag circles going on. There's um, you know, I don't know. It's just it's it's a really neat, neat place. I can't say enough about this neat little place. And the fabulous ice house that we're in right now. This a hundred years ago, this used to be well, more less than that, but this was built about a hundred years ago, and it's an old ice house. This building? Yeah, and they used to store like Pfeiffer orchards would store their fruits, their apples and pears. I mean, uh their um peaches here, and trains would come and load up and take them to the Boston Red Sox used to uh got in an accident here about 95 years ago. Uh uh the the train derailed with the Boston Red Sox on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:01

Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I wasn't here then. That's crazy. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:06

Well, I'm gonna have to wrap this up soon because I'm about to hit all this traffic and I have a gig. Um, so the last question of this podcast, I don't know if you know what it is. No, you don't. So this is what it is. How is music your hero?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:19

Oh, oh yes, I oh my gosh, I should know because I've you end all your podcast with that. Um, so music is I'm actually ready for this. Um music is my hero because even though it was later in life, music is what gave me my passion. Um, and like I said, about 15 years ago, there I was already in my 50s, and um uh I found my passion, and which if it wasn't for music, I would have gone at I wouldn't have found that.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:51

Yeah, and uh it's my hero because every day I get up I'm doing exactly you know, the I know that's tired, and we we've said it and you hear it all over the place. Do what you love, and the rest will follow, and stuff like that. It's all true. Yeah, I'm doing, you know, I got a guitar in my hand. When I'm not, I'm sitting making music in my little hole in the wall studio.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:13

Yeah, that is something that like what you just said was my mom always taught me from a young age. Um, and like this past six months, I've been having a crisis of what I'm doing with my life, even though it's fine. But she she was a huge person. Just do what you love and make sure you're happy. So she always supported me with any decision that I made that had to do with music and this and that. You know, some parents, you know, aren't supportive because they're like there's no money, which is kind of true. It's not like you're gonna be unless you make it big. You're not rolling in the dough. Right. Like, you know, I'm not making six digits. This isn't happening. You might find an outlet that that that does happen, but I'm learning now because there's a lot of people my age that are making way more money than I'm making.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:51

But like they're not, they might be doing what they love, but they might not necessarily be doing what they love. And at least that's what I have. I I I wake up every day and you know it's frustrating. I mean, I'm really busy, so sometimes it drives me crazy. And like, but that just means I need a vacation.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:09

But there they yeah, yeah, uh, I know I know what you mean because there's like when you um there are people that be maybe because of all that they make, they are happy because after work or while they're on vacation, I get to go here, here, here. But I guess, and I'm not saying comparing like as I've got the better situation, but those nine to five hours, I'm still doing exactly what I want. It's not like okay, I'm doing this as a trade-off. I'm gonna go work the office and you know sit behind the computer, but but I'm making a lot of money, so it makes I I feel like every day I'm doing exactly what I want all day long. Yeah, it's that's unreal. So it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:52

Music is definitely my hero because some people don't even have any music in them, so they that's why we people like us exist, you know, to entertain them when they do have off and things like that, which which it's a whole nother life being an entertainer.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:03

Yeah, yeah. So all right. And and thank you very much. Thank you for thank you for taking the time bringing me to your little if this is the first, if this is the first time you've listened to this, you know, any of the people that I'm gonna forward, please uh watch all the other episodes. Uh this is uh this is great. Thank you so much for doing what you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:23

Yeah, of course. Thank you for doing what you do and keeping the music alive and keeping real instruments alive and real players alive.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:38

Keep committing, keep connecting, keep the link together, remember, together, but keep each other job, keep