This is the biggest update of the year so far.  Maybe the biggest one to happen all year!

Gibson.com posted my latest in depth jazz lesson:

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Lessons/InstrumentLessons/Jazz-Guitar-Chord-Style-621/

It’s an 11 minute-plus mini course on chord melody!

Next week is the Summer NAMM show.  I am looking forward to it!  I’ll be trying to catch up with current contacts, make new ones and pass out CDs.  This one:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel8

My CD release this year!  As promised a long time ago, volume one of my solo jazz guitar standards collection.  I will get more into the specifics of this disc in future updates.  For now I am just excited to say it is officially released!

Happy viewing & listening!

Christopher Schlegel

In 1993 I purchased my first PC with a music MIDI sequencing program; an Atari 1040STE and Cubase.  I used it primarily to write my original orchestral music.  I also used it to make backing tacks for various studios; small home project studios, singer-songwriters, and even medium-sized professional studios.

But I also immediately used it to make backing tracks for guitar students.  Using a metronome is an absolutely essential tool in developing music skill.  But many students found it very boring.  A great solution was to provide a consistent, objective time keeping reference in the form of backing tracks.

It was and remains a great tool that encouraged, rather than discouraged music students to practice.

With that in mind I recently put another product up on my CDBaby CD page.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel7

The idea was to take the most popular of my hundreds of backing tracks and make them available for purchase. 

From the CD description page:

“This CD has 24 professional studio backing tracks of bass guitar and drums playing a sequence of 12 bar blues in all 12 musical keys at two different tempos; slow at 80 BPM and fast at 120 BPM.  Perfect for instrumental practicing rhythm, lead soloing, playing along with and over I-IV-V chord changes in all 12 keys.  Perfect for music student lessons, rehearsal, and project studio use.”

If you are a guitar student or teacher, check it out!