SixStringLounge

9/5 - San Angelo, TX photo feed

Mark Lee — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:48:46 +0000

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Jemsite Interview

Mark Lee — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:06:25 +0000

(Yesterday I was featured as part of Jemsite’s Guitar Heroes series. Jemsite is a way cool guitar community - definitely worth checking out…)

Here’s an excerpt:

How did you start playing the guitar?

I played violin from when I was six up until the beginning of high school. My dad surprised me and got me a guitar for my 15th birthday, and the rest is history

Who are your musical influences?

Being from Georgia, the southern rock thing is kind of in the water here. Bands like The Black Crowes, R.E.M. and drivin n cryin were big influences when we first started out. As a guitarist I’ve always gravitated to guys like Mike Campbell and Peter Buck who come up with simple yet extremely memorable parts. Lately I’ve also been into guys like Steve Morse and Jimmy Herring who come out of that southern rock tradition but really take playing and their musicianship to another level.

(Check out the full interview HERE)If you enjoyed this post you might like these:

How I practice

Mark Lee — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:20:48 +0000

Reading the comments about practicing this week has been quite interesting for me. Mainly because I lived out what a lot of you are saying. For years. Not long after I got a band going, I let true practice fall by the wayside. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t playing my guitar. It’s just that I wasn’t practicing.

I was writing, which is a good thing, and probably neglected by many guitar players.

I was rehearsing a lot, working on parts, etc.

I was recording. (You end up playing guitar a LOT when recording, probably more than at any other time.)

I was performing. (Sorry to leave behind the alliterative ‘R’ theme here!)

And when I wasn’t doing any of the above, I would play at home to “keep my chops up”. This consisted of a whole lot of mindless noodling while watching TV, making sure I wouldn’t be rusty the next time we had a show.

You can probably figure out where I’m going. While all of the above are important things, none of them are true practicing. And while I have definitely improved over the last decade or so, much of that improvement has been incidental. My timing has gotten better, my tone has gotten better, etc. just from the result of playing in a lot of different situations But how much more improvement would I have seen had I truly practiced?

A while back I saw Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian. It is a must watch for anyone in a creative profession. Seinfeld talked about an “aha” moment he had while watching some construction workers out his office window. Those guys show up to work every day. Seinfeld took that as a challenge for him to do the same with writing material: show up and work every day. That image was very powerful for me, and I’ve tried to apply it to both songwriting and practicing my guitar.

(I also read a great book called Mastery. I’ll save that for another post!)

So for the last year or so, I’ve been really practicing. What follows is a general rundown of how I practice. While it’s by no means the only way to go about it, hopefully it will make sense enough for you to use it! (Bear in mind also that I travel a lot and I have young kids. If you’re in a different situation, you might be able to go all Steve Vai on everybody and practice 12 hours a day. Good luck with that…)

1) I leave a couple of guitars laying around the house in places where I will almost literally trip over them. For me this is the opposite of ?out of site, out of mind”. This way, practicing is incorporated into my everyday routine.

2) Instead of practicing for one long session, I practice multiple times a day in short ten to twenty minute increments. There are plusses and minuses to this approach. I do lose the advantages of longer periods of concentration, and I have to warm up for a couple of minutes each time. But by practicing in shorter bursts, my total practice time is increased, I don’t get burned out, and I don’t drive my family crazy!

3) I am blessed to have a wife who can tune out my noodling, so my main time to practice scales and other more mundane exercises is in front of the TV.

4) Whether I’m home or on the road, I try to have at least an hour of true practice a day, in addition to any time spent writing, performing, etc.

5) WHAT to practice is just as important as how and when to practice! Since I’ve run on so long here, I’m going to dedicate another post to what I’m working on at the moment.If you enjoyed this post you might like these:

Practice makes perfect week

Mark Lee — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:41:26 +0000

Wow, it looks like it’s become practice week around these parts! My post on not practicing got an overwhelming response. Then I realized that a guest post I did on Brock Gill’s blog, also partly about practicing, got posted to his blog a couple of days ago.

I’m going to put together a post for tomorrow about “how I practice”. In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts on practice. One cool thing about this blog is that there’s a good mix of brand new guitarists along with some who have been playing guitar for a long time. This post would be a good way for the veterans to share their thoughts with the newbies.

So use the comments section below in one of two ways. If you are a NEW GUITARIST, ask a question about practicing, and we’ll try to answer it. If you’ve been playing for a while, share your general thoughts about practicing.

To get us started, I’m going to quote Mike Mahoney, who had this great commentary to my post on Monday:

I would also stress the difference between “practicing” and “rehearsing.” Especially for church musicians, who think the weekly rehearsal is enough “practice.”

You will rarely develop new skills by rehearsing. Practicing is where you get to explore new frontiers of voicings, techniques and styles.

Great thoughts, Mike!

The phone lines are now open…If you enjoyed this post you might like these:

The absolute worst thing you can do

Mark Lee — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:07:24 +0000

When practicing guitar, most people develop some bad habits. They only play the songs they already know. They avoid anything that will stretch themselves. They get themselves in deep and seemingly insurmountable ruts. But there is one thing you can do that will be absolutely detrimental to your development as a guitar player.

Don’t practice at all.

This message is very pertinent for me today, not as a guitar player, but as a blogger. As much as I roll my eyes at poor recycled copycat blogs, at least they are posting something on a regular basis. While I totally understand that bloggers have lives, there are few things that frustrate me more as a blog reader than stagnant blogs that remain without update. And as a blogger myself, the most annoying post I ever have to write is the “I’m sorry I haven’t posted” post. I guess this post falls under that category…

So there are two things to take away from this post. One: practice your guitar. Even if you’re really busy and can only pick it up for five minutes. Because a funny thing happens. You don’t play it one day. One day turns to a week. A week turns into a month. You decide to put your guitar under the bed or in the closet, just for a couple of days while your relatives are in town. Next thing you know, it’s been YEARS and you’re kicking yourself because you never learned to play the guitar.

DON’T let that happen! Get out your guitar and practice today.

Takeaway number two: I probably bit off a little more than I could chew on this blog, starting not one but two “series”. I am a professional guitar player, yes, but professional blogger I am not. So I’m going to hit the reset button and get this thing going again. How can I encourage you to practice on a regular basis if I’m not updating this blog on a regular basis?

So let’s make a deal. You be a guitar player and I’ll be a blogger. And let’s see where this thing winds up.If you enjoyed this post you might like these:

Lessons from the Road

Mark Lee — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:43:20 +0000

For this blog post, I’m going to borrow the title of the book we did with Nigel, our tour pastor. It fits perfectly with what I’m talking about today. One thing I hope to do with this blog is share with you some of the perspective I’ve gained from doing this professionally for a long time. I’ve got a couple of thoughts about it for now. Maybe I’ll add some more tips later on…

1) ALWAYS keep it going, no matter what happens - This is probably the first thing to learn when doing live shows. First of all, REMAIN CALM. More often than not, the audience has no idea that anything is wrong until you act like something’s wrong. So just keep performing and keep it going. If your tuning’s atrocious, find a natural stopping point to fix it. Don’t stop the show to tune. If your having problems with your rig, be ready with a backup plan that you can act on during ONE VERSE of a song. Have a backup guitar. Have a backup amp. If you’re running a wireless, have a backup cable handy. If something’s not happening with your pedalboard, be ready to plug directly into your amp. Trust me - you WILL need a backup plan.

How can I speak this so confidently? A couple of weeks ago, we were playing the Dove Awards in Nashville. It’s kind of like gospel music’s version of the Grammys. It was live TV, and I only got about 30 seconds to make sure my rig worked. It worked fine. But then, for some reason, we start the song, and my guitar’s not there. It felt like a disaster, but in reality it wasn’t that bad. I had a backup cable, and plugged directly into my amp. Like I said above, I missed about one verse of the song. When I did come in, it didn’t sound great, but at least you could hear SOMETHING. Crisis averted.

Look for part two, in which I talk about taking risks, to materialize very soon!

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Christian Guitarists on Twitter

Mark Lee — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:24:35 +0000

I am putting together a “directory” of sorts featuring CCM guitarists. I’ve had to make a few judgement calls on this. One - I’m defining “Christian” or “CCM” from my perspective. Basically, if they’ve ever toured with Third Day, or could potentially ever tour with us, I’m counting them! And I’m defining “guitarist”, at least to start with, as someone who just plays guitar in the band. No singer/songwriters or singers who play a little guitar. And I’m sticking with “signed” artists to start with.

Those are my criteria to start, but it could change as I put this together!

Here’s the list. I realize it’s ridiculously incomplete - definitely a work in progress! Feel free to suggest others in the comments below…

@sixstringlounge - That would be the Twitter feed for this site.

@marklee3d - This is my main, “official” personal Twitter account. Hey it’s my Twitter directory. I can put myself first if I want

@tylerlhall - Tyler Hall plays guitar for Revive. They are currently on tour with us.

@modmark - Matt Odmark from Jars of Clay

@stephendmason - Steve Mason from Jars of Clay

@peteprevost - Pete plays guitar for Sanctus Real.

@chrisrohman - Chris also plays guitar for Sanctus Real

@shawnrlewis - Hyperstatic Union / Glory Revealed

@6stringhero - Casting Crowns guitarist Juan DeVivo

@seetoe5 - Casting Crowns guitarist Hector Cervantes

@lincolnbrewster - Lincoln Brewster

@trevmorgan - Trevor Morgan has played with Ginny Owens, Natalie Grant, and Glory Revealed

@mikescheuchzer - guitarist for MercyMe

@barrygraul - guitarist for MercyMe

@tfknick - Nick Baumhardt from Thousand Foot Crutch

@tfktrevor - Trevor McNevan from Thousand Foot Crutch

@randywilliams - Randy plays for Jeremy Camp. Also former Big Tent Revival guitarist.

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Links for Friday 4/10

Mark Lee — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:39:10 +0000

Thanks for all your feedback about guitar blogs, sites, etc. While I work on assembling some semblance of a blogroll, here’s a compilation of your sites, from here and also Twitter. And feel free to add to the list in the comments below…

Steve Vai Tour Blog

Guitargeek.com

Guitarplayerscenter.com

Dumont’s Guitars (Tom Dumont of No Doubt)

Zager Guitar

The Pedal Pimp

Guitar Lifestyle

Guitar Teacher’s Lesson Notebook

Russell Guitars

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Suggestion box, mach 2

Mark Lee — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:30:29 +0000

Well, I am on vacation this week. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that I have no internet connection! So I’m having to improvise with my blog posts here.

Normally on Thursdays, I try to “talk shop”. Posts are centered around gear, etc. Since I’m not really able to do that today, I’m going to turn it over to you…

What would you like to see me post about on the Six String Lounge? Use the comments section below to let me know!

And yes, I am in the middle of two “series”, one about Guitar for the Absolute Beginner and another about stompboxes. Look for those to kick back up this weekend.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from marklee’s posterous

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Know any good guitar blogs?

Mark Lee — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:50:59 +0000

As you can see in the sidebar to your right, I’m in the process of getting a good blogroll going. I’ve got a few blogs on there that I really like, but I’d love to find some more.

That’s where you come in. Use the comments section below to post the link to a guitar blog that you really like. If it’s your blog, that’s totally OK!

There are two kinds of blogs I’m looking for. Blogs about guitar are definitely the primary focus. But also I’m looking for guitarists who blog. To fit into this second category, it needs to either be a pretty major guitarist, like Jeff Beck or somebody (how cool would that be if Jeff Beck had a blog?) OR one of my colleagues in the CCM genre.

Let me know - I need your help…

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