Monday, October 3, 2011

October 5 convergence

Wahkiakum Acoustic Guitar Society will converge this Wednesday, Oct. 5, 7 p.m., at the Skamokawa Grange.

Monday, September 5, 2011

At the Grange

It's all happening at the Grange.

Well, WAGS will convene at the Skamokawa Grange on Wed., Sept. 7, 7 p.m.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

WAGS 8/31 and 9/7

WOW! a lot of music this month. WAGS will meet Aug. 31 at 7 at the Pioneer Church and Sept. 7 at the Skamokawa Grange, also 7 p.m. Looking forward to seeing you all again. August was a busy month for everyone, with vacations, family reunions and other things going on plus WAGS did 3 gigs.

--Jerry Ledtke

Monday, August 22, 2011

Good news, bad news

For those who like flamenco and classical guitar, check out the website of Guitar Society International. Lots of great stuff, including videos of good players such as Tonino Baliardo of the Gypsy Kings trying out their guitars.

They also posted the news of the death of Moraito Chico, a contemporary flamenco guitar master.

Copy and paste the links:

http://guitarsalon.com/blog/?p=2335
http://guitarsalon.com/blog/?p=2339

WAGS on Wednesday

Wahkiakum Acoustic Guitar Society will converge August 31, 7 p.m., at the Pioneer Community Center in Cathlamet.

Monday, May 23, 2011

WAGS on Wednesday

Wahkiakum Acoustic Guitar Society will converge Wednesday, May 25, 7 p.m., at the Pioneer Community Center, Cathlamet.

Costich posts songs

WAGS singer/songwriter Dale Costich has created a YouTube account and posted some of his material. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PL505CA8CB82C19F3B

Monday, March 21, 2011

WAGS jam on March 16

It was a gas. We had keyboard, bass, banjo, and 5 guitars. The difference between a jam and what we do at our regular WAGS is that at a jam the emphasis is on everyone playing together. At a jam you don't do complicated songs or ones with too many verses. Like someone said, if you find yourself playing alone, stop, you're not jamming. It's really neat having a bass to hold it all together. We did a couple of 10 minute songs. We asked Eric Parrill to do a couple of banjo songs alone; nobody could keep up with him anyway, and he put on quite a show and jammed on every thing else we did.

Regular WAGS at the Pioneer Church on March 30, 7-9. On the 6th of April, our next WAGS date, we are planning a pot luck at 6 and jam till 9 at Pat Conrad's. Will let you know more about that later, like what what to bring for food so we all don't bring the same thing. I think we will be jamming at least once a week and I will let you know in case any of you want to come.

I'm forwarding info about concert at Pioneer church. (Andrew Emlen and friends doing a concert of Bach, Hayden and Debussy at the Pioneer Church, March 26, 7:30 p.m.; tickets $10 at the door)

Reported by Jerry Ledtke

Friday, February 25, 2011

Willapa Hills presents

Four members of WAGS are part of the six-person band Willapa Hills. They just performed a concert with music from their latest CD, and they have another scheduled. It will be a fundraiser for the St. James Family Center on Sunday, March 13, at 2:30 at St. James Church. Follow the link to hear some soundclips from the CD. The CD's theme is music from the Columbia Pacific region; they've written much of it themselves.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/willapahills

Thursday, February 24, 2011

March 2 at Twin Gables

WAGS convened 2/23 at the Pioneer Community Center with the core group in attendance. The stories were as good as the songs.

The next session will be chez Kathleen Morgain, Twin Gables Bed and Breakfast, Skamokawa. The Sk. Grange is still having heating issues. That's March 2, 7 p.m.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Report on International Guitar Night

by Rick Nelson

My wife and I attended the International Guitar Night Feb. 5 at the Columbia Theater in Longview. It was a fabulous show featuring guitarists from the US, Europe and South America. I've included a link to their website at the end of this post.

Ticket holders were invited to an afternoon workshop with the four players. They each spoke about their art and offered insights. Here are some of the points that I remember:

A. Brian Gore, San Francisco, tour organizer: Brian spoke about the three aspects of the art. Two points I remember are: 1. Melody--always try to have an interesting melody around which you build your songs. 2. Practice/learn--If you want to incorporate something from some song or if you want to compose something that's different, then break it down to a slow pace and find the best way to play it, and then practice over and over to master it. That's good advice we've all heard before. 3. He also demonstrated use of the spider capo that can capo single strings and hinge on and off of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q2xLWIFsrg&feature=related

B. Pino Forestiere, Rome, Italy: Initially trained as a classical guitarist, Pino wanted to explore new sounds on the acoustic guitar and has evolved his art from there. He said he makes tunings to fit the sounds he wants to create. He is a tapper. All those tapping songs you saw in the move August Rush, he does them, and more, like harmonics. He says to keep the nails short to do the tapping.
(Link to video)

C. Alexandre Gismonti, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: The son of a famous composer/conductor, he studied classical guitar and plays a classical and modern Brazilian music (a whole world foreign to us). He had a nice Arias guitar. Event organizers had invited workshop participants to bring their guitars, so I showed him my old beater. He really liked it and played a beautiful bossa nova on it, a thrill for a fan! What I remember from him was his recommendation for melody: Incorporate extended chords--those using 9ths, 11ths and 13ths--and use those notes for the basis of your melodies.


D. Clive Carroll, London, England: His style zipped all over the place--Celtic, classical, blues, rock and Gypsy jazz. He also told lots of stories--he would fit right in with the WAGSters. He invited a young player to demonstrate a song and showed him how to add more chords to the music by finding the chord corresponding to the note in the scale of the key in which he was playing. He also showed how to develop speed in picking scales: Start picking four times for each note up and down the scale, then three times, then two times, then one time for each note. He was blistering fast. I would have enjoyed visiting with him for hours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Jy9L8KXMk

International Guitar Night: http://internationalguitarnight.squarespace.com/
On YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=International+Guitar+Night&aq=f

February events

WAGS has lots of events this month. Here's a list from Communications Master Jerry:

Feb. 12, Valentine Day Dinner fund raiser,6-9 p.m. If you are going to the dinner and play guitar and would like to play some music after the dinner, bring it. Contact Becky Ledtke for tickets or Bank of the Pacific.

Feb 18 WAGS will play at Zojos coffee house in Longview 5 to 8. If you need more info contact Rick Nelson or myself.

Feb 19 Willapa Hills will do a concert at the Pioneer Church, 7:30 p.m., in Cathlamet. Tickets at the Bank of the Pacific, and kudos to the Bank of the Pacific, they really support this community.

Feb 23. WAGS will converge at the pioneer Church in Cathlamet at 7 p.m.