Had an interesting conversation today at lunch with Jacob G., one of the RGNC business advisors. Aside from all of the talk about the various and sundry irons we currently have in the proverbial fire here at RGNC, there was also some fun stuff. One of the folks at our table mentioned some concern about mad cow disease, and said that he preferred to eat deer meat instead. At least he did until Jacob gave him the run-down on a little known yet equally terrifying epidemic sweeping the venison industry; "Frustrated Deer" disease. Jacob said that it is like mad cow disease, except that the deer are too gentle to ever actually get mad, so instead they just tend to become very frustrated.

Anyone else see any snow yet today? I'm looking at it right now outside the window. I used to work as a chair lift operator at a ski mountain in New Mexico, and everytime it started to snow, one of my fellow lifters would smile and say, "ah, job security". When I was at the top of the hill there, I could sit down at "work" in my "office" and see 50 miles across the high desert mesa up into the Sangre de Cristo range behind Santa Fe.

I'm currently working on new material for the next recording session, and I'm focusing on the guitar part in my usual manner, which I will briefly expound upon for you. When it comes to guitar playing in general and flatpicking in particular, you have probably heard about the "3 T's", meaning tone, timing and taste. Well, I subscribe the theory of the importance of the "3 T's", as you have probably heard me say. However, in addition to the 3 T's, I also have my own standards, and they are called the "3 S's". That stands for slower, softer and spacious. What does that mean? Well, it is my firm belief that the vast majority of flatpicked guitar music is played way, way too fast for the beauty of the music to be heard, and that too many players are overly concerned with out-shouting the b---jo, and they have very little subtlety or nuance to work with. Because everything is so darned fast and loud, you rarely ever get to hear and enjoy the tone of the instrument. So, the music I'm working on will hopefully allow the melody to stand on it's own, especially in some traditional pieces that have become stereotypically "fast tunes", and there will be enough space in the playing to allow the beauty of the instrument's tone to be heard. I think that sometimes, as guitar players, we need to remember that these tunes have been around a long time before we started to play them, and that maybe they don't need all of the "help" we try to give them. They can stand on their own.

be good.