The Guitar Summit is coming: why it’s important to a songwriter.

In one of my recent articles I pointed out that if you create music you are a musician. By extension of the same idea, if you create music on the guitar you are a guitarist. And so this article should be of interest to you, regardless of your skill level or years of experience.
I am coordinating a two-day guitar festival called the TSU Guitar Summit at Tennessee State University, where I teach guitar in the commercial music program, on the weekend of July 18 and 19. I’ve invited four other prominent instructors to join me in offering a variety of classes and workshops on a wide range of topics. It’s going to be a packed weekend about all things guitar and I hope it will be a source of inspiration and motivation for all in attendance. The program will have certain set courses but is designed to be flexible enough to adapt to the skill levels of the students. Best of all, because TSU is a public institution the tuition is very affordable - just $100 for the full weekend. Plus, after our expenses have been met all the rest of the income generated will go back to the University through the TSU Foundation, a 501(3) non-profit, helping to support public higher education in these days of belt-tightening and budget cuts.
Now, most songwriters rightly view the guitar as a tool, the vehicle we use to arrive at the song. Many of you probably don’t see the guitar playing as an end it itself. What possible benefit would an aspiring top-40 songwriter get out of a class on, say, solo jazz guitar arranging?
The answer is, more than you might think. I’ve chosen the most far-flung example to illustrate my point, but if we agree that increasing your musical knowledge is good for your writing then you may already see where I’m headed. In today’s musical world, where country songs incorporate 80’s rock guitar riffs and hip-hop songs might sample Miles Davis, “style” is becoming less and less relevant to creative people. We hear all the time these days about how the music business is changing, and the music is changing with it. New artists are creating new sounds and as songwriters it’s in our best interest to keep up.
Every new development in music has come from elements of existing styles combining in a new way: mountain music combined with gospel to create country, early rock & roll combined elements of country and blues among other styles, and every iconic artist that followed those early pioneers brought something new to the mix. As creative people, it’s an asset to understand this process…and more importantly, we can participate.
So back to the guitar and guitar classes. Taking a 90-minute workshop on blues styles might give you a window into how to bring more mud and grit into your songs. A country hotlicks class would give you a better sense of what those guys (and girls) on the other side of the studio glass are doing with your song, and maybe even help you come up with a signature riff - whether you can play it up to speed or not. And yes, the solo guitar arranging class could show you how the chords you know as static “box” forms can be split apart, broken down, and re-formed in a myriad of ways to create a world of new sounds.
In a nutshell, you don’t need to have a familiarity with these styles to learn something useful. You may not even have a specific interest in learning to play that style….but you probably do have an interest in learning how to inject new sounds and new ideas into your writing. If the guitar is your chosen vehicle then this event or one like it is an opportunity to open your ears and mind and spend a weekend absorbing new possibilities.
In addition to myself, the instructors at the Guitar Summit will be Gary Talley (well known to the writing community in Nashville as a founding member of the Box Tops and as an ace session musician, sideman, and of course songwriter), former Guitar Player Magazine senior editor Andy Ellis (now host of the soon-to-be syndicated radio program The Guitar Show), Mark Robinson (veteran blues and Americana sideman and a fine writer as well) and jazz chord-melody master Kent Gunderson. If you’d like to know more about the TSU Guitar Summit click this link: http://www.daveisaacs.com/teaching/TSUGuitarSummit.pdf
You can also email me directly with questions or for registration info at disaacs@tnstate.edu.
And even if you can’t make this event, keep an open mind and look for others. Don’t be intimidated by the guitar heads. With all due respect to players everywhere, there are those out there who have it backwards….guitar first, music second….as as creative people you already know that the tools serve the larger goal. So get pickin’!