LGM EP5: Paco Pena, Bill Kanengiser and news!

00:00:00
Hi, welcome back to the channel. In this episode, Latin Guitar Mastery Podcast Episode 5, I’m going to be covering topics around Paco Pena, his visit to Australia and my interview with him. Also, some collaborations that I’ve been doing with guitarists online. We’ll also talk a little bit about updates to the blog, my website, Latin Guitar Masters, LGM members and more. And finally, just answering some subscription questions. So let’s get stuck in. So my big news is that I’m going to be going to Adelaide in September. So if you’re an Adelaide person, come along 12th to 15th at the Festival Centre mainly. And I’m going to be there to hold a couple of guitar talks. And also I’ll be interviewing Paco Pena, the great flamenco guitarist live in a public talk.

00:00:55
So I’m doing some research now and also putting it out to the audience. What would you ask Paco Pena if you had a chat with him? Maybe you have had a chat with him in the past. Have you had a connection with him already? And I’m keen to ask my audience if you’ve got any questions for him. I won’t be able to play that episode on my channel, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to point you to where the podcast is. So if you’re in Adelaide, come along. I’ll also be MC’ing the Guitar Festival competition on the Sunday and holding guitar talks about careers, guitar careers online. I was really pleased to get a message from Ilona Skorowska, who’s a Polish guitarist doing pretty amazing things online at the moment, gaining a pretty large audience doing performances.

00:01:50
And she decided to record one of my arrangements. And she said, you know, this is my arrangement of Historia de un Amor. Well, my arrangement of Historia de un Amor. And it was just really pleasing to see my music getting out there. In this case, it’s not my piece, but my arrangement. And she did a great job with it. And by all means, if you’re thinking about recording, you may already have done that. Go ahead and tag me or let me know, and I might be able to promote it on my channel. I do have Ilona as featured guitarist on the cover of the blog. So, you know, it’s something that I can do to help promote that. As well, Irina Kulikova, another guitarist who’s a Russian guitarist, is also going to be recording some of my music in an upcoming CD.

00:02:31
So I’ll keep you posted on that because that was actually really exciting for her to reach out to me. And we worked together on helping her to have some repertoire for me to record. So this will be fantastic news to share. Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to LGM sponsors and LGM students. So this is the membership part of the YouTube channel. So becoming an LGM student gives you the ability to download a monthly arrangement or sheet music composition by me. That is available now. So if you’re an LGM student, go ahead and you can download. You’ll find the link in the community section. You’ll find the code. And just thanks very much for your support; also LGM members on the blog – you might notice if you go to the blog that I have a new area, which is called Arrangements.

00:03:29
So now I’m splitting up my compositions, which is in the sheet music shop. And the arrangements are actually in a separate page that you purchase as a course. And that includes having the sound slice play along, interactive sheet music, and also a sheet music download as part of that course. So you can go and check it out at latinguitarmastery.com. You might notice if you go to the blog that I have a new area called Arrangements. So now I’m splitting up my compositions, which is in the sheet music shop. And the arrangements are actually in a separate page that you purchase as a course. And that includes having the sound slice play along, interactive sheet music, and also a sheet music download as part of that course. So you can go and check it out at latinguitarmastery.com.

00:04:17
You might notice if you go to the blog that I have a new area, which is called Arrangements. So now I’m splitting up my compositions, which is in the sheet music shop. And the arrangements are actually in a separate page that you purchase as a course. And that includes having the sound slice play along, interactive sheet music, and also a sheet music download as part of that course. So you can go and check it out at latinguitarmastery.com. Now I’m just going to answer a couple of viewer questions, which I’ve had over the last month or so. So the first one is from Musiclaser questi.com, @Life224 mentioned that he liked my flamenco guitar from Seville, which is the Alvarez Bernal flamenco guitar that I’ve still got, and it’s going great.

00:05:04
I’m also using the flamenco guitar the Felipe Conde. So I’ve got a Conde, which is a spruce negra, and I’ve also got an Alvarez Bernal, which is the cedar negra. So I’ve got these two quite different Spanish instruments, but I really do love the Cataway Conde at the moment. It’s a really easy to play stiff neck, but I really do use both of them. So by all means, go to Seville and say g’day to Alvarez for me. Hope to get back there soon at some point. Then Otus3795 asked me, what recording equipment do you use? I’ve got only an SM57 and a Focusrite interface. The guitar always sounds dull. Okay. So, this is a difficult question to answer because recording techniques and the whole sort of engineering, sound engineering side of things is quite a large area and I tend to just do what I feel comes out the best.

00:06:07
It’s not good enough to put it on streaming. So, the last album I did, I did go into a studio and spent I think four sessions there and it’s studio time, it’s costly but they have great mics. I don’t love going to the studio. I find it a bit stressful. I never really feel like I get the most out of the time there, but certainly you can hand over that stuff, the sound engineering stuff. And I’ve only got a few, there’s my cat Eddie, I’ve only got a few suggestions, but perhaps other people who are watching this might be able to put something in the comments as to what their best, what your best practice is. My feeling is, and I’m working towards just buying.

00:06:51
I’m buying some stereo pair of condenser mics and I’ve used that in the past and I think that’s the best way to go. But currently, I’ve just got an Audio Technica, small Audio Technica mic, which is from Sound Solutions. It’s this one here, GN30E. I use that one quite a lot. I also have a Zoom 5 recorder, which I use a lot for recording as well, or sometimes even just this. Rode Mic Me, which just goes straight into my phone. It’s not amazing, but it’s actually good enough sometimes for YouTube if I don’t have time or if I’m outside. And then it’s really about the guitar. It’s about the quality of the guitar. If you have a quality guitar in a nice room with an okay mic, played well, then I think you’re in a really much better position.

00:07:43
And I also do a little bit of post-op, so through Logic I’ll add some compression and some reverb, maybe a touch of delay. And it really helps a lot to sort of bring that sound a little bit more forward and just give it a bit more space. And I think, generally speaking, I think I get a reasonable job on YouTube. But again, I don’t think my recordings on YouTube are of the quality that I would be putting it on streaming, because that’s another level, I think. So what are your thoughts on that? If someone’s got some good suggestions for Otis, then by all means put it in the comments. And that’s pretty much it for today. I just thought it would be nice just to touch base.

00:08:26
And, you know, doing a podcast-style talking episode, it’s not going to usually garner that much in the way of views, but it does kind of help me stay connected with the subscribers and allows you guys to sort of pop in a question if you’ve got about LGM members, LGM students, Latin guitar, playing live, recording, theory. You know, that’s just the world that I delve in. I teach during the day, I do gigs often on weekends, and I also have this online presence. And I’m currently writing, still writing, I’ve got some more material that I want to post, and there’s some arrangements that I’m sort of finishing off. Sometimes they don’t just come together straight away, so I just want to make sure they’re good enough to put out there.

00:09:17
So I’m going to leave you guys with just something from The Vault, which is, an interview I did with Bill Canonguizer, who is from the LA Guitar Quartet. And this little excerpt from the interview, he talks about working with Steve Vai on the recording of Crossroads, the film, which was a 1986 film, where he plays classical nylon guitar. And it’s just really fascinating hearing the behind scenes. It was a film that I grew up with, and I just found, been listening to some of my old recordings and interviews, and thought, this might be a good idea. This might be a fun thing to share. So I’m going to leave you with that, and thanks again for everyone’s support, and I’ll see you next time. And we could go in a couple of different directions, but you did mention the movie Crossroads.

00:10:02
So I just want to say, because I think that’s probably the first time I heard you. That would have been a late 80s type film. 86. 86, yeah. And I remember that film, I know you played the Turkish Rondo that Ralph Macchio plays in the movie, or there’s an excerpt from it. Yeah. And, I remember loving it, because it was a commercial film, and it must have aroused interest in a lot of young players, I imagine. Well, it’s funny, I have to say, actually, you know, quite a few people have said, you know, dude, I started classical guitar because of Crossroads. Oh my God. And I have my usual response is, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Yeah. And from what I remember, it wasn’t the world’s most amazing film.

00:10:48
I mean, it did feature Steve Vai at the end as well. Well, and that incredible duel, and there was, you know, that was interesting from that perspective, and I think there’s a sort of, it’s, you know, people, look, many guitarists still talk about it, so it’s, something happened in that film. Well, you know, I mean, my particular take on that movie is, I mean, first of all, talk about, that was dumb luck. That was, like, ridiculous dumb luck. It was just, like, one of the piano teachers at USC knew who I was, and he got up, he had been on a film by the, the Crossroads producer’s father was a famous producer, I can’t remember his name now, and Daniel Pollack, the pianist, had worked with that guy, so, you know, I think they just, they just, we’re looking for this classical guitarist.

00:11:37
They said, oh, call Danny at USC, and I think I was the only guitar player he remembered, you know, so I think there’s this guy, Cannon Geyser, so give him a call. And I was like, oh, you know, all of a sudden, I’m sitting there with, you know, Rye Cruder. And Steve Vai, you know, and the director and stuff, yeah. But actually, Ralph was, was wonderful. He was such a cool guy, like, and really earnest, you know, but he was sort of terrified about, you know, looking like a classical guitarist, because, you know, he did a lot of slide work, and he, he mined that really, really well. He did, yeah. But it was tricky, you know, so I had to, you know, work with them.

00:12:13
But, you know, the thing is, I actually, when I finally saw the movie, I was, like, horribly disappointed. Because I had read, like, an early script, and it was great. And then when the final version, I thought they totally mangled it. And, you know, they edited out, like, a whole bunch of really cool parts, and really focused on, like, his relationship with the girl, which had, like, zero chemistry. Yeah. And they took out all this other interesting stuff about, like, kind of the birth of the blues kind of thing. Yeah. You know, like a call and response at a, you know, African American church, and all this stuff. Cool. Yeah. And, and I think, you know, the director, you know, was really successful. Walter, what’s his name? I can’t remember.

00:13:00
I can’t remember his name. Sure. But he was really well known for, like, those, you know, action movies, you know. Like, I think he did, I think he did early Mel Gibson movies, actually. Sure. Like, the early adventure ones. Lethal Weapons and things like that. Something like that. Yeah. You know, Chase, Chase and Shoot Him Up, that movie, you know. But I felt like he didn’t. I didn’t really care much about the music. Like, it wasn’t, like, his thing. Yeah. You know, so, anyway, I mean, I’m not trying to berate it. Sure. I mean, I got a lot of exposure and, you know, a little bit of money out of it. You know, and it was, it was cool for me to do. But, you know, I knew what it could have been.

00:13:38
But, but Steve Vai was, was great. I mean, I got to spend, like, one afternoon with him. And I talk about, you know, like, the scene in his final pass. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy. He’s incredible. And, but he was. He was, he was, you know, I thought, oh, he’s going to be like this, you know, complete, you know, you know, rock star, God, you know, jerk, you know. And he was completely the opposite. He was, he was really professional, really considerate and, and no ego at all. And, you know, and I was like, well, what are we going to do for this scene? We got to make this. And I just did, like, a little, you know, a little rolling arpeggio. He’s like, wow, how do you do that?

00:14:19
I’m like, give me a break. I said, give me a break, man. What, what, you know, the stuff you do, forget it, you know. But he has a lot of respect for classical guitar, you know. So. Well, yeah. I know he’s, I’ve seen him do stuff with Sharon Isman, incidentally. Oh, yeah, yeah. So just out of curiosity, did you have much to do with that final scene where there is sort of Paganini-esque stuff? Well, what I, yeah, what I had to do with the final scene, I, I, Steve, I did all. The only thing I had to do with it, sort of ancillary nature, um, was there’s one scene where, you know, uh, Ralph is playing in his dorm and he’s doing this study that sounds quite a bit like viola, the safety number two.

00:15:07
Yep. Um, and, uh, and, and then he goes into this little Paganini lick. Yep. And the plan was to revise, reprise that in the dual scene. Which he does. Yeah. Because people would have already. He heard it and identified that, oh, that’s classical, you know, oh, he’s not doing, he’s doing classical. So, but Steve, I played all this stuff, but we, you know, we kind of figured out like what we’re going to do, you know, at the two scenes so that they, they’ve mixed. And actually, I think it’s sort of a funny story too, because they, they said, oh, yeah, can you suggest some pieces in the dorm, you know, where, where he, you know, it looks like he’s just studying a sort of, you know, like going through scales kind of thing, but shows that he’s really good.

00:15:49
And I was like, well, what about this? And I played a little bit. It was A2 number two. And they said, oh, that’s great. It’s perfect. And then they wrote Eschig. And for some reason, I cannot figure out. They said, no, we will not allow our piece to be used in this film, which I’m thinking later, like how much money would they have made, you know? I know. So I just, I just, yeah. So I just took, well, the publishers for you, you know, the, you know, but anyway, so I just took A2 number two and I changed it from A minor to A major to A minor. And instead of four, four, it’s in three, four. That’s it. I mean, it’s pretty much the same piece, but, but it’s not A2 two, you know, it’s, it’s Eugene’s Dorm A2. That’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I got a little taste of the Royal piece. And for a couple of years, it was like, yeah, I’m making a little, a little bit on that. You know, now I get checks like every six months for about 37 cents. Yeah. Well, there you go.