steve stine

A Big Reason Why I Have a Career as a Music Transcriber

07/30/2014 — 2 Comments

I was browsing through my Facebook page when I found this string of comments from a Steve Stine post:

Screen Shot 2014-07-30 at 6.12.58 PM

One of the guys who commented on the new GuitarZoom “Guitarists of the 80s” course said, “Hey buddy! Are you reading the music to these leads as you play??”

Steve replied, “Tom, just wrote them out in my head and played them…”

Most of the time (myself included), many musicians write out their music inside their heads and just go out to play them. Another thing is that most of these musicians don’t have the time (or patience!) to write them out on paper for themselves. Let’s face it. The fact still stands that music transcription requires time, effort, and heaps of patience. These musical geniuses (like my buddy Steve Stine) give folks like me some kind of employment, and I am very thankful for that. Such musicians provide one big reason why I have a career as a music transcriber.

Perhaps there will come a time that the compositions inside my head will bring me great financial reward to the extent that I’ll just hit “record”, start playing, and then I could never be bothered to write them out on paper for myself. That would be a time that I will probably hire someone just like me to write them all out.

Until then, I’m the one being hired to do that sort of documentation. I really got nothing to complain about.

Play Blues Now: New Steve Stine Course @ GuitarZoom

12/26/2013 — Leave a comment

Steve-Stine-Play-Blues-Now

A few days prior to Christmas 2013, I was working long hours to complete transcribing the sheet music for this course while juggling other important tasks such as our church’s Christmas concert rehearsals, finishing my composition for the said concert, working on other projects, being a parent and homeschool teacher, graduate school stuff, and others. It was a tough time, and though I’m able to relax for now I do have other things that I have to complete. Anyway, going back to the course, this is a beginner blues course for guitar by none other than in-demand modern guitar pedagogue, Steve Stine.

To cut things short, this is an excellent course (in my biased opinion) for anyone who wants to know the nitty-gritty on the Blues. It covers the essentials of the Blues from the rhythm up to improvisation and soloing, making it a very complete course that will enable you to do what it says: Play Blues Now!

If you want to purchase the DVD and book, please click on the image above. Sheet music transcription by none other but yours truly.

Firestorm Guitar: New GuitarZoom Course by Steve Stine

11/07/2013 — Leave a comment

firestorm guitar logo

Because of the great interest in learning how to play lead in an effort to be the next Yngwie Malmsteen or the next darling of Shrapnel Records or what have you, education regarding rhythm guitar playing is usually underrated or neglected. In many occasions, we often fail to realize that rhythm is the bedrock in which all genres and styles of music settle in. Well, this is no longer the case. Steve Stine addresses this concern with his new course called “Firestorm Guitar”, a very comprehensive rhythm guitar course. As usual, sheet music transcription and engraving was done by none other than yours truly.

Some of the interesting things that Steve teaches in this course include how closely related rhythm guitar playing is to playing hand percussion like maracas, the “ocean effect” or “organic strumming”, and figuring out appropriate rhythm patterns for any song. And so, if you’ve always wondered how you could become a better rhythm guitar player and you want to push your skills up to the next level, I highly recommend going to the GuitarZoom website and clicking on the graphic above to check out Firestorm Guitar.

Steve Stine’s 42 Days to Blazing Guitar Solos

07/17/2013 — Leave a comment

About a month ago, I started working on what was once called Steve Stine’s “Essential Techniques for Guitar”. This is a compendium of pure guitar technique, teaching you the “how” of lead guitar soloing. After weeks of grueling transcription and completing the sheet music, GuitarZoom has released what is now called “42 Days to Blazing Guitar Solos”.

If you are at least an intermediate electric guitar player want to do everything from nailing famous guitar to creating your own solos from scratch, I suggest going to the link below:

42-days-to-blazing-guitar-solos

Other than working on this course, I just completed transcribing another blues course and I’m working on a number of things simultaneously. Therefore, I can say I’m busier than a bee. I guess that’s it for now. I hope that over the next 42 days, you’ve transformed yourself into a guitar hero under Steve Stine’s tutelage.

Steve Stine’s Songfire Now Available

04/22/2013 — Leave a comment

Songfire

GuitarZoom, one of my long-term employers, has another very useful course for anybody who’s interested in learning new songs on the guitar in a fast and intelligent way. This new course is called Songfire. Written by GuitarZoom’s guitarist-in-residence and professor of modern guitar at North Dakota State University, Steve Stine, This new course offers a no-nonsense approach that could enable any guitar beginner into hearing how most songs work and then eventually learn them in the process.

Now, for those who think they can become instant virtuoso players with this course, you are mistaken. This course is NOT about gaining virtuoso technique in an instant (it takes years of hard work and practice to gain that). This course is more about being able to play many of the songs you hear and enjoy on your guitar in a fast way. This course is not about being able to play your favorite songs note by note, but it is more about being able to understand the underlying harmonic structure (chord progressions, etc.) based on what you hear. Upon finishing the course, you’d be able to listen actively to many pop and rock songs and be able to play through its chord progression in a matter of minutes.

Okay, maybe some will be disappointed that virtuoso guitarist Steve Stine released a non-virtuoso course. Well, that is not the point of Songfire. Songfire’s intent is to give learners the ability to hear music as a whole and be able to at least play a semblance of it, following along the chord progression WITHOUT reading notation or tab. B ear in mind that seemingly simple, sort of entry-level topics like those in Songfire could easily lead any beginning guitarist to be stimulated into getting deeper into the workings of music, eventually figuring out what most of us would consider virtuoso technique. The positive and pleasurable effects of being to successfully learn a new song can always lead to bigger things, musically speaking.

If you want to get access to the course, just click on the Songfire image above. As usual, sheet music and text by none other than yours truly.

Six String Madness Interviews Mark Galang

11/24/2012 — Leave a comment

Just this week, I was interviewed by Scott of Six String Madness regarding my work and insights as a music transcriber for Steve Stine and GuitarZoom.

Read the interview via the links below:

http://www.sixstringmadness.com/exclusive-interview-mark-galang
http://www.stevestine.com/exclusive-interview-with-mark-galang/

For more tips about playing guitar and info regarding getting the best blues, rock and metal guitar lessons on the net, go visit sixstringmadness.com.

Steve Stine’s 96 Blues Licks Now Available

11/18/2012 — 2 Comments

After two weeks of hard work, I’m proud to announce that Steve Stine’s long anticipated 96 Blues Licks course for guitar has already been released by GuitarZoom. If you’ve ever dreamed of playing the blues and all sorts of its derivatives like blues rock and Texas blues, this is the course that you’ve been waiting for.

Steve Stine’s 96 Blues Licks course can be seen as part of a continuity of lead guitar instruction courses by the guru himself. If the first Solofire installment and Music Theory Made Easy provided you with the “how” of guitar soloing and music making, 96 Blues Licks provides you the “what”. You can say that it’s going to form part of your ever expanding vocabulary of lead guitar lines.

One of the most awesome aspects of 96 Blues Licks is that it provides some insights into the music theory behind playing the Blues. The introductory material provides a good method into how any guitar player would approach using the licks and putting them in the context of any song. Rather than just being told how a lick is played, the introductory materials actually provide more by helping learners expand the licks into things more than just soloing.

The sheet music provided (transcribed by no other than yours truly) is in the usual standard notation and guitar tablature format. It covers all of the materials in the DVD and we even went far as including all of Steve’s jam track improvisations at the end of the course so that learners can actually gain insight as to how Steve approaches playing the Blues.

So, to cut the long story short, if you’ve ever dreamed of being like Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Chuck Berry or Stevie Ray Vaughn, check out Steve Stine’s 96 Blues Licks. If you’re a blues guitar fan, I guarantee that you’ll get more than your money’s worth just listening to how Steve gets you going with the Blues.

Music Theory Mastery for Guitar on Guitarzoom

09/06/2012 — Leave a comment

A good knowledge of music theory allows any guitarist to vastly improve his or her skills, and one of the best courses out there is “Music Theory Mastery for Guitar” by Steve Stine. I have started working on this new project as a music transcriber and chart maker for the past couple of weeks, and I could definitely say that Steve is one of the best teachers out there. His new music theory lesson is currently hosted at Guitarzoom.com.

Music theory can be a daunting subject to tackle. However, Steve breaks it down to practical tidbits that are most useful for any guitarist. It follows a kind of hear-before-you-read approach in that his theory lessons emphasize hearing and recognizing notes, scales, chords and patterns and practical performance advice over reading sheet music. I know that teaching sheet music first could easily turn off a lot of people, especially those that want to get some practical music skills fast. It appears that this approach to learning music theory offers easy transmission of knowledge and skill that learners would eventually want to learn how to read sheet music as soon as they get better.

The main benefit any guitarist can get from Music Theory Mastery for Guitar is that it provides an overall understanding of how music works as it relates to guitar without having to read sheet music. I can say that it’s a very suitable course for guitarists who learned how to play by ear and would want to advance their skills further. If you are interested in enrolling for Music Mastery for Guitar, sign up for the course at Guitarzoom.Com. It’s an ongoing class and week 4 of the course starts next week. Even if you missed the following weeks, you can go and backtrack the previous weeks as many times as you want with your subscription.

P.S. if you’re a Guitarzoom member and you have any questions about the courses, music theory or guitar playing in general, you can send in your questions to me and I’ll gladly offer my help in the Guitarzoom member forums. That’s because I’m the new guitar Q&A guy as well.

Again, if you want to push your guitar playing skills to another level, go sign up for Steve Stine’s “Music Theory Mastery for Guitar” at Guitarzoom.com.