Musicians Institute

There's a couple things that are structured.

I learned when I was living in LA, I went to MI, Musicians Institute, and there's this guy, Rob Carson, snare drum guy, technique guy, and he taught me, he taught us just kind of how to warm up the meteor parts of your wrist and kind of just doing triplets with the wrist.

So I'll start with that just to get nice and loose and then some finger techniques, or you know just kind of like eights eights four four two two up you know that whole thing for seven minutes i don't know why i chose seven minutes i always choose odd numbers to practice too yeah you set a timer um yeah i'll do that because i'll do like i'll start with like eighth notes and then i'll move them to like 16th notes each minute i change them i change it change it up um What else do I do? I kind of have, there's some like YouTube things I've used.

I think my, is it Mike Johnson or Johnston or something? He has some, some like stuff just to like, it's more just to get the blood flowing and not like sitting there like doing a bunch of crazy rudiments.

She said after high school, her friend disassociated with her after realizing she wasn't going to be convinced to join.

My significant other went to GIT slash MIT in Hollywood back in the day, and they not only verbally warned the students to keep away from the Scientologists, it was actually posted as well.

Two of my college housemates went out one evening to buy cigarettes and came back converted to Scientology.

One eventually got out of it, but it took years.

And we talk about all of it.

We talk about his playing, going to GIT, his teaching, just his experiences.

And ultimately, he's got a new CD out called Lullabies for the Living.

He's still doing everything that he does.

That's what I'm going to start with.

Okay.

The guitar player, Tommy, you, you know, your, your history of guitar playing, you went to GIT and did stuff.

And

And in November, I was at Guitar Center and I saw a flyer and it said the Les Paul Tribute Contest.

And it said, put on by Musicians Institute, Guitar Player Magazine, Daddario Strings, Gibson Guitars, presents the Les Paul Tribute Contest.

The winner gets a featuring Guitar Player Magazine, a year's supply of Daddario Strings, a brand new gold top, and blah, blah, blah.

So there was an email where you could send your submission tape.

But that's what this was all about, man.

You know, to take you back a little bit, man, just to let you guys in on it, you know, because where I'm at is that, you know, when I got out of Musicians Institute in 1988, I got back to the East Coast.

I left the West Coast for the East Coast.

And, you know, I was determined, you know, to continue to play music and play it nonstop, man, you know.

I wouldn't show up.

know i wanted to go to mi musicians institute in hollywood and my mom was like you know you're not a good student you're just not showing up and but if you want to go to this school you can go but you have to take the ged and pass it and which you know slash and i and a bunch of our friends all have geds

yeah

and i went to mi

There was a moving bass line, and there was these chords, and then there was a melody line, and it was all coming out of one guitar as this guy's playing five feet in front of me.

So being able to see all that stuff in that time period was pretty incredible.

You go to Musicians Institute and you work your tail off, right? Yeah.

amount of work you put into it amount of hours how much of your like your style I mean you ultimately go on to become part of a like a massively famous group a bunch of other bands um you become a composer how much of your um your style how much of your ability to to write and compose how much of that was developed like being around all these musicians and playing in the street and in reality and how much was from like your kind of more formal training

Yeah.

Now, at this point, at this point, I went to Musician's Institute, like, over a decade ago, and I, I built a couple guitars.

But, um, just that willingness to jump in again after so long and try and relearn how to build a guitar and, uh, to just say yes, and, um, it forced me to learn a lot, and it was, it was fun building these guitars for him.

Now, I'm also not trying to, I wanna preface, I'm not trying to say that I, like, tried to pull a fast one and, like-

Yeah, I wanted to get the hell out of there.

So, After all of that was resolved, I ended up moving to LA in 2005 to go to Musicians Institute.

And I was kind of floundering at that time, so I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

I was fascinated with recording and luckily my parents supported the idea and, you know, they probably always thought I was going to come back and I never came back.

Then having this glimmer of hope of this individual who brings this message of, let me show you what recording is all about.

I can't even imagine what was going through your brain.

What made you choose Los Angeles? Was it specifically Musicians Institute and why there and not any place else?

Yeah, I think I looked at Full Sail, I looked at Crass, and being a hockey player, I hate the heat.