Our next door neighbors have just put up their Halloween decorations, even though it's still a hundred degrees here in Austin. Last year, a news crew came around and parked their van across the street while my kids were getting ready to trick-or-treat. Eventually the crew – all two of them, one wielding a mic, the other hauling a shoulder cam – stepped into our yard in search of more footage for the evening news. Had I heard, they asked, about the movement to start holding Halloween on the nearest Saturday night? No, I had not. Would I be willing to go on camera to discuss it? Sure, why not – the first bags of candy had already been dumped in a bowl, and I still had more than an hour left in which to put on the rest of my costume (I went as the Monopoly Man, if you must know – one of my more successful homemade costumes. The big bag of money, in particular, was a standout feature).
That evening, while the kids and their friends sat around eating too many Reeses, we found out my opinion had made the news. No, I could be heard to say, I think putting Halloween on the nearest Saturday is a
terrible idea. For one thing, we'll all just end up celebrating Halloween twice – once on Saturday, and then again on Real Halloween. But more importantly –
that. Halloween
is Halloween. It's on October 31st.
That's Halloween. So no – I don't think we should move it at all.
Ms. Fretboard still thinks this is one of the funniest things she's ever seen on TV. Personally, I think that's heresy; obviously the funniest thing ever on TV was Fozzie Bear. But the part she liked, I think, was the subtitle they ran during my thirty seconds of notoriety: "Does not support moving Halloween."
The only reason I can think of for having extra Halloween is if, say, you couldn't make it out on the 31st. Chicken pox, roller skating spill, that kind of thing. In which case, yeah, I totally think a kid who missed out should get their own day to make the rounds, knock on some doors in the neighborhood, and collar some free M&Ms and Milky Way Darks.
Which is why, even if you couldn't make it to the live Zoom session on Friday for my live-online lesson on The Dominant Dozen, I've just posted a replay – lightly edited – of this hour-long discussion on connecting chord voicings up the neck. Just because you had to work, or sleep (I'm looking at you, Australia) doesn't mean you should miss out on learning how to apply cool dominant voicings to classic blues songs like Muddy Waters' "Can't Be Satisfied" and Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen." You can check out the replay at the link below:
The Dominant DozenWhen you get there, click on the green buttons to A) download the tab and B) leave a question or comment below.
More soon,
David
P.S. in a couple of days, I'll be posting the third lesson in this series, about the five stages of learning fingerstyle guitar, and how to figure out what you should work on next. So here's my question for you: where have you made the
most progress as a player lately, and how did you do so? Leave your answer in the comments below the Dominant Dozen lesson.
The Dominant Dozen
