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If you already play guitar, and are a fan of Bossa Nova, you could be minutes away from getting a personalized lesson from me. I'm using SKYPE to shorten the distance between listening to this seemingly complex style, and actually playing it. If you are in the San Diego area, you may prefer to come by my studio in Point Loma.
If you love Bossa Nova as it was invented in Brazil, then you are already a fan of Antonio Carlos Jobim. Without his songs, the genre may not have reached the global audience that it has gained since the 1960's. The beauty of Bossa Nova is not only found in the rhythm, which comes directly from Samba, but it is heard in the types of chords that you do not hear in any other style of music. Jobim wrote melodies that are unforgettable, supported by chord progressions that seem to be divinely inspired. Poetic verses of love, joy and sorrow can be heard in the greatest Bossa Nova songs through the voice of Joao Gilberto, who deserves to be called one of the creators of Bossa Nova along with Jobim.
Jobim's music is the basis of the lessons you will get from me, which will include chord by chord diagrams of each entire song, along with exercises and rhythm instructions for your right hand and fingers, which need to play bass notes and syncopation.
I developed my teaching techniques for the person who wants to take the easiest and most direct path to learning the great Bossa Nova songs, or to play other great songs in the Bossa Nova style. Through visual diagrams of the fretboard for the basis of a "chord vocabulary" combined with rhythmic patterns learned through imitation and repetition. The value of a personalized session, either by SKYPE or being in the same room, is that the rhythm aspect is almost impossible to learn by just reading it on paper.
MY BOSSA NOVA BIO: or "How my Soul was changed forever by Brazil's New Music"
I was introduced to the earliest recordings of Bossa Nova on the album called HERBIE MANN RECORDED IN RIO DE JANEIRO released on the Atlantic Label in the 1960's http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/recorded-in-rio-de-janerio/id78975062 .
One day, even before I reached adolescence, I heard a different sound floating out of our living room, after my father came home from the record store. My dad was a true jazz fan, born in Chicago (like me). But he had found this new album that he just had to play over and over. This collection of songs shows early Bossa Nova in its purest form, with guitar and rhythm section, along with a subtle pianist and composer named Antonio Carlos Jobim. Less than half the songs feature Herbie Mann, who adapts his style of jazz flute to Brazilian rhythms with great soul and sensitivity. The other half of the album contains a few of the greatest Joao Gilberto vocal tracks you will ever hear. Here was Herbie Mann, an American jazzman, attaching his name and fame to an album that would introduce this great music to the record buyers of the United States. My thanks to Herbie, and my Dad. They brought Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, and the guitar of Baden Powell into my living room when I was only 11 years old.
I started learning Bossa Nova songs at the at the age of 11 on my electric guitar, and finally graduated to the nylon string guitar, after the Samba/Bossa Nova rhythms found their way from ears into my Soul and finally out of my fingers. "After high school I flew to Rio de Janeiro to visit a good friend (Brazilian). The pulse of the city, its wonderful people, and incredible music made a permanent imprint on my soul." By the time I was 21, Brazilian Music was so much a part of me, it simply became my home base for playing guitar and writing songs. I also began to play Brazilian percussion, such as the cuica, berimbau, and pandeiro.
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