by Mike Errico | Aug 20, 2013 | Lessons, Uncategorized, Video
I do whatever I can to put a song across, even if it means making a band out of the acoustic guitar. You can see/hear “1000 Miles” live here: http://youtu.be/YfSoNEH6e9I or hear the studio version here: http://mikeerrico.bandcamp.com/track/1000-miles Enjoy, and see if it sparks something in your own playing. As always, the official site updates regularly with any news/changes: http://www.errico.com. More iTunes || Bandcamp || Facebook || Twitter || YouTube || Tumblr || Tallboy 7, Inc. Box 20463 NY NY...
by Mike Errico | Aug 13, 2013 | Lessons, Video
Tom Waits did it on piano – I had to figure out a guitar version. You can hear my cover of “Johnsburg, Illinois” here: http://youtu.be/O4iyxCUwVxM Enjoy, and see if it sparks something in your own playing. As always, the official site updates regularly with any news/changes: http://www.errico.com. More iTunes || Bandcamp || Facebook || Twitter || YouTube || Tumblr || Tallboy 7, Inc. Box 20463 NY NY...
by Mike Errico | Aug 6, 2013 | Uncategorized, Video
The point of this lick is that the guitar is fun. Just TRY to play it without smiling. Enjoy it, and see if it sparks something in your own playing. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/mike-errico/id3567281 | As always, the official site updates regularly with any news/changes: http://www.errico.com. More iTunes || Bandcamp || Facebook || Twitter || YouTube || Tumblr || Tallboy 7, Inc. Box 20463 NY NY...
by Mike Errico | Aug 6, 2013 | Stories
Addressing eternal pop music questions at two very different universities By Mike Errico I’d wanted to teach for decades, but I waited, because I felt I had to deserve it. There’s a good reason Gandalf, Dumbledore, Yoda and Miyagi are years — centuries? — beyond us, and it’s because older teachers teach time. So I went out to earn the holes in the elbows of my metaphorical cardigan sweater. I learned the craft of songwriting, lived the business of music, and, last semester, put my findings into “The Art and Business of Songwriting,” a class I taught at Yale. Yale has never focused on popular music, and as I walked into the classroom for the first time, students literally shook my hand and thanked me for showing up. Everyone seemed to be on a different page: There were rank amateurs, people who’d already walked away from publishing deals, EDM remixers, bluegrass ukulele ringers and minimalist prodigies who needed paper extensions so they could tour conservatories. What do you teach students like this? What do you teach Caitlin Pequignot, a sophomore in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology who’s learning Chinese, has a YA novel just kinda sitting on her hard drive, and, when asked to write a song to a pre-existing video clip, turns in something as brilliantly heart-wrenching as this? (After screening it in class, a fellow student summed up the mood: “Whoever’s going next? Good luck following that.”) What you teach (besides “do more of that”) is context. There’s no understanding songwriting without it: that song intros existed so the DJ could tell you the time, weather and...
by Mike Errico | Jul 31, 2013 | audio, Lessons, Stories, Video
Teaching Songwriting at NYU’s Clive Davis School of the Recording Arts Break out the violet cardigan sweaters: After a successful semester at Yale, I will be teaching songwriting at NYU’s Clive Davis School of the Recording Arts this fall. We’ll be focusing on the establishment of a personal songwriting voice, and oh, we will write. And write. Can’t wait. New Writing: “The Art of Songwriting and the Business of Survival” I just published an essay for Medium about my experience as a songwriting professor at Yale and NYU. It features “Still Beautiful to Me,” a great song and video by Caitlin Pequignot, one of my students. Mike Errico Guitar Lessons Now On YouTube Guitar players: Here are some videos that explain the techniques I use on songs like “Springtime,” “1000 Miles,” “Johnsburg, Illinois,” and many others. There are some cool electric guitar licks in different styles, too. Enjoy them, and see if they spark something in your own playing. Deluxe Editions of the Mike Errico Catalog. Pay What You Want. Thanks to your generosity, this experiment has been a success, so let’s keep going: you can pay what you want for new, deluxe editions of my recordings. This includes demos, remixes, extended versions, unreleased tracks and more. $.99? $10? $55.32? It’s your call. But, to reiterate, your generosity makes it possible for me to keep doing what I do and bringing it to you. As always, the official site updates regularly with any news/changes: http://www.errico.com. More Facebook || Twitter || YouTube || Bandcamp || iTunes Tallboy 7, Inc. Box 20463 NY NY...
