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Lately this has all been a pain in the neck…no seriously, I've been getting this shooting pain at the back of my neck. Initially, I really thought nothing of it. I’m a pretty active guy, playing tennis and working out regularly, but I usually don’t get this kind of pain. Could I have just slept funny? When was the last time I had a massage? What was the cause? Hilary was quick to possibly connect the pain to the craziness of the last few weeks. “Maybe it’s because of a

What a rush! Our voting week for Telus STORYHIVE’s Documentary Series is behind us, and what an amazing experience. I’ve never felt so close to the project and felt so much responsibility to give this project everything I can. The amount of support and love we’ve received from our friends, family and even new friends has been nothing short of life changing. In the week leading up to this past Monday and the 4 voting days, we’ve gone from being a passion project whose mean

Life comes with challenges, and with each challenge, comes opportunity. Even though I’m stressed at work trying to get everything done all at once, I need to step back and do one thing at a time. And for that one thing, do it well. This also means that there are some things that may take priority at certain moments and time and then it will flip. Just as in the GuitarBorn project grant application, that was the last month’s priority, and now it’s flipped to my day job. So t

I’ll begin to say that I haven’t been keeping up with the blog as much as I have in the recent past. A lot is going on, but I don't want to make excuses. I don’t know who is following my blog and I have no idea who cares to know my thoughts, but for those who are following, I chose not to contribute over the past few weeks because I’ve been mentally away. I’ve been stressed with all my ‘9-5’ duties, trying to create value in every way that I can. When I say creating va

Let’s see what happened this week. I worked on the guitar: bound it; broke the gold mother of pearl purfling and glued into place; sanding and scraping the guitar ready for finish. The body is ready and now we embark on the neck. The first thing is to make a new neck jig set at 8 degrees and block the neck. As I think and dream about this next step, I ask myself how can I make it special, unique, one of a kind for Noel. It think proper fitment to the body and playability is

I was super excited about a new technique I learned while struggling through the Albeniz last week. There is this one section that requires extended bar chord positions in my left hand that I’ve ALWAYS struggled with. It involves pressing down all of the strings at one time with one finger while the other fingers play other notes (See pic below). Even when I gig with Hilary and play for hours at a time, I’ll even get cramps in my left hand sometimes debilitating for short

I miss playing full pieces from beginning to end. After weeks of learning notes, breaking up pieces into manageable parts, drilling then repeating over and over, I really miss the feeling of musicality when you aren’t learning notes any more, and I can just close my eyes and play. It’s been a while… All this work is pretty tough on confidence because sometimes progress moves at a turtle’s pace. So I decided to record a piece I learned years ago when I first started to expl

I’ve been using my phone to “selfie-record” myself playing. The aim is to give our followers a taste of some of the music I’m learning. I’m also hoping that months from now, I’ll be able to see the progress and show that all this work is paying off. It’s funny though, you don’t normally see “work in progress” videos of people performing on Instagram. It is usually really top-level people showcasing their skill. Rarely do you see people play the wrong notes, struggle wit

It’s been slow week on the guitar build. I don’t have all the tools necessary to complete binding the guitar. Made the order last week and was hoping that it came this week. In any case, the day job has taken the week over anyway, so even if it came I wouldn’t have had time to use it. So, I continue to wait patiently. We started filming interviews this Saturday. We only had time to do the group interview and then Noel’s personal interview. I’m pumped to share my thoughts

I closed the guitar body this week. While filming, Jonard asked, “what does this step mean to you, how does it make you feel? I straight up told him that it made me sad. I literally strive to make each guitar brace a work of art. Cleaning the glue, chiseling each brace to a perfect symmetry while paying attention the voicing, finish sand every inch. All that effort, then glued and closed off to the world. All the hard work no longer in sight to appreciate. It’s a means