ION INDIE MAGAZINE June 2015, Volume 13 | Page 147

Downtown Tommy's Guitar Lesson of the Month: Hello everyone! Hope you've all been practicing away and
getting to use what you've learned onstage for packed halls of screaming Rockers! Everyone, including me,
trains with this goal in mind. I practice with the intensity of training for a professional fight, so when we all
take the stage on Saturday evening, the adrenaline hits and you can play from your heart instead of thinking
which finger should go where.
This month I would like to make a suggestion which has helped me onstage, and I apply all the time. In the
same manner power chords access the essential notes of the chord while being easier to play, the same
principle applies to scales and modes. Try practicing your favorite scales meticulously, note for note,
listening to their relation to the chord change, but also the SHAPE of the scale over your index to pinkie finger
span vertically. As you practice, carefully remove two notes from the scale that are non-essential to the
melody, or will not alter the song or your overall improvisation. Sound implausible? Try it out for yourself and
marvel at the results. Your ascent up and down the guitar neck will quicken immediately once you
experiment and find which notes, here and there, you can trim away. I just did this with an ERIC JOHNSON
style Hexatonic scale and it opened up the entire neck instantly. Until next month, keep on shredding away!
***
Taking up music at eight years old, Country artist MIKE BAKER has literally travelled the globe in the last
four decades. "Seems like I carry a guitar everywhere. I've played in Africa, South America and Europe.
There's always a jam going on
somewhere. Pretty soon strangers
aren't strangers anymore." Mike
Baker's new album "Wild Oates and
Sweet Grass" will be released on CD
Baby in a few weeks, and he regularly
plays with auspicious Country music
luminaries such as RICKY WOOD and
TIM STACY. Baker has been to
Nashville 150 times, playing in
songwriter's meccas such as THE
COMMODORE
LOUNGE,
THE
BROKEN SPOKE and THE BLUEBIRD
CAFÉ. He also was very active on the
Muscle Shoals, Alabama music
scene, when he resided there for six
years. "The best music is not going to
be on the radio. It's gonna come from
a bunch of guys sitting around playing
somewhere, not sterilized and
contaminated by corporate."
Photo credit: Jen Pezzo