Up early this morning working on my almost-finished book for guitar teachers, which I’m tentatively calling Rob’s Totally Awesome Guitar Teaching Handbook.

Yesterday I came up with this introduction to a section on teaching your students to play safely (I mean avoiding tendinitis, not avoiding spearing their bass player with a Flying V) by taking frequent breaks:

Was the summer I bought my first six-string
Bought it at the five and dime
Played it ‘til my fingers bled
Was the summer of ’69
Bryan Adams, “Summer of ‘69”

Three years later I got my first flare-up
Got it rocking all night through
Now I’m stuck singing backup vocals
Was the bummer of ‘72
The Missing Verse

Update: The Handbook is now available for purchase here.

Brett and I discussed the popularity of Wesley’s “Folsom Prison Blues” video, some of the tricks I use for teaching guitar to young kids, and I got in a little rant about the bankruptcy of American culture.

Here’s an .mp3 of the 40-minute interview.

Brett Singer of Babble Radio (an online talk radio program associated with the parenting magazine Babble) will be interviewing me this Friday about the popularity of what has come to be known as the “Folsom Pwison Blues” video. I hope I get a chance to talk about some of the interesting issues this video brings up:

• How should music be taught to kids?
• What is inappropriate material for young musicians?
• How does fame affect kids?
• How do the Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups stand up against real ’50’s Tele pickups? (OK, so we may not get to that one….)

Visit Here on Friday at 9am for the live broadcast. Just have that page open in your browser and the show will start streaming at 9am. Log in if you’d like to type comments or questions in the chatroom.

A recording of the show will be available.