Sean Daniel – Soft like a breeze, twisty like a pretzel.
Today's Awesome Guitar Teacher is the loveable larrikin almost-poet, who always seems to be able to tie a musical concept to a witty real-life paradigm, that somewhat makes sense… when you think about it.
If that seems a little riddly, it’s because it’s supposed to. Sean likes to philosophise about the capriccio's we encounter in our daily life, and then kinda’ sticky tape them to musical theory. In this way, he makes sense out of the most complex musical subjects, by reducing them to bite-sized contexts.
Such as (to paraphrase): ‘Sometimes the things we love the most, hurt us the most, too. Like Gummy Bears, and Pentatonic Scales.’ Whereby he equates doing the same old shit, day after day, to getting you into trouble. Like, never changing your underwear. Sure, you’ll get good at it, but that’s not necessarily a good thing; especially if your timing stinks…
Unlike the legendary Pebber (dude-you’re-fuckin’-it-up) Brown, Sean actually does hold your hand, or at least, will sit close to you on the couch and talk softly as he encourages you to learn something, to make your playing better. At any rate, I doubt you’d ever leave a lesson crying into your sound-hole.
It’s a nice change from the less subtle approach of the Pebber aSalt; if you’re a little soft, and prefer encouragement over constructively violent criticism ;)
(psst. I like a little from column A, and a little from column B. After all, if no one ever tells you that you can do better, they’re either lying, or just full of shit. Tommy Emmanuel, for example, admits to practicing “Like a demon”, even when he’s on holidays. So if Tommy can suck after a few idle days, it’s possible for any of us to suck, if we take our eyes off the prize).
Providing a great counter-point to Pebber, Sean’s the kind of guy who can laugh at a profusely sweating Piper at his Great Uncle Budd's funeral, and then follow-up with milk and cookies at the wake. Nothing fazes him, and I’m guessing, he’s hard to embarrass too.
This may be (in part) a result of his having lived in a friends closet for a 6-month period in his younger days, when he was planning a career in music, but not actually taking any action towards achieving a career in music….You know, that old chestnut.
At some point he literally moved out of the closet, (not came out of the closet, just got the fuck out of the closet), and became a guitar teacher, who is now successfully edutaining thousands of budding stringers how to play better, and get more excitement out of their guitaring-ness. I just love how ‘ness’ sounds when friended onto words... Sean approaches his teaching with a whimsical yet sound recipe of technique, theory, fun and philosophy that makes learning something new, actually not a chore.
Most times after a lesson, you’ll actually want to practice the new thing he taught you, rather than throw it in the “too-hard” basket. He covers a nice variety of guitarly subjects including, but not limited to: deconstructing riffs, song writing tips, writing songs from scratch (including adding different instruments), along with the occasional original tune, and accompaniments with friends. (Some being gorgeous ladies, and some being, well, men :)
He also has a great dynamic with his guitar legend friend Ian from StichMethod Guitar. I’m pretty sure that in a past life, they went to school together, or stole something from somewhere they shouldn’t have, and thus formed a lifelong bond, again. We'll discuss Ian too, in a future article.
Bottom Line: Sean makes learning new stuff on guitar FUN. It’s not supposed to suck, or be a chore. If you’re a beginner, you can definitely learn a lot from him, and if you’re an advanced player, it probably wouldn’t hurt you to browse through his 400+ videos, to make sure you haven’t missed anything. His teaching style is very relaxed, and I for one, think he’s an Awesome Guitar Teacher.
To find Sean’s work, visit him on youtube via the link below. I won’t tell you which video to start with, because I don’t know what stage you’re at, but I do know, if you have a pulse, you’ll probably enjoy his approach to an instrument that is, after all, second only to Drums in awesome-ness ;) Mmmmmm, love that ness-ness.
"Rocking the world one guitar lesson, music video, gear review, poorly made cartoon at a time." Sean Daniel Source: https://www.youtube.com/user/seandaniel23
I’m out.
05 July 2017