Harvey Reid Newsletter 2015-2016 p1

Finally some news from Harvey & Joyce...

I sent paper newsletters for over 20 years, and even might send one next year, but for now I want to fill you in a little. You can read online or print out the PDF of this if you like, and save me the postage.
Since you may have not heard from us in ages, you might assume that we have slowed down or veered off the troubadour path. Not a chance– we’re up to all sorts of things and have done a lousy job of keeping you posted. This newsletter hopefully marks the beginning of a new era for us, of reaching out and communicating.
The quick story is that we have stayed home more than ever to be with our boys, and to completely re-tool ourselves as modern troubadours. We’re now getting very involved in music education after years of being mostly performers. We’ve played more local gigs than usual, run an internet store (www.PartialCapo.com) had a lot of family time, and devoted most of our creative energy to some ground-breaking guitar education projects we’re excited to tell you about.
If you or anyone in your life wants to play guitar, play better guitar or have more fun playing guitar– we’ve got good news.
There are a huge number of guitar instruction methods and materials out there, and we’re bracing for the challenge of showing the world that we indeed have something new and very significant– indeed a “better mousetrap” to contribute.
Chordally yours,
Harvey Reid & Joyce Andersen

Uberlocal We built a beautiful 75-seat concert stage in our 1888 carriage house, and have been performing there the last few months. I don’t even need a guitar case to travel to this gig. We hope you can come hear us play there. www.woodpecker.com/uberlocal

* * N E W S B R I E F S * *

We still don’t have proper representation of our music on YouTube, and it’s high on our list for 2016 to upload a pile of new videos. Joyce does have some exciting recent videos of her new solo fiddle troubadour show. I am way behind but anxious to get working on it.

I have made a lot of recordings, but there’s always something else in the pipeline I am planning. Right now the top thing on my list is to write and record cool new solo guitar music that showcases the ideas in my Capo Voodoo books. I'm composing new solo guitar music now.

My wife Joyce has continued in her quest to take the violin to new and amazing places, and her solo “violin troubadour” show is deepening and expanding. She’s building the ranks of "Pro-Joyce" music fans and deepening her already-deep music. www.joyscream.com

She is helping with the Liberty Guitar project, but focusing mostly on her amazing concert show.

If you like our music and feel like supporting us, think about buying one song or an album on iTunes. It would help. Harvey's music and Joyce's are there.

I can be found on Facebook. Here is Joyce's page.

dont wear your best trousers

I have made over 25 guitar education books (!!) in the last several years that map out the new directions I am going with my partial capo ideas, fretboard research and music education. They are all for sale on Amazon, (and many are available in the iTunes bookstore) though I’ll be happy to autograph one for you if you get it from my web store. 104 cover

These 2 are the most universally appealing if you already play guitar, and they make perfect gifts for guitar players in your life. The most complete, detailed, accurate and readable guitar chord books ever, for standard tuning, DADGAD or Orkney (CGDGCD) tunings. Optimized for acoustic “troubadour style” guitarists.

Step aside, Mel Bay.

Also, if you want to learn guitar, look at the Liberty Guitar Method on the next page. I have something huge to share for beginning guitarists and would-be guitar players...

After long and frustrating manufacturing delays, my revolutionary new Liberty FLIP capo is now available on my web store and also for sale on Amazon.com

Model 43 clamps 4 or 3 strings

model 65

Model 65 clamps 6 or 5 strings

• Joyce and I have made 35 albums of music (more if you count multiple CD sets),and you can still get most of them as physical CD's. A few titles are almost out of print.

• I haven’t quite finished re-mixing, remastering and re-releasing recordings from my catalog, and there are still some things I need to make available digitally, including my live double CD In Person and Fruit on the Vine, which I think is one of my best albums.

I am still performing mostly with my Dana Bourgeois JOMC guitar, my trusty old 1973 autoharp and my rare Chrysalis slide guitar, though I may get a new Chrysalis, now called a Ridgewing, in early 2016. (This may be your chance to finally get one, since they are gearing up to make some for the first time in 15 years.)

sallust said

I’ve started playing a new model of Deering 6-string banjo, the Boston. I like it, and it is a lot lighter and less expensive than the one I’ve been playing since 1988. I have also fallen in love with Deering's new Solana nylon-string 6-string banjo. I'll be posting a bunch of videos soon in this amazing new tuning. Almost every melody sounds great and is easy to play.

	The Liberty Guitar Method
I am faced essentially with trying to “shout” on a noisy street to the world that I have really made a remarkable breakthrough in beginning guitar. I am aware that the world is full of literally hundreds of books, gadgets and methods that already that claim to be the key to easy guitar. I am faced with the uphill struggle of convincing people to believe me when I say that I have found something new and significant. I have to put my musical reputation on the line and take the risk of looking like yet another crackpot. I have a huge amount of work to do to first get people's attention, then convince them that I know what I am talking about and that my new idea is better than all the other seemingly similar things that have been developed in the 400+ year history of the guitar. So I'll start with you folks, who are on my mailing list, and see if I have enough credibility to convince you. Then maybe I can enlist you to help me spread the word once you become believers too. What I call “The Liberty Guitar Method” is equally valuable for three groups: 1) young children who have previously been considered to be too young to really play guitar 2) people with less than 4 working fingers on their fretting hand, and 3) the millions of adults who always wished they could strum some chords and sing some songs but never did. Most of you probably know that I have always had a soft spot for beginners, starting with my 1982 Duck Soup Guitar Method. My 325 page college textbook Modern Folk Guitar (1984) and the epic 4-CD boxed set Song Train project in 2007 continued my efforts to encourage people to play their own home-made music. In 2011, while trying to organize and publish my decades of research into one of my favorite guitar ideas, I stumbled on something that has changed my life and might change yours. I call it Liberty Tuning. It only takes about 10 seconds to get there from standard tuning on any guitar, and voila- it is suddenly dramatically easier to play guitar but doesn’t really sound different. I have now recorded 2 albums and published 8 books about it, with more on the way, and my first wave of YouTube videos will hit the streets in early 2016. Some of the materials show how it works for folks who already play guitar, and others are for adult beginners or young children.		See the next page for a longer discussion and some awesome videos