Just your average stereotypical band geek? Not exactly.  In our book, Owen Bradley was cool enough to take that determination and drive it takes to play an instrument and conduct an ensemble and put it to good use for a future career as a band director for a high school.  And he knew he wanted to do it since the 10th grade! 

Talk about going for your goals.  Owen Bradley is currently the Band Director and Chairman of the Performing Arts Academy at North Port High School in North Port Florida. A 1988 graduate of the Florida State University, he has been teaching for 20 years in Florida. He holds a Master’s Degree in Curriculum with and emphasis in Integrating Technology in the Classroom and is a Sarasota County Schools NeXt Generation Educator. He is currently working on his doctoral degree in education leadership.

He's also a trained trumpet player and has tried his hands at jazz and has used his skills in musical instruments and technology alike to formulate innovative methods of music education.  

Wait, there's more. He also blogs on the side.  Check out his blog, The Digital Music Educator, all about those non-traditional methods.

Barney Hoskyns is an experienced music writer and editor having written for Vogue, GQ, Rolling Stone, Spin, Harper's Bazaar, and CD Nows and penned books Across the Great Divide-The Band and America and Waiting For The Sun.  

Yet in the midst of all that recognition and perhaps, publishing chaos, he's had time to found an incredible music website and archive called Rock's Backpages, that includes a library of over 15,000 interviews conducted by the best music writers and journalists in the business, an archive of music magazine past, an audio library with over 200 interviews including some from music legend Jimi Hendrix and blogs from veteran writers.  

Now here's a man who's a conservatory trained composer and conductor, who's dabbled in guitars, who's tried his hand at songwriting, and who helped set up a forum for discussion on NY's live music scene and its music critics.

He's the Editor at Large for Counter Critic, a site that provides a forum to discuss a plethora of arts and music reviews written by NY's professional critics. He's written songs.  He's strummed a few guitar chords.  He's even written an opera score! Whooo, I gasp for air just thinking about all of it! 

What hasn't he done? Why, get interviewed by Jemsite on his musical talents, of course!  Well, that's all about to change...

While Ryan does believe everyone is a music critic in some way, he still continues to stay open minded.  Read on to find out how he does just that and more.

Wish we could say it was Jemsite that had the privilege of interviewing the legendary Steve Vai. But alas, Premier Guitar had that opportunity and ran with it, but let us along for the ride!

Here's a detailed, republished interview with the Ibanez icon from Oscar Jordan at Premier Guitar magazine.

I was left alone in the Harmony Hut. No, it’s not a corporate family restaurant chain. It’s virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai’s recording studio. It’s where the magic happens—his sanctum sanctorum, if you will.

In one of the rooms, his guitars are lined up against the wall in two long rows, top and bottom. I see guitars that I remember from his Alcatrazz and David Lee Roth years, electric sitars, seven-strings and old Frankenstein Strats. Further back is Vai’s amp rig, locked and loaded. Sitting on a desk, there is a Ted Greene chord book opened to the middle laying on top of a Mahavishnu Orchestra transcription book. Behind his desk and workstation in the adjoining room, a large window reveals a big, beautiful tree situated just outside the studio, a tree that radiates the kind of Zen-like peace and serenity I imagine would be perfect to inspire psychotic guitar riffs in bizarro time signatures. The studio is immaculate.

It's a lucid dream come true for music fans!

Lucid Culture is a rapidly growing website toting live music and much of the NY music scene through an online presence that is rapidly increasing in popularity.  It was created in April 2007 from a now-defunct music and politics e-zine and remains the antidote for music lovers who crave reviews for the local live music scene.

Now going through a small, but worthwhile revamp, the site has more to love including a live music calendar, countdowns of the best songs around, reviews of top albums, and a constantly updated guide to New York area live music venues.

Without ear training playing guitar is a bit like painting by numbers. You put colours in the spaces indicated to recreate a painting. But you're not really making music and you don't really learn why one colour works better than another.

Only when you can hear its language can you really claim to make music and this is a good reason to make ear training a part of your study.

But as we all know, guitar practice time is limited, and adding ear training to our daily list of things to work on is not an easy commitment to make. Fortunately, there are many ways to develop your musical ear without your guitar. Here are a few ideas you could try.

Ear Training CDs

A good place to start on ear training is with a set of ear training CDs. These will offer you exercises to train your ear to recognize intervals, notes, chords, rhythms and so on.