A longtime musician and fan of music in many genres, I enjoy many American musical artists, including Ray Charles and Ray LaMontagne. I play rhythm guitar for worship events at the Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts. Last year I received an invitation to perform at a weekend retreat for high school students at Camp Berea in Hebron, New Hampshire. Playing songs by Christian recording artists Lincoln Brewster, Matt Redman, and Hillsong UNITED of Hillsong Church, I reinforced the retreat’s goal of engaging students with God and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Born in 1971, Lincoln Brewster inspires many younger Christians. He not only serves as a Pastor, but also as a highly respected multi-instrumentalist who gained a reputation over the past two decades for his excellent guitar recordings. As a child growing up in Homer, a seaside Alaskan town of 5,400 residents, Brewster played mandolin alongside his mother as cruise ship passengers disembarked. As a teen, Brewster moved to Modesto, California, and joined marching and jazz bands, playing guitar and the snare drum. An accomplished guitarist by the age of 19, Brewster received recording offers and promises of a lucrative career from producers in Los Angeles. Feeling empty inside, Brewster turned to God through the encouragement of a girlfriend. During the early 1990s, Brewster recorded music and toured with Steve Perry, former Lead Vocalist of the band Journey, before returning to Modesto and working with youth as a Worship Leader and Associate Music Director at the church he attended. In 1997, Brewster moved to Nashville, where he worked with veteran Christian musicians and broadened his expertise in music. Moving back to California in 2001, Brewster serves as Worship Arts Pastor for Bayside Church in Granite Bay, near Sacramento. I appreciate the upbeat energy of Brewster’s contemporary Christian sound, as do younger generations of believers who have made his music popular in recent years.
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A Massachusetts executive with a marketing and advertising background, Anthony Freddura works to deliver sustained business value for Epsilon’s SaaS platform. Anthony Freddura has a passion for music, and enjoys compositions from the perspective of a rhythm guitarist. A recent Boston Globe article drew attention to the book Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, which examines a seminal summer in which Van Morrison “hid out” from the New York music industry in Cambridge and honed a landmark sound that would define an era of blues- and country-tinged rock. Only 22 at the time, Morrison had achieved success with songs such as Brown Eyed Girl, but found himself entangled with a label that had ties to the underworld and was limiting his artistic potential. At a time when the “Bosstown Sound” was emerging, Van Morrison took up residence in Cambridge, playing small jazz clubs while refining a stripped-down acoustic sound that countered his previous R&B blues-rock incarnation. Stand-up bass and flute were present when Van Morrison premiered many of the songs that would be recorded for Astral Weeks a month later at the Catacombs, a Boylston Street basement club in Boston. Anthony Freddura serves as product owner and lead business systems analyst for Epsilon, an innovative global marketing firm based in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Beyond his obligations at the company, Anthony Freddura enjoys playing the guitar for worship at World Vision Grace Chapel. The following tips may help guitar players improve their skill: 1. Choose a practice focus. An efficient practice session involves a warm up, chord exercises, and focused work to address specific goals and strengthen personal weaknesses. Determine a particular skill you’d like to improve, and dedicate each practice to that skill until you achieve your goal. 2. Prioritize technique over speed. Before you can play fast, you need a solid grasp of the fundamentals of guitar playing. This means mastering technique, a thorough understanding of scales and chords, and the effort to put in the necessary time and dedication. Prioritizing technique over speed also can help improve accuracy for hitting the intended chords. 3. Learn something new daily. Learning new pieces of music tests your skills and provides the opportunity to incorporate new concepts into your muscle memory. You don’t need to commit to learning a full song: You can choose a melody, strum pattern, or even an individual riff, chord, or scale. 4. Learn intervals of the major scale. The building blocks for many chords and scales, the major scale consists of seven intervals. Understanding their structure allows guitarists to form extended chords, seventh chords, and triads through harmonization. 5. Practice chords every day. Learning the chords helps guide your fingers to the right spot each time you play a song. The more you practice chords, the easier your fingers can assume the correct position. Anthony Freddura serves as a product owner/lead business systems analyst for Epsilon, a marketing firm in Wakefield, Massachusetts. In his spare time, Anthony Freddura enjoys playing the guitar. Several factors go into the purchase of a guitar. Whether you are looking for an acoustic or electric model, go shopping when you have several hours free. First, settle on a price range, and then ask a salesperson to demonstrate a few models for you. Many will be glad to help, since often they are guitar players themselves. After you mention the kind of music you like, turn your back and listen to how each guitar sounds. (If you are auditioning an electric guitar, try using several amplifiers.) One clue to finding a good-sounding guitar is to pluck one of the strings without putting your finger on a fret. The string should ring. That is, it should sustain a note for several seconds. Watch out for buzzing strings. This problem has many causes, such as a string vibrating against a fret that you are not touching, and results in a host of noises not under your control. When you play each guitar, consider whether the angle of the frets feel comfortable and how the neck feels to your hand. Be sure to see if you can extend your fingers around each string and reach most of the frets. |
AuthorServing as an Information Systems Quality Analyst, Anthony Freddura held responsibility for testing and supporting a client/server transaction processing system. Archives
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