Mike O'Cull

    Guitar players often struggle with written musical notation. That is no secret. Traditional notation is difficult to apply for most players, especially past first position. This is because of the informal way that many players learn their instrument, a much different path than your average piano or violin student takes, and also because notation is based on keyboards and not stringed instruments and to apply it to a guitar or bass requires a lot of mental skill on the part of the reader. Sadly, many… Read more

The Secret Of Chord Building: Odd Numbers Rule!   By Mike O’Cull     I took a lot of guitar lessons when I was growing up. For most of my grade school and high school careers, I slugged it out with one teacher or another. I did learn from each person I studied with, but none of them could get me to where I wanted to be. They all skipped over vital information and made most of what was taught into incomprehensible gibberish. Later in life, I figured out some much-improved methods of teaching things like… Read more

I can’t seem to stop thinking about the idea of cultural authenticity as it applies to music. So much is made about being an authentic performer of certain styles, mostly in roots music but other places, too, that I have come to feel awkward about continuing to play these styles. I get the feeling from reading a lot of online discussions about this sort of thing that many people feel that you shouldn’t play certain types of music if you don’t come from where those styles come from. You have to posses a…Read more

Hey everyone! This is my new blog page, part of mikeocull.com, and is an experiment to see if this requires a stand-alone site or will work fine right here. Look for music, guitar lessons, videos, and all the rest of my craziness. Hope you enjoy!!!!!!!