Greek Guitar Power Festival @ Xalkida – February 7 @ at The Vocal Lab! 7 hours of seminars, tel: 2221 301008 – greekguitarpower@gmail.com
6 hours non-stop working on my BRAND new series of TOTALLY Cutting-edge online-guitar lessons! Tired but loving it! 
Greek Guitar Power Festival @ Xalkida – February 7 @ at The Vocal Lab! 7 hours tuition, tel: 2221 301008 – greekguitarpower@gmail.com
An amazing 2nd day for the 3rd Greek Guitar Power Festival!!! Photos to be uploaded soon – next festival February 7 @ Vocal Lab at Chalkida!
1st day of Greek Guitar Power Festival was GREAT!!! 40% more people than last year and FREE food & coffee by Mantzaros Conservatory!
3rd Athens Greek Guitar Power Festival starts in 2 hours!! Here’s the map!!!http://ping.fm/icHCE
Upcoming Greek Guitar Power Festival info!
http://ping.fm/7yIoW
Greek Guitar Power Festival – 16-17 January! Check out the detailed list of events!!! (Greek)
http://ping.fm/TFc2w
Latest interview – by metalcentre.com – Excellent questions, very knowledgeable reporter! http://ping.fm/RaS2F
Latest review of “Orbital Attempt” – this one by Metal Centre. Verdict: 10/10
http://ping.fm/xtMGC
working on 2 more interviews – one Web, one print- switching between Greek & English, making sure i don’t write EXACTLY the same things!
Free track “Progressive Minds” from CD “Orbital Attempt”
Merry Christmas to all!
As a very small token of appreciation for your support, here’s one of my absolute favorite tracks from my latest instrumental CD “”Orbital Attempt“
The track is called Progressive Minds, and is the (almost obligatory) suite of this CD – with a very healthy duration of 11.24”
In the last part of the track, the AMAZING Brett Garsed honored me by playing 2 excellent solos (you’ll figure out who plays what easily, he is the one that TOTALLY KICKS ASS!!!
I hope you enjoy the track and i wish everybody Happy Holidays!
Friendly,
Ioannis
How NOT to learn to play guitar…. Part 1
Being a full-time, professional guitar coach is an amazingly interesting and fulfilling job. It has been my dream to do that for a living since I was a little kid – I started teaching guitar at age 15.
Therefore, I decided to write a short series of mini-posts on the most usual mistakes people will do when learning to play guitar. These are mistake that will SERIOUSLY hinder your progress, and I suggest you find ways to avoid them at pretty much all costs…. So, in essence, this is something similar to FAQ – or rather an “F.M.” – Frequent mistakes. You literally CANNOT believe how many times I’ve heard these exact stories… so let’s see if I can help a little bit in “preventing” these from happening again…
Mistake #1: Waiting to get “good” before you start lessons
What usually happens:
Young kid finds out about me and my guitar coaching and wants to have private lessons with me. Even though he REALLY wants that a lot (which is the thing that is MOST important), he does not DARE to call/email/chat with me because he feels he is not GOOD enough on the instrument to have my attention…(which is not the case)
So he stays home practicing (mostly useless stuff) for THREE YEARS, before he feels “worthy” of my attention…meanwhile 3 years of what could have been QUALITY tuition and practice time is lost…plus now I have to undo 3 ADDITIONAL years of damage of all the bad habits, now much more deeply ingrained in his playing!
FAQuestion:
“But, Ioannis, don’t you screen your potential students for ability BEFORE you teach them”?
Answer:
“I do not screen for ability – it is MY responsibility to CREATE that ability. I DO screen for ATTITUDE. I want a student that will be motivated and willing to follow instructions“
What SHOULD happen:
- Don’t wait. If you have found out the teacher you want to study with, if you feel you can depend on that person and that you can trust him, contact him NOW. Not next week , Not tomorrow. NOW. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME – it is the ONLY non renewable resource in your life!
- Do not care about how “good” you are BEFORE you start your lessons. Are you going to a top teacher to GET GOOD? Or are you going there so that he can tell you how GOOD you ALREADY are? Honestly, if you were THAT good, people would already be talking about you all around. So, chances are, you are not THAT good – YET! Keep in mind – you are going to a teacher and PAYING him to help you GET good – NOT tell you how awesome you already are… So, care a lot about if he can help you GET good!
New instrumental song posted at my Myspace profile – “Weird Thing” featuring Kiko Loureiro of Angra!
http://ping.fm/8nEsB
Latest interview – this one is for Behind the Veil Webzine – click on my name on the right side! http://ping.fm/SLpMN
Greek Guitar POwer Festival @ Volos – 31st October & 1st November
at Rythmos Conservatory
http://ping.fm/pgjb3
My “Flamenco Live at Ioannina” CD was #1 seller for August 2009 in 3 DIFFERENT categories at Guitar9 – Flamenco, Acoustic & World! Happy!:-)
Summer 2009 travel review:
Paros, Milos, Spetses, Porto Cheli, Sifnos, Sparti, Iraklio…not bad, not bad at all!
My BRAND new Myspace is online! Check it out at http://ping.fm/oa4SS And let me know what you think!
My BRAND new Myspace is online! Check it out at
www.myspace.com/ioannisanastassakis
And let me know what you think!
Cool! My Flamenco CD is #1 at Flamenco charts (http://ping.fm/1cvjM) and my Electric CD is #1 at Progressive charts! (http://ping.fm/GEB23)
Hey! My CD “Orbital Attempt” is again #1 at Guitar9! Color me VERY happy! Life is good! http://ping.fm/DP7zQ
Latest Review of my 2009 CD “Orbital Attempt” -
check out http://ping.fm/xXMTW
Happy! My CD “Orbital Attempt” is #1 worldwide at the Progressive guitar charts of Guitar9!!! http://ping.fm/TVUYP
