Musicians Dojo

At this point, I don’t have any special number of readers here. But to those of you who do read my entries, I want you to know a little more about me. There’s not a lot mentioned on the Author page, but what is mentioned is still very important in summary. Now, outside of what my perception is of being a musician, I figured it’s only fair to let you know a bit more about the person your subscribing to.

Know the Name

My full name is George Ethan Marrs. My family calls me by my first name, friends call me by my middle. I usually tend to use my middle name over some of the places on the web. I’ve never gone by my first here, though. The interesting thing is that I’ve been considering it lately. With a blog that I have pretty serious ambitions for, it’s only necessary. So for a new clean record, call me George.

A Taste of Irony

You’ve noticed that I write with some pretty intuitive information about being a musician. Sometimes it might seem to some of you like I’ve seriously been places and brought up some solid weight under my time. But here’s what you probably don’t know.

I’ve only ever been in one official band since the day I began playing guitar. We were called The Unfortunate. It was very short-lived, only a few months. It was 2003. We played one gig at a coffee shop and soon after, we split up due to calls from other parts of our lives.

I’ve taught guitar to friends and some family since ‘95. Most of my tutoring was free, just to have something to do and gain some reputation. I’ve rarely been paid to teach. However, that is something I’m currently changing due to needs and plans. Either way, the people I have taught have all complimented me saying I was the only one who could explain most of the lessons with language they could understand and really work with. It was obvious I had a calling not only in playing, but in teaching (and I can’t verbalize how much I enjoyed it).

Right now, where I currently live, I don’t own any fancy equipment. I don’t even have an amplifier on hand. I have one esp ec-50, and a Martin acoustic. I have a couple amps at a relatives house across the country right now, and I’m in the process of rebuilding a satisfactory computer system for home-recording.

I’ve owned 9 guitars since my first day in 1991, a black and white Harmony electric, a generic classical, a Jackson Charvelle electric, a Jackson Kelly JK-20 pro, a B. C. Rich Warlock, a Mako electric, a Fender Stagemaster electric, and now this Martin acoustic and ESP EC-50. I have owned only 3 amps to myself including a Crate travel amp, a Kustom digital combo, and a Kustom half-stack system. I have owned no drums or basses of my own. I have played them plenty though throughout the last half of my time as a musician.

So why exactly am I blogging like this when I have such inexperience?

The Beauty of Dynamic

The truth is, I’m not blogging under some image that I already know all the ins and outs of being a musician. I’ve never stepped foot into a studio. I’ve never been on stage in front of more than 100 people. I’ve never recorded an official demo tape of any kind. I’ve lived a very minimal life when it comes to being a musician. On top of that, life throws many things at you that simply make it very difficult to jump on these kinds of bandwagons. But that doesn’t mean I never will.

I don’t like the idea of blogging as an aged expert, even if I were one. The reason I am blogging here is to share what I have experienced and learned, am experiencing and learning right now, and what I will be experiencing and learning as time passes. I want to invite you along this ride and share everything as it’s coming. In this way, I like to think that I’m giving this blog more of a real life, one that is breathing and growing. It’s much more dynamic in this way, no?

Personal Development for Musicians

When I began this blog, I was at a time in my life that had called me to rediscover various aspects of myself. I started what was to be a project that would last the rest of my life – personal development. After successfully finding meaningful results from this calling, I had a longing to share my new-found views in some way. Then somebody coined a term toward my blog saying its like “personal development for musicians” That sparked an idea as to how my blog can differ from the usual musician blog. Instead of posting technical tutorials for guitar techniques and the such, I wanted to touch on a much different, much more important level of it all. After hearing the term “personal development for musicians”, it just made sense, and so you have “Musicians Dojo”, dedicated to teaching not guitar method, or drumming method, or how to have the ultimate studio setup, but a world of how to prepare and optimize yourself personally for being the best musician you can be.

So there you have it.

I do want to be strait here about all of this though. If you believe that my inexperience means you can’t confide in what I write about here, or that you’ll already know the majority of what I’m currently writing, then that’s just fine. There are plenty of other blogs out there that are already full of experienced information. But only this blog can give you more than just static information. It can give you a living, breathing dynamic example of growing as a musician and as a person in general.

Are you down?