Five Questions With String Teacher Brian Barnes

Brian Barnes, LessonFace Online Guitar, Mandolin, Banjo, and Ukulele Teacher

Raised on the smooth sounds of ‘60s rock, Brian Barnes has become a world-class teacher of just about anything that has strings on it. Barnes teaches the acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, mandolin, and ukulele. He started gigging at just 15 years old in his native Kentucky, and since then has roamed the country and the globe - from coast to coast and in 15 countries around the map. Interestingly enough, Barnes got his start learning music with a couple of “bad” teachers, and this influenced him to not simply worry about his own musical career, but about the art of teaching.

LessonFace: How did you first get introduced to your instruments, and what kind of music were you listening to at the time/growing up?

Brian Barnes: I grew up listening to early '60s rock & roll on 45s, and saw the Beatles on TV. It was easy to pretend to play guitar with a tennis racket, right? My older sister had a Goya nylon string guitar since the Folk Boom was happening. The guitar swamped me, but I took a few group lessons after school. I must've been in fourth grade, I suppose, 1968 or so. I remember clearly - I'd seen Glen Campbell on the Smothers Brothers show and wanted to do that. I was also into Motown, and thought playing guitar and singing would be the most fun thing in the world.

Turned out the teacher was really bad. Some high school kid with crappy mimeographed sheets of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” (attention, all you new learners - you've got it GOOD, people!). Guitar languished, I played some piano and kept singing. I liked all kinds of music - rock, blues, classical. I played the “White Album” to death, tried to figure out “Classical Gas” on the guitar, and constantly played my 45s of Herman's Hermits, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Monkeys.

I wanted to be a rock drummer, but also wanted to play percussion in a symphony. I got a drum for a gift, a single snare drum. Not a kit, a single snare drum. I wanted lessons, but after hearing the racket on that my folks signed me up for classical guitar instead! I learned some good technique, and my teacher was a great player. But, again, a bad teacher. He didn't want to teach a little kid guitar, he wanted to finish his music degree. These two bad teachers have stuck in my mind ever since. If I can be a different kind of teacher, and I think I am, then I've made a difference.

LF: Did you have any particularly influential mentors early on, or later as you progressed?

BB: Yes. I got more guitar lessons when I was 15. We'd moved and the store was right up the street. He was a great jazz guitarist and bass player, but would teach me whatever I wanted to learn. We did fingerstyle, and then I got into bluegrass so we started doing flatpicking. Great, great teacher. Later, when I got into playing jazz, I realized that another teacher at the store was one of the best jazz players in the world - Jimmy Raney. By the time I figured that out it was too late, he'd had a stroke and couldn't teach any more.

Anyway, I started playing out in a bluegrass band at the age of 15. These were bar gigs, not coffeehouse tips gigs. When the bartender figured out my age, he'd hit the roof. I'd have to stand outside on break! The bar crowd loved the band, so he couldn't fire me. I kept playing, and sometimes at bigger clubs the bartender didn't notice.

My brother played banjo, and we hooked up with lots of other great players and jammed all the time. I worked in some other bands in Louisville, Kentucky (my hometown), in Bloomington, Indiana, and then in Minneapolis. I toured all over, up to 15 foreign countries on my last count. I learned from all sorts of great folks, and played on stage with Minnie Pearl, Chet Atkins, Johnny Gimble, and more. I've been lucky!!!

LF: What got you interested in teaching online? How long have you been teaching?

BB: I've been teaching since the mid-'80s. I started out doing group lessons at festivals, then some weekend camps. I ended up teaching at music stores in 1991, and I’ve been teaching ever since. The online thing crossed my mind a number of years ago, and I tried to do some Skype lessons. The technology wasn't quite there, there was too much lag and the quality was poor. I started considering it again when a student of mine moved back to Germany and asked about doing Skype lessons. He needed to upgrade his computer, first. I'm still waiting! At about the same time I was contacted by LessonFace. The time and technology was finally right and I moved forward.

LF: If you had to recommend one video or performance for prospective students to check out in order to understand you and your style, what would it be?

BB: I wish that I could say there's a lot of video of me, but there isn't. I'm proud of my performing credits, but they didn't get recorded! It seems that for musicians like myself, we were more about making recordings and doing performances. Videos on YouTube were not the first thing to pop into my mind!! I have begun making and posting samples of my teaching under my own channel on YouTube. There are some other things I've created music for that are part of my channel, too.

Here’s Brian explaining how to improve your speed on the mandolin.

This video showcases some basic techniques for the banjo that look and sound great.

Lastly, Brian shows how to make your electric guitar “shimmer.”

LF: Can you tell us a bit about what's going on with any musical projects you're working on, and any latest news about them?

BB: Always lots going on! I teach and perform full time. My wife is a great musician, we work together. Also, she's a painter and illustrator, and works on books. Through her I got involved in writing, and then connected to some other authors. I've ended up creating music for a book trailer, a newer sort of publishing promo. The images were animated by a fellow from DreamWorks, so that was fun. I've started creating more of these short pieces, mainly for my wife's and my own work. I record the music, play the instruments I play (keyboard, banjo, mandolin, guitar, ukulele) and do the visuals. I’m trying to learn Adobe AfterEffects now in order to animate titles and visuals more.

Book trailers are a growing biz, but there's so much free music on the web I have to work to find authors interested in original music! I'm also developing a musical animated series for kids. My wife and I invented the character, she did basic design and I've been going to some old wise men from the animation industry for more development. I write the story lines and the music for it. That's taking a while, it's an industry I know very little about so I have a learning curve to claw my way up and over! All of these things will show up on my channel, so everyone is welcome to keep checking back there for new postings.

Have questions or comments for us or Brian? Tweet us @lessonface and Brian @briankeithbarne or join in on the discussion below.

Click here to book an online lesson with Brian or here to learn more about how LessonFace works. You can also check out our blog here to read more about LessonFace and our teachers.

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