Friends References and Resources Artist Sites Friends www.ovsiewnet.com/Everything_Ovsiew_Blog_Home/Everything_Ovsiew_Blog_Home.html is the home of the inimitable Jody Ovsiew. Jody and I have been friends forever. He mentions that I was playing tuba and he was playing drums when we met. He is partially correct... He was actually playing drums... I had no interest in tuba, and was more of a specialist in using the tuba mouthpiece to shoot spitballs.  www.sickguitar.com was created by a good friend Mark Funk. Mark created this site to give musicians a place to share information and learn. Mark has some interesting videos, a forum for discussion, MP3s as well as informative lessons.  http://www.stevedeckermusic.com/ is the home of Steven Decker. Steve and I go way back (to Elementary School). He is one of the most talented drummers that I know.   References and Resources http://www.guitar123.co.uk is a site dedicated to providing information to aid people who are planning on buying a guitar online. Based in the UK, this site contains articles and advice about buying online and general information about the different types of guitars that one might purchase based upon genre of music, and an engine for finding best pricing. www.cyberfret.com/ offers free online guitar lessons using audio and video. This site also features a tablature section and links to many guitar and music resources. www.wholenote.com/ is an online guitar community with a lot of useful information, lessons, online metronome, forums, online sequencer, auctions, etc. www.thegearpage.net/ is an online guitar community with very, lively forums. If you have a question, there is probably someone on the board with an answer. Some very knowledgeable people. ... www.tuckandpatti.com/pick-finger_tech.html Tuck Andress has put together a very comprehensive article on picking technique. It is a little dated, but very thorough. www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory1.htm created by the Dolmetsch family who have over 120 year history in the study of music. This particular link, from Dolmetsch Online contains a very  good tutorial on music theory. www.mastering1.com/mastering-recording-tips.html contains a very good introduction to mastering, EQing and the general recording process. ( really wish that I would have been available before I created my masters, which I recently converted to MP3, as once you have mastered to 2 tracks (left and right), you really don't have very much flexibility). www.audiomastermind.com/ is a collection of links related to music, recording, you name it. It is hard to describe. You will have to go there and see for yourself. www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/#Theory (Bob Keller's Jazz Page) contains many good links to useful Jazz resources. www.midiox.com/ MIDIOx and MIDIYoke are two very important MIDI utilities. MIDIOx diagnostic tool and a System Exclusive librarian, that can be used to map MIDI stream to specific output drivers, as well as some other important functions. MIDIYoke is kind of a virtual patch cable, allowing you to map the output of one program to the input of another, etc. cnx.org/content/m11643/latest/ The preceding link is on the theory of harmonic analysis, intervals, modulation, etc. www.harmony.org.uk/index.htm explains the role of chord progressions in tonal music. www.jguitar.com Jguitar is a collection of useful online utilities for guitar players, including, but not limited to, chord and scale calculators, etc. www.guitarweek.com belongs to an organization dedicated to teaching guitar. In addition to quite a few very good tutorials, there are also other learning/teaching aids (such as printable tab paper) as well as a lot of other goodies, such as itemized hyperlinks. www.musictheory.net is a site developed by Ricci Adams explaining theoretical concepts related to music. He has some very nice flash tutorials, which are even available for download to run on your local PC. www.digifreq.com is managed by Scott Garrigus, the author of the Power book series of books covering Sonar, Soundforge, etc. His site has a lot of good tips and useful www.oud.eclipse.co.uk/ contains a very interesting tutorial on Middle Eastern music.   Artist Sites  The following links are the sites of some of my favorite players. www.jasonbecker.com/ www.paulgilbert.com/ www.vinniemoore.com/ www.yngwie.org/ www.vai.com www.georgelynch.com/