The pilot course is made up of 6 different subjects:

1) Accompaniment on the guitar (that is based on my most popular book so far)
2) Guitar in School (that will introduce my new method for schools)
3) Didactics (two good specialists will teach the contemporary instrumental didactics)
4) Arranging and guitar ensembles (how to lead guitar ensembles)
5) Private lessons
6) Online lessons

We will start in October 22 and finish in March 2013. The program includes lots of practical tasks and the music teachers will become quite a good players themselves. Interesting times ahead! And many new materials and books coming out soon!

The project is for Estonian teachers so the project website is in Estonian: www.koolikitarr.ee

Kristo after finishing the marathon

Once in a while I need a break from playing the guitar. This year I have discovered two possible things to do besides playing music. In July I got my first experiences as an alpinist. I spent a few weeks in altitudes higher than 3500 m and the peak was about 5000 m so I improved my oxygen consumption quite a bit.

Then I got an invitation to take part in a marathon race. It is hard to say no if the marathon passes your own windows. So I did some more practise and finally yestarday I completed my first marathon – SEB Tallinn Marathon 2011. Time was 3:33 and it gave me overall rank No 305 (1500 participants).

So now it is hard to walk and I can get back to my guitar

Kristo Käo and Viljar Kuusk in the workshop June 2011

Just came back from the academy and brought my brand new guitar. My luthier Viljar Kuusk completed it last week but still kept it for polishing. Now I said it’s enough because I have to play tomorrow and the day after. He can continue polishing some other time

The guitar is special in many ways but I am happy that once again I have the small body and spruce top. Compared to my previous cedar top (also by Viljar) the new instrument doesn’t sound small at all. The main new feature is the detachable neck. I will get a special suitcase done and the measures will fit exactly to the common 55x45x20 hand luggage compartment. That is what I need! The funny headstock also saves a couple of centimetres.

I will take the neck off some other day to make pictures and to find out how it works but now I need a few hours to get used to the sound and action before my concert tomorrow.

But there is also another aspect which is much less acknowledged: a beginner self-learner may grab the first rung, but at the beginning he or she needs constant reassurance that they are climbing up the right ladder.

While the standard textbook format enables information to move in only one direction, then while studying according to the Guitar School textbook, the information moves several times from the learner to the teacher and vice versa.

The Guitar School has developed its learning system for 9 years, with the result being a progressive system planned down to the last detail. The levels are not equal, but have been laid down by keeping a quick start and effective progress in mind. Even the best possible methodology does not replace human interaction and thus this textbook includes an Internet environment enabling the student to receive feedback.

Close to 9500 people between the ages of 12–75 take part in the program, and the experiences gained so far have shown that such a model works and yields the desired results.

Read more!

You can get a picture about how this system works from here: See the flyer

Kristo Käo during a recording session 2010

Even to the greatest fan of acoustic music the situation may be familiar: you need to play with your precious instrument in front of a slightly bigger (or just noisy) audience. Often you depend on the local sound engineer who sticks an average condenser mic in front of you. Lucky you if you know something about positioning the mic. The rest, including feedback issues, is controled by someone else.

Some of us have the solution built in our guitar: a piezo or a combination of mic and piezo. I used to play like that for a few years and barely turned the mic into the mix more than 25%. Of course, the piezo was not anything you can buy from a music shop, it was Zubkov’s electret. But as my luthier was finishing my new guitar we both understood that this is going to be an extraordinary good instrument so we decided not to cut holes into the guitar. Not to mention the batteries, jack inputs, preamps and cables in it.

The guitar turned out to be very good indeed. In fact, it has a very special feature but this I will discuss in another place. No matter how good a classical guitar is, I cannot beat dancers, percussion and nature noise (if playing open air). But before I even started seriously to think about the possible solutions, Mr. Zubkov came by and said he’s got something that never existed before. And now this has become reality: exceptional sound, no feedback, small, convinient, detachable, easy to mount..

Stay tuned, we will share more information soon!

Kristo Käo,
Aug 2011

Which one suits your guitar best?

Unlike pianists, we, the guitarists have to carry our instrument from place to place every day. Some of us carry it to school, some to band gigs, some to recitals etc. We transport the guitars on our shoulders, in cars, on planes, trains and ships. Not to mention the bikes and bicycles. Who knows how much the instruments suffer from that but we do our best to protect them on the go. How to ensure that your guitar arrives safely?

There are different gig bags and cases for the guitars. Which one is the best? It depends on the temperature, humidity and stability of the environment. A 2000.- EUR carbon case is an overkill if you just walk to your destination on a sunny summerday. On the other hand it may be the only way to keep your guitar safe on an aeroplane.

If I walk from my office to the academy of music to give a couple of lessons, then I take a light gig bag with me. If I have to pack a lot of stuff to my car, then I will take a strong case with aluminium construction. If I have to travel by plane, I take the smallest case that I have to make sure that it fits to the cabin luggage compartment. Recently I found out that although my case fits well to Boeings, it is about 1 cm to wide for the small Fokkers. To put my guitar down? Just did that with a cheap guitar and it came through 6 flights safe and even clean. But better don’t count on that.

To fight the eternal flight problem my luthier just started to build me a classical guitar with bolt-on neck. It will fit to a 55x45x20 cm luggage compartment. But what about the sound? Let’s see, it is another topic.. By the way, one funny thing that I have noticed is that if I carry a black guitar case then I will be most likely banned from taking my guitar to the cabin with me. Recently I’ve traveled with a blue case and with much more success. I think it has to do with the movies by Rodriguez…

How do you transport your guitars and do you have any tricks or tips to share?

So we were in India with our band and although for some of us it was a kite-surf trip, we managed to play a few concerts and join some jam sessions. Not to mention playing guitars on the beach or at the bars. Sure thing is that many of the Indians saw the guitar for the first time. On the other hand, for me it was a chance to get to know the Indian sitar a bit. Previously I had just played the Persian sitar that is much different.

Besides playing we saw a lot of other performers and one of the evenings we spent listening to Prem Joshua that left quite a positive impression although they often play music that is not exactly their ‘mother tongue’.

Driving to concerts and back was done with bikes, very practical. Just a few pics from this trip and back to work teaching and playing the guitar in Europe. Btw, to blend in with locals we even cut a special moustache. But instead of ‘blending’ we were laughed at and people pointed us to others. See and laugh

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