good morning welcome to change is the program on sustainability i'm suzanne gregory the cording and producer of the show and today's show is going to be hosted by some and tore no from the port theatre good morning simon good morning suzanne and you have some guests in the studio as well as something coming up that you are going to be talking about yasser before i introduce our guests i like to just let everybody know about our upcoming show at the poor theater it's international guitar night it's this saturday at seven thirty pm and this is the premier of guitar tour that brian gore founded in one thousand nine hundred ninety five it's some of the world guitarists and composers that play original songs and share musical ideas with their peers they'll do solos but they'll also work together in a court tete and it really shows the beautiful acoustics that the port theatre possesses it's a gorgeous show and we will be giving away a pair of tickets for the show this saturday also if you come early at six forty five you get to take part in the pre show chat and meet with all the musicians and it's a great introduction into the world of guitar playing acoustic guitar playing lovely yes so we do have a track from one of the musicians  phone for those tickets that were giving away is two five zero seven four zero one zero one seven so give us a call during the show if you can and we will see that you  tickets great thank you suzanne so moving from international to our local music scene today we're joined by two local musician who also have a passion for the guitar and may correct in saying that if a passion in playing the guitar and we're twenty years ago and since i've been here i taught at the university for years voice for the speech it was just singing class and partial acting class at the same time if i want to back up a little bit i've been musician all my life i've never had a real job as they say and played everything from rock n roll to blues and then when i was thirty went back to university and studied music and took the classical program and majored in piano so i played guitar all my life but i bow down to the guy that sitting beside me right here because i consider piano to be my your main and my main instrument then a guitar is just a lovely thing that i love to play and i do teach both instruments but on a moderate level i don't pretend to be anything like anything that's going on at the port theatre on saturday night for instance but i'd sure my ear it's you know yes yeah thanks  bit of background on you i moved in and i'm all right after high school and i did the jobs program so i think it's like a third graduating class and i play in town and i play guitar and also play pedal steel and do a few different things in a few different bands and that's about my background and your background yeah back a great thank you so i'll put this question out to both of you what is it about the guitar of all of all the instruments out there what is it that draws you to the guitar whether it's playing it or listening to it for me i just love how warm and response of the guitar is you know this tool total freedom of expression that you can get from manipulating the strings whether it's bending them or how you hold them more and there's this real connection i find with a guitar which is that for you about the guitar for me i think guitar is so appealing because you can kind of play any kind of music you want on  guitar it's not really limited by styles you know everywhere in the world there's guitars or instruments that are similar and so it seems kind of i don't know there's no boundaries on it for me that's what appeals to me you know there's this real sense of freedom of where you can go with that yeah i mean it's it's only kind of eliminated like what's in between your your ears you know and what about listening to the guitar what do you like about when you're when you're listening to guitarists what do you listening for what inspires you i think i really like i respond to melody and i like that guitar can really be quite vocal even though it's not i suppose it's kind of like a percussive instrument because you're hitting the strings like a piano is a producer instrument but i've always really i've always really liked that guitars can really sound like the voice by certain people yeah you know for example someone that does that derek trucks ok you know people that place slimey just slide guitar and roll sounds really vocal and i thought another for another favorite guitar player mind john scofield and i don't know if everybody would think this but when i hear him play it like it sounds really vocal to me yeah yeah i would agree that he's saying i don't know what it's interesting when you develop a passion for an instrument and yet i don't even think you question why you're there you just know when you won't leave it alone you know just just love playing it all the time there is a real warmth and flexibility to it's a very very very interesting and very old instrument and you can do so much on it and it's unlimited because you can just keep on changing the tunings the different style it's all girl on you tube the other day you seem to had never seen not before and just in the last three or four years with you tube i think it's made quite a difference you seen people do things that you never thought were possible on on a guitar on acoustic guitar electric guitar whatever  just going to another to another class at school or something like that and i had a great teacher but i just i was too young perhaps i don't want it was and then i discovered the guitar through my mother who in the thirty's had an all girls band playing hawaiian music with dope rose and there is i have some recordings of her doing that but she used to play for me and it was just magical listening to all this steel guitar door and hearing the sounds in every room seen or heard one before time so that drew me towards i used to pretend i was elvis presley you know i'd play road and put a strap on it and play it like you know you're not supposed to play yeah yeah shot anyway a lot of the string instruments have similar ancestry but their roots in where they started and where they came from what part of the world and hots and stuff is is quite radically different but there's been so much interplay hauling nation i guess you could say that it's hard for i think musicologist and people like that touch even trace it but i think you can go back an awful long way with string instruments actually trace histories of almost anything that you're looking for through the language and send script which was developed i think in mid asia and india they have a was three states and they had things like a sitar actually came from that same background at the same time so the guitar probably came from slightly different routes but it was borrowed the tar extreme right guitar but still was called the guitar so they often think that the lute is a ball of the same path but there was a fellow did a lot of research in the sixty's on that and he disagreed with that totally because he said similar ancestry but the development of it and where it came from was so different from where the roots of the guitar kaypro but very interesting very interesting that stringed instruments boy i mean probably ancient yeah maybe go back to the caves and their pluck in something you know did you want to add to that or like i said i think i think you knew where more than i could have answered that question  good answer that was in depth yeah you know it's interesting i think if the history of these instruments and how they view fall like you said from a four string to a six string what's the difference in that sound for string to this extreme guitar is there a difference in the sound or the tone i think you're probably just depends on like the body that the shape of what's being resonated that's true yeah yeah because like there's there's a tenor guitars which you've got four strings but a ukulele has got four strings as well but they're totally different sound just because of the size and  and violin and all that would all come from a different heritage different background frets you know the body with the curved shape to it and the curved shape is there for the acoustic qualities it's not because it looks pretty  am checking it out but i don't see a number of strings of the type that you play of course it has a second set of strings that are sympathetic yes right but yes it does say here that the name comes from a persian instrument called the setar meaning three string there you go there a guy who although i'm testing well i'm trying to see how many tuning pegs when you look really look at her you can see the similarity in her in or her facial yet used to go back to the guitar moving from the satori to the guitar or to tyranny to music in general i mean can you either of you or else they'll throw it out to both of you was that pivotal moment or was there when you were like yes this is the path i'm going to go down i'm going to be a musician it was it just natural you were just doing it this always is what you wanted to do what was that moment i mean it's not an easy it's not an easy path to be an artist you don't do it for the money you do it for the passion you do for the love where what was that moment for you at all for me if there was really a moment as this just kind of just it's just kind of has been happening and continues to unfold i mean my earliest memory is is being outside a barbecue or something i think my mom's boyfriend at the time just playing guitar with with friends and maybe his son was playing too and they were you know singing and playing tunes and i was like wow this is really awesome and my brother had an electric guitar which i kind of took from him for a little while and got into it and it just has been unfolding so there was really a definite moment for me yeah it's just a passion you're driven yeah and just happens i guess yeah i think the same for me i don't think there is a defining moment i remember doing dishes with my mother when i was going to thirteen or something like that and she asked me what i wanted to do in a grew up and i told her i don't know but whatever it is that has to have something to do with music and i can remember sane thinking that i was raised to rejoin and i don't think at that time kind of a harsh thing to say but i don't think there was one professional musician in regina at that time a professional musician someone taught the university you know nobody made their living from making music there was bands but they all had day jobs right in the play weekends you know so for my poor mom and dad that was not an answer you know because there was no in there is no viable way that that would be a living to be able to do it from where you were where you were living at home where i was living the time i was advised in new york or something like that it would be really i don't care but you going to have to work hard or something like that for them it was just an impossibility you know so so no it just was there i don't know where it came from and how much i loved it you know it's hard to see and it's interesting that like opportunities start to present themselves when you're you're doing something that you have that passion for it just starts to move you in that direction would you agree with that you know i think so too you're looking for direction you know you're looking for opportunities you want to play and you want to play for people yeah so you'll take any opportunity there there is no fun playing music in your bedroom alone or something like that you know even you know that yeah you're a photostat yeah you played for many years yeah so you need to play with people yeah so you're you're in fact i remember going through that road many of my friends were not decisions and there was something wrong in my life because they didn't have any passion or understand you know or drive about music and all their ideas was good to be that maybe seventeen or eighteen or of there but then slowly started to evolve looking for more people that were playing and then it was shortly after that i started to realize that most of my friends now are were guitar players or bass players or singers or my first girlfriend when i was a little guy was a girl that she had had a hit record and she she dropped me because she can't make him famous so i wasn't famous anymore that ha i'm back i guess i'll play with you you know want to make any mistakes when you start playing music when you start playing an instrument you had i think it would have been like summer between grade nine and grade ten and at that time i think i was into skateboarding and then like i said i my little brother got an electric guitar just a real cheap one know oh wow you know any any other instrument you played prior to the guitar that was your first instrument that was my first instrument yeah i mean my first you know what my first musical memory i think i was i was really young probably like six and i can remember playing somebody not so that's very early i guess i would have been eight yeah i don't want to take for a year and then i'd tell mum i didn't want to do it anymore so she would say that's fun and  understand the difference between what i was enjoying to he knew what the things she thought was i should be doing i did that three times less since quitting less is good but not going to go to near the piano and that's when a friend of mine was playing guitar and taking guitar and he would go over and plays guitar and ok mum's old don't roll and i didn't know how to tune and i was jamming with them trying to find notes that worked and stuff like that so that would have been twelve orchestras i mean it's an orchestra there's so many people playing guitar was it was it loud enough so i think it's a couple of russian guys or polish guys they they came up with a system of making the guitar louder by sticking kind of like a steel speaker cone type thing in it and yeah because you're playing and all of a sudden the guitars loud enough to be heard over everything else and instead of playing it traditionally like a guitar which we like on your lap with strains i guess facing away from you play it facing up towards the skies and die you play with a slide the action is a lot  come over and make some music yeah well i have to do a pros and my mom in when she had her band go and her twin sister was also in the band and they would have been in their twenty's and this would guitar and stuff like that and ironically they played on c casey curio every saturday night that was in the thirty's i come along this is now in the sixty's you know so it's quite quite neat but yeah you have tune like a regular guitar and i lowered the strings and that's fun to play to get a whole different sounds very metallic sound ok so it was pretty electric guitars right they started making them i think in scotty mcleod did some research on it and it looks like it's one of the first ones it's patent pending so it's probably made in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine or something like that they bought it from con music are it's already oh it's out but i haven't really released it so to speak to the world ok so before we get into station break why don't we play a song off duncan's cd and the song is under the umbrella tree pen that was under the umbrella tree played by duncan simmons who is with us in the studio today it's from his new album duncan simmons trio so lovely what we're going to do now is just remind our listeners that you're listening to c h l i want to one point seven f m your campus and community station based in downtown and imo but heard wherever there's an internet connection at c h l why dot ca where we stream live and podcast will mention just a few events this week's free science lecture vi you is called the good the bad and the ugly past exploitation and current status of marine mammals in b c with dr john ford from the pacific biological station that's going to happen tomorrow evening january fourteenth seven p building three ten that's the theater at vi you the next evening acer which is the student faculty group that's short for awareness of climate change through education  research there at vi you as well and they would like to invite you to their free public lecture by robert shirky founder of the environmental not for profit group our horizon this will be thursday january fifteenth at seven pm this time in building three fifty five room two zero three that's the arts and humanities building at the i you on the campus and he's going to talk about climate change warning labels on gas pumps can a simple sticker help us act on climate change and they've got some interesting ones on the our horizon website which you can have a look at triple w dot our horizon dot org the city of n n i culture and heritage department will be holding to him mation sessions for cultural grant applicants on wednesday january twenty first next week in the port theatres her mac r sessions will be at two pm and at six pm that day the sessions will each be about two hours long and will cover changes to the city's cultural grant funding programs for two thousand and sixteen those in particular are cultural operating grants and events and festivals grants for which the applications will need to be submitted later this year everyone is welcome to these information sessions but r s v p is will be appreciated you can either even mail culture and heritage and imo dot ca and the end is spelled out or call two five zero seven five five four four eight three and finally what we're talking about today on the show international guitar night at the port theatre this saturday january seventeenth at seven thirty pm the founder brian gore invites a new cast of guitar luminaries diego and andrew york for a special evening of solos duets and quartets that highlight the brilliance and diversity within the world of acoustic guitar and we have given away the two tickets that we mentioned earlier and i hope but the people will enjoy that otherwise tickets are available of course at the port theatre box office the program that you are listening to is changes and today guest hosts the mouth of the tour no is exploring the beauty and innovation of is the title and where can people get your cd online right now it's on cd baby and amazon and i tunes and real shortly it's going to be in local stores like fascinating rhythm off of me personally always and the track that we just listen to the title of the song again is under the umbrella treat and how would you describe your style of music it's acoustic instrumental music i guess to me it always sounds like it could be to those sounds a bit cinematic to me and i don't mean for it to sound that way but when i listen back it always sounds like it should be accompanying the scenes any movie scenes that come to your mind as you're playing one of the songs off the cd i was inspired by watching kong flu hostle actually i don't know if you guys have seen that i've never seen it conquer movie but it's kind of a lot of tongue in cheek stuff ok and there's this one scene where a couple of the bad guys are these two blind musicians and they're playing like a koto or something or something akin to that and whenever they straw men it kind of sends off these sound waves that cuts people out half and that's what and they're saying but they're playing all th i just checked but i won't say well there i saw that or not and thank you you teach as well and perform and so talk a little bit about what you do for teaching oh ok prior to coming i done very little teaching and i had been so busy with my career as a musician i guess i didn't really have time or the urge to do it i was very cooper for twenty seven years writing film scores and doing musical theater and that pretty much kept me busy and i came over here it was a risk because now i'm leaving the big city that's roll my contact yeah i know that risk i did the same thing i look back over and came to me and i was so it's a big shift  shift yeah yeah and i just i really talked to a lot of artist before doing it and i asked does that work you know do people forget you're not but everyone spoke well of coming here and there's a lot of artists that who live here and other islands too that want to live here because it's inspiring so i'd lived here for a couple years and then i started thinking oh maybe i got to do something to keep the mortgage payment going so i better do some teaching so i started teaching one day a week which turned into two days a week which turned into three four and five he said no i have twenty five private students five students a day in a waiting list and  teaching piano guitar a little bit bass if somebody wants to theory arranging orchestration for this and you and not many are interested in that and vocals as well and vocal coaching yeah yeah i don't consider myself a great singer but for the years i've produced a lot of artists and you're in the studio and you're working with the artists and see the producers doing everything they can to assist and bring out the best performance they can and i had a real passion again for her singing for what makes a singer and so i was in university everson choir and i started my own choir and hippie choir in arrangements ray people could bring arrangements you know and it was so hard because everybody was so political that no matter what we sang nobody would agree on i think the only song that was really really successful was the thing by the swingle singers it was a consensus choir so but what happened when i started teaching boy it's just brought something new alive in me and and medium particularly young people that really had this passion  duncan was talking about too and he has and he was in grade nine ten even of wanting to play want to perform a lot of girls young girls who are good little singers in the they just want to be able to develop that but they have no place to go and and demonstrate that or to be bad even you know and so i think the more i got into it a more i started arranging workshops so they could come for a week long workshops through in the summer and we would honk and band behind them and they're only twelve years old or they're fifteen or they're seventeen a wonderful way to build the confidence of a young singer well that's what it just comes down to the more you realize that nicole rhodes is a very good friend of mine you see teaching is not so much about music as building better people because i like it's not nice that's really not yeah and when you think about that what you're doing is you're teaching them how to think outside of the box but the same time you can give it's what you can get if you're giving that to people and allowing them to interpret and feel what they want and walk away with an experience yes yes yeah and that you see it on their faces the all the first timers right they've never actually sung in public before and they're just scared the living daylights but in the teaching if you can get a really nice foundation going even if they're nervous they will do a really good job they won't fall apart if there's no foundation and you just tell them to go do it won't very good you know about you know vironment that we do it in is that if i have ten students that are all perform you know that thing they have all learned to be supportive of each other so they go on to that  and yeah did all or lady in the it's just amazing man but joy and i she was twenty four when i first met her and that was in musical theatre then we started writing together and then we started putting con together and played all over the world and on this track you're playing guitar well this is a song called passy on it was originally written for a shakespeare play that was performed here in the play ok the teaming of the  and it was set in mexico and so we wrote the songs you all wrote the song she speaks five languages so it's written in old spanish and i'm playing acoustic guitar and then there's i wrote he languages french sings in five languages but her first one was french and she created a show quite a few years ago which we toured all over the place a horror north american anyway and this played a lot and she's going and nicole roach is writing all the arrangements she stole my job away from me but i willingly did you get a teacher yeah i don't well i don't know about it but i just i'm just so happy and delighted that he's doing it and he's able to do it  allows me to overlook some of his arrangements stuff like that which i richard you're enjoying doing too but but he's doing work and but often not right now get it all together but it's going to be a night to remember and i think there's two shows they were going to  do an evening show and then last i heard there was only two hundred tickets left so they've no added many because that's just great tonight p f perfect thank you so the question i have here i mean i've been playing athlete for a long time since i was nine and i still take lessons because i always feel there's something i need to improve on so as professional musicians yourself what would you say there's within your playing something that you keep striving or working on are you willing to admit that melody and technique can tie in my ear my ear especially the ear is really important yeah yeah  actually you know i think that's what holds me back the most so i feel like i've got more technique than might your ball out it's like i want to be able to hear more because if i can hear more than i can play it as opposed to right now it's like i'm playing and i'm limited because i don't know what to play next if that makes sense yeah yeah improvising when i'm improvising yeah yeah you know the air is really crucial and it's something i'm always working on myself as well doug something you're always working on someone said it takes three lifetimes to learn everything there is to know about music you know i would agree it's so layered and complex and the more you dive into it the more there is to learn and that's the excitement of it but also you're just always trying to learn more when i went to university that hit me was that i mentioned earlier and i was thirty and i just didn't play rock'n'roll bit of jazz and blues and stuff like that and i went there with my  oh no you don't have first week i have it's like a big slap in the face i realized i absolutely knew nothing about music you know so i knew twelve bar but that was you know but and that was so rich in june rejuvenating you know to go into that and i don't why i signed up for the class when i should have done the jazz program i have no idea but it turned out really good idea like you know to be able to have a pretty good understanding of reading orchestral music and stuff like yeah exactly so like going down that's a really tough questions you know i think the best answer for that is there i have no favorites because there's just too much you realize that everybody has their own voice and their own take on whatever style they're playing it makes it even harder to pick a favorite because everybody has got something that's appealing you know totally and i'm sure after s four more on you'll have far more favorite a very good segue yes this saturday night doug will have former favorites for international guitar night at seven thirty pm at the port theatre brian gore the founder of international guitar nights been doing this since nineteen ninety five and he is a huge fan of the port theatre he calls it his second home and he really loves coming here to play so it's a great show to check out tickets are still available and you can get them at the port theatre box office i want to thank much yes thinks duncan simmons and doug dives and samantha latour no for bringing them in today so maybe you could just mention the port theatre website for theater dot com yes ok the box  office is where you would find tickets to international guitar and i on saturday at seven thirty and that's our show changes is heard every tuesday morning at eleven here on c h l y check us out on facebook on behalf of our production team thanks so much for joining us