Guitar Aerobics: A 52-Week, One-lick-per-day Workout

Guitar Aerobics: A 52-Week, One-lick-per-day Workout If there s one thing certain about Troy Nelson a life long guitar player and author of top selling instructional books Guitar Aerobics Fretboard Freedom and Rhythm Guitar 365 it s that he knows how to keep busyBorn in the small town of Viroua Wisconsin population 4000Nelson picked up the guitar at the age 14 after months of begging his parents for an axe He tapped into his savings account for a Harmony electric a Fender Strat knockoff from the JC Penney catalogueFrom that moment forward Nelson would spend hours each day much to his buddies dismay woodshedding in his bedroom playing everything from Stevie Ray Vaughan and BB King to Dokken and Metallica My friends would come to our front door on the weekends to ask me to hang out and I d say no thanks and go back to my room to play guitar until dinner Then after dinner I d return to my room and play until my sister would bang on the wall to make me stop remembers Nelson When he wasn t playing guitar Nelson was the star uarterback of his high school football team Though he received letters to play football from several of the state universities Nelson chose music instead attending Milwaukee Area Technical College where he earned an Associate s Degree in Occupational MusicFollowing graduation Nelson spent several years as a freelance editor for Hal Leonard Corporation the world s largest music print publisher where he transcribed and edited many of the top guitar songs of the day In 1995 jumped at the chance to work on a new magazine Hal Leonard was launching Guitar One In 1999 Nelson moved with the magazine to New York City For a decade he worked tirelessly at the magazine holding the titles of Music Editor Senior Editor and finally Editor in Chief I m uite proud of what we accomplished at Guitar One What began as a start up evolved into the No 2 guitar title in the world when I left in 2005 remembers Nelson fondlyAfter a decade of success in the music business Nelson decided to pursue a career in his other love football After a stint in the media department of the New York Jets Nelson headed south to the University of Georgia where received a Bachelor s Degree in Sports Management in 2009 graduating with top honors summa cum laude While attending UGA Nelson somehow found time to write his first book Guitar Aerobics which has become a 1 bestseller with nearly 100000 copies sold to date As a guitarist I wanted to write a techniue book that would appeal to me that is a book that had a practical structure and music examples that didn t sound like warm up exercises I wanted to compose music examples that guitarists could incorporate into their own music while at the same time improving their chops says NelsonAfter UGA Nelson went on to work for several football entities including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the All American Football League Gardner Webb University and BLESTO a football scouting coop owned by seven NFL teams It was during his time at BLESTO that Nelson had another book idea The result was Fretboard Freedom a book Nelson authored after work and on the weekends Fretboard Freedom is a novel approach to visualizing and navigating the neck of the guitar a concept that initially struck Nelson while he wrote Guitar Aerobics back in 2007 Although life as a football scout was difficult to put on hold music eventually pulled Nelson back into its clutches He took a breather from other career pursuits and spent the better portion of 2012 authoring Rhythm Guitar 365 Hal Leonardthe follow up to Guitar Aerobics and Fretboard Freedom Like my other books Rhythm Guitar 365 contains daily music exercises one for every day of the year with this book focusing on rhythm guitar playing which doesn t get nearly the attention that lead playing does says Nelson of his latest titleNelson released his latest title Modern Lead Guitar direct toin January of 2017 Modern Lead Guitar will teach you everything you need to know to solo over chord changesNelson currently lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife and twin daughtersTitles Guitar Aerobics 2007 Fretboard Freedom 2013 Rhythm Guitar 365 2014 One Man Guitar Jam 2014 Modern Lead Guitar 2017