Kelly Madsen - Guitar Lessons

12/25/2023

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

07/19/2023

06/04/2023

It was a pleasure to join chorus students from Pinewood Elementary School on mandolin for their performance of the English folk song, "The Fox," at the school's spring concert on Thursday. The kids' joyful voices and smiling faces were very heartwarming. 🦊🎶

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_(folk_song)

03/12/2023

Dream of Summer Day 2023 (a little late). ☀️🏖

Sharing Serenade To Summertime by the amazing Tommy Emmanuel and Richard Smith. Arrangement from the Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins album, "Me & Chet."

Another winter storm approaching this week. Have you been dreaming of summer too? 🌴

The arrangement for “Serenade to Summertime” that Tommy Emmanuel and Richard Smith play comes from the Jerry Reed & Chet Atkins album - Me & Chet. This song ...

02/26/2023

I am always surprised that many of my students have never heard the iconic song, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." Last week, on February 15, was the birthday of composer, Harold Arlen, who composed the classic (lyrics by E.Y. Harburg), along with many other well-known pieces for film and Broadway. Judy Garland sang the song as "Dorothy Gale" in the 1939 film, The Wizard Of Oz, for which it was written. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and was voted the number one song of the 20th century by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment For The Arts. Judy Garland's performance of the song was entered in the Library Of Congress National Recording Registry for its significance.

Another famous version was recorded in 1993 by Hawaiian musician, Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole (IZ). You can listen to this version, which features IZ's vocals and ukulele accompaniment, below. 🌈

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Arlen

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I

11/23/2022

Happy St. Cecilia’s Day to all musicians and music lovers! Here is “St. Cecilia’s Reel” written by Rounder Records mandolinist Lou Martin.

02/26/2022

This year, for Dream of Summer Day (the holiday I made up last year to cheer ourselves up with thoughts of beautiful weather and summer sights and sounds in the middle of winter), I’m sharing The Ventures’ version of the surf guitar instrumental, “Pipeline.” Enjoy and stay warm. 🙂☀️🌊🏖️🏝️

youtube.com/watch?v=s0z8S2ZjSmc

A great cover by the Ventures of Chantays' Pipeline. If you like it, buy it!

02/20/2022

Sharing a performance and some information about influential guitarist, singer, and songwriter, Elizabeth (“Libba”) Cotton in celebration of Black History Month. The North Carolina-born blues and folk musician amazingly taught herself to play a guitar strung for a right-handed player upside-down, since she was left-handed, creating her own unique style of fingerpicking in which she would play bass lines with her fingers and melody notes with her thumb. She began writing songs in her pre-teen years, including “Freight Train”, now a traditional music standard, in 1904 at age 11. Many years later, while working for musicologist Charles Seeger’s family after having mostly retired from playing guitar, she began making recordings and performing after the Seegers discovered her talent. Mike Seeger, a very important folk revival musician who documented many older influential traditional musicians, made reel-to-reel recordings of Elizabeth’s songs in the late 1950s, which were later released as the album, Elizabeth Cotton: Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar on Folkways Records. She also played concerts with Seeger and other artists associated with the folk revival of the 1960s. She wrote new songs, released more records, and performed for many years. In 1984, she received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Grammy for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1985. She passed away in June of 1987 while living in Syracuse, NY, at the age of 94. Below, Elizabeth Cotten performs “Freight Train”, demonstrating her own “Cotten Picking” style. 😊
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cotten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2DCWfBkMSI

Elizabeth Cotten performing her Freight Train classic in this historic footage from the University of Washington, courtesy of the Seattle Folklore Society.A ...

09/14/2021

To celebrate the 110th birthday of mandolinist, songwriter, and bandleader Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass on September 13th -- here is a great performance of "Kentucky Mandolin". It also features Kenny Baker on fiddle, Wayne Lewis on guitar, Butch Robins on banjo, and Mark Hembree on bass. 🎻🪕🎶

Recorded live in 1981Mandolin - Bill MonroeBanjo - Butch RobinsFiddle - Kenny BakerGuitar - Wayne LewisBass - Mark Hembree

05/11/2021

It was fun to play guitar and mandolin on a recording used in the final scene of the short film, Earth Day 2030, which was recently named Best Comedy Short at the inaugural Albany Film Festival, sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute. 🎬🎵

Earth Day 2030 is a mockumentary about small-town residents dealing with the effects of climate change in the year 2030. It doesn't go well, and the children's choir is left to deal with the mess.

02/26/2021

I think there should be a summer-themed holiday in the winter. People celebrate Christmas in July, so why not remind ourselves of beautiful weather and warm destinations to visit, especially in late February when we have grown very tired of the cold, ice, and snow. That is how I feel every year, anyway. Therefore, I’m calling today “Dream of Summer Day.” Feel free to join me if you like in sharing songs, pictures or anything else to encourage us all to think warm thoughts. Enjoy “Hawaii” performed by Ohta-San, video courtesy of ukulele island café.

12/24/2020

Also, here is music notation and chords for "Christmas Eve Song"