The Guitar Journal

Jesse Paliotto (00:08)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Guitar Journal, a podcast where we love talking about making music, particularly through the lens of fingerstyle and jazz guitar. And I am your host, Jesse Paliotto. I love bringing the best of the music community to you here on the Guitar Journal podcast. I'm really excited because today I have with us Sean McGowan. ⁓ Sean epitomizes fingerstyle and jazz guitar.

⁓ He's an incredible player right at that intersection of jazz sophistication and really brilliant playing style known for his inventive solo guitar arrangements from Thelonious Monk covers or interpretations rather to straight ahead American Standard. I loved Portmanteau, if I can say the word correctly, Portmanteau, your most recent album, like such a great album. He's been featured on covers of Jazz Guitar Today, Fingerstyle 360, a bunch of stuff, performed at festivals around the world.

Sean McGowan (00:48)
Thank you.

Jesse Paliotto (00:55)
taught alongside icons like Alex Degrassi, Frank Vignola, and also a long time educator currently serving as professor of music at ⁓ the University of Colorado, Denver. ⁓ And then what we're going to talk about hopefully today a little bit is he's got an upcoming book coming out, The Holistic Guitarist, which explores wellness and longevity for musicians. So Sean, so honored to have you here today. Thanks for being on the podcast, man. Really appreciate it.

Sean McGowan (01:21)
Oh, of course. Thank you so much, Jesse, for reaching out. I'm really stoked and honored to be on your show. So thank you.

Jesse Paliotto (01:27)
Yeah,

right on. you know, not to, I'll pose this question. Feel free to go as deep as you want. I'm curious, like, how you got into fingerstyle jazz. It's a fairly specific niche in the music world. Like, how did you fall in love with that and say, like, yes, that's where I'm going deep with this music passionately.

Sean McGowan (01:43)
Yeah, sure. So I think probably like most people, definitely most people of my generation, ⁓ I got into, well, I was always into music for as long as I can remember. And I got into guitar specifically in the 80s through rock and blues rock and pop. And just, there was a lot of great guitar music ⁓ on the radio in those days and then MTV and all of that. that's how, that's what brought me to guitar. And then later on kind of, you know, the shred stuff that was happening with heavier styles and that virtuosity, which kind of led

me into fusion, ⁓ which eventually kind of got me full circle into jazz. ⁓ But, you know, for as long as I can remember, I was always ⁓ thankfully exposed to recordings, just records that people had in those days. I'm thinking about recordings by like Leo Kotke, six and 12 string guitar and, know, Chad Atkins stuff. I actually got to see ⁓ Chet live once growing up in Maine and growing up in Maine in the eighties, it was actually kind of surprising how many ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (02:31)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sean McGowan (02:43)
great artists came up there. I lived near a college town, so this college brought in lots of great players. ⁓

You know, also I had a teacher in high school that made me tapes of classical players, know, Carlos Montoya and John Williams. So the theme was I was always enamored with the ability to play ⁓ full orchestral music, like a complete musical statement with just guitar. And I would listen to players, you know, such as Chet ⁓ and John Williams and just have no idea how they were doing it. ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (03:08)
Yeah.

for it.

Sean McGowan (03:20)
And then also in high school, I started listening to the Wyndham Hill ⁓ players such as Alex DeGrasse and Michael Hedges. ⁓ And this is actually kind of a funny story. I went to a camp in high school. This was, think, in 1987. And I went down there because there were some shredders on the faculty. And while I was there, unbeknownst to me at the time, Leo Kotke and Michael Hedges were also at the camp for two weeks. And they gave concerts and they taught. And so for me, that was really like kind of a

Jesse Paliotto (03:44)
wow.

Sean McGowan (03:50)
realization of things that I loved, which were acoustic fingerstyle players, the texture, the tunings, the ability to play a full-blown arrangement in the style of classical guitar, but not really classical guitar. And then also, ⁓ you know, jazz guitar players that I was into at the time, such as John Scofield, ⁓ know, Pat Metheny, and you know, the usual suspects there. And for me, the two players that really kind of brought those two worlds together, ⁓

were Earl Kluh, who was well known as an ensemble player, but his solo guitar records were incredible, are incredible, and Tuck Andrus of Tuck and Patty, who was part of the Wyndham Hill label. And when I heard both Tuck and Earl play, it was just kind of this revelation of, I have to do this, even though it seems impossible. So that's what really set me on the path. Kind of a long answer to your question, but that was the origin.

Jesse Paliotto (04:45)
No,

that's really interesting. mean, and amazing to interact with some of those players like Chet Atkins, CM Live, Michael Hedges to be at a two week camp with. I mean, that's sort of like such an amazing ⁓ kickoff. Like, of course anybody would be inspired. Like, yeah, that's amazing. How are these guys doing this? Was guitar your first instrument? Okay. Yeah. So you started there. It's also funny that like fusion is the gateway drug to jazz. Like people start out in rock and they're like, what's Larry Carlton doing? that's interesting. And then before you know it, you're like,

Sean McGowan (04:52)
Hmm.

Yeah, right. Yes.

Yeah.

Right.

Jesse Paliotto (05:14)
251s, yes, I want to know about that.

Sean McGowan (05:16)
Right, then it's too late.

Jesse Paliotto (05:18)
Yeah. And there was that era, I feel like in late eighties where Fusion had like, I'm not, am not a music historian. So check this with your local Ted Gioia book. But ⁓ there was like this moment in time where like Fusion was very mainstream where for some reason you would hear Larry Carlton on things and you're like, yeah. And I don't know that that's the case today, but there was that point where it was, it was there.

Sean McGowan (05:39)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons for that, but there were a lot of different radio stations that were specifically formatted for that. I don't know what you call it now, smooth jazz, contemporary jazz, but there was a lot of that kind of music playing in those days.

Jesse Paliotto (05:50)
Mm-hmm.

Sean McGowan (05:54)
know, bands like the Yellow Jackets and Four Play, you know, and they all had great guitar players. It great guitar. And of course, you know, George Benson was part of that, a lot of his stuff and even Matheny to an extent. And at the time I had, you know, I had a teacher in high school that would lay jazz records on me, straight ahead records, know, Wes Montgomery, Oscar Peterson with Herb Ellis, Charlie Parker, you know, things like that. And it was like I wasn't quite ready for it yet. I loved it. But and I appreciated it.

Jesse Paliotto (06:13)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Sean McGowan (06:24)
I knew it was great. And my teacher would say things like, well, if you want to hear great technique, check out Johnny Smith. But at that time in my 15-year-old mind, it just kind of sounded old. But then later on, I was like, wow, OK, now I get it.

Jesse Paliotto (06:32)
Right.

Sean McGowan (06:40)
It didn't take too long and you mentioned gateway drugs. A lot of people kind of get into the organ trio thing, players like Pat Martino, George Benson, Grant Green certainly, Kenny Burrell, and that is often the gateway for guitar players, at least to get into straight ahead bebop and post-bop styles because it's so relatable, because it's so blues oriented, you know?

Jesse Paliotto (07:03)
Yeah, even West Montgomery, I think, did that quite a bit. ⁓ Did the organ trio thing, right? Yeah. I'm curious about your arrangements and your style. So from that base, you've built this amazing ability to do what you were seeing Chet Atkins do or Michael Hedges do. And your arrangements, to me, they feel like they've got a lot of depth. There's harmonies, there's rhythms, there's the inner lines. I really love Portmanteau. I'm not just blowing smoke, like was listening to that last night even, and just so great.

Sean McGowan (07:07)
yeah. ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (07:32)
I'm curious, like, what's your process when you're building a solo guitar arrangement? You say, okay, I'm going to tackle this song. ⁓ How do you build it up to where you get to with it?

Sean McGowan (07:43)
Yeah, that's a great question. ⁓ Maybe kind of a multifaceted answer, but of course, I should preface it by saying I listen to all styles of music. So a lot of non-jazz, guess, or not particularly jazz styles are certainly influential on my ⁓ compositional and arrangement sensibilities, ⁓ such as.

you know, like R &B and funk and fusion and classical music and certainly pop and rock and blue, like all of it. ⁓ And ⁓ in particular, acapella music. So also, you know, I really fortunate to be exposed to a lot of great music, as I mentioned in high school. ⁓ I discovered Take Six at the time and they were their acapella group. And that was kind of another revelation for me, just their harmonies. And so that kind of started my desire to move beyond, you know, what at

time I just considered comping to be kind of like one grip chord to the next grip chord to the next grip chord and you're playing the changes but you're not really playing through the changes like an acapella arrangement would through counterpoint essentially ⁓ or a great piano player you know so and I was also listening to a lot of piano players that I loved people like Marcus Roberts and George Cables and you know of course Monk and Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and and the way that they would approach comping was just so much more interesting.

Jesse Paliotto (08:52)
Yeah, it's interesting.

Sean McGowan (09:08)
and appealing to me than you know a lot of guitar players. Although certainly guitar players I think Jim Hall because he was a composition major in college and he just had this composer's sensibility when he played guitar. But that kind of set me on that at least that style of thinking. ⁓

So what I try to do, and of course I'd all kind of coalesced when I would hear different people play solo guitar and the way they would arrange, but oftentimes when I'm coming up with an arrangement, ⁓ I will try to think about, well, what if I was arranging it for a brass quintet? Or what if this was for a trio? Or if it's straight ahead or funk or something like that? And ⁓ I kind of have three, when I'm making a record, when I play live, like I have a gig tonight in Denver, ⁓ I've gone from having a very,

Jesse Paliotto (09:47)
Mm-hmm.

Sean McGowan (09:56)
kind of rigid, you know, through a composed set to just going in there having no idea what I'm going to play. And that can be very liberating, you know, that was actually inspired by reading this really cool book called Free Play and it inspired me. was like, man, I'm going to just go in there and just improvise everything. And that can be really fun and challenging and scary, but ultimately rewarding. So for recordings, ⁓ I kind of have three different ⁓

sections or philosophies or whatever, a third of the tunes on the record ⁓ are 100 % or almost 100 % through composed. That is like the head is worked out as something I've practiced a lot. And obviously those are some of the more technically challenging things when there's like a walking bass line and a melody moving over that end chords and stuff, you know, there's no way that I could improvise over that. And I've never heard anybody improvise like that, except for maybe Stanley Jordan, which is a completely different thing. But

Jesse Paliotto (10:50)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (10:51)
And for a long time I wanted to, but then I realized that that would in itself kind of get stale. And the beautiful thing about Joe Pass' playing is that he leaves a lot left unsaid. So ⁓ you want to leave holes for your ears to fill in. It shouldn't just be, you know, I learned this lesson a long time ago by seeing a stick, know, a Chapman stick player. And the first song was like.

Jesse Paliotto (11:15)
yeah, yeah.

Sean McGowan (11:19)
walking bass line, comping, lead, all at the same time. like, ⁓ amazing, like, ⁓ only I could do that, and, know, self-deprecation and all that stuff. And then, you know, the second tune was like, this is cool too, you know? And then by the third song in, I'm like, well, this is kind of like boring, like it's kind of the same thing texturally. So that was.

Jesse Paliotto (11:35)
Yeah. Yeah. There's no,

what do you call that? There's no variance. You're just, there's another word I'm blanking out on, but yeah, there's basically no dynamic. There's no, it's all one dynamic of compositional structure, basically.

Sean McGowan (11:47)
Right.

right, which again if you zoom out and think about as a composer or an arranger it's pretty boring, it's pretty static. ⁓ But despite all of that I do have this ⁓ desire to create multiple parts because I'm influenced by a cappella music and piano players and all of that and of course the great fingerstyle players. ⁓ So that's one batch of tunes that's like all worked out. And then the second batch is kind of like a little worked out, like I've got some tricky things worked out but I've left myself a lot of

of Rome to improvise because I think one of the things, at least for me, that's a huge relief of playing jazz as opposed to playing classical music is that if you know the song and you know the harmony and you know your way around the fretboard, then you can improvise.

That's what Joe Pass and Lenny Breaux and all these great players did. ⁓ As opposed to playing like the Bach Chaconne, know, note for note. if you if you make a mistake, that that that would be it for me anyway. You know, ⁓ you can't improvise your way. I mean, you know, I think there's maybe a way to do that, but everybody will know. And so the point is, is that I'm giving myself a little bit of relief there. I don't have to memorize a five minute arrangement. You know, ⁓ I've got the skeleton of it and then I can blow.

Jesse Paliotto (12:45)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (13:03)
And then the third category finally is to just like totally freestyle. So every one of my records, the tunes on there are in one of those three categories, like 100%, about like maybe 40 or 50 % arranged, the rest pretty open, and then 0%. And that's comfortable for me and it takes the pressure of having to memorize every second, every line of a dozen songs or something.

Jesse Paliotto (13:20)
Interesting.

And then when you go record, you go sit for a number of days in a row and you just record it all? Or is it more like broken up into fragmented kind of recording time?

Sean McGowan (13:40)
No,

no, because of budget, but also because of musical reasons. I usually do it in like one or two days tops. Most things are done in one take. ⁓ After one take, ⁓ it's just, you kind of lose that spontaneity. I mean, maybe two takes for some things, but I really try to do it in one take. Obviously with two takes, you have the luxury of editing, but. ⁓

But I have heard stories from engineers of like classical guitar players that might go in there and play literally like four bars and then stop and then four bars and they'll put it all together. Yeah, that's how sometimes it sounds just like unbelievably perfect, you know?

Jesse Paliotto (14:10)
Huh. Really?

Which feels like it goes against the whole, like if I wanted a highly edited and produced album, I'd go listen to Pop. Like I feel like part of the inherent or the implied value or something, I don't know what the right way to describe that is, is that it's a live piece that is played as one coherent piece. That's kind of wild to

Sean McGowan (14:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, agreed. Of course, you know, ⁓ I think that there's a lot of pressure in that world to be perfect, but ⁓ having said all that, a couple of weeks ago, I saw David Russell in concert and

It was perfection. He just sat down and played for an hour and a half straight. And along those lines a few years ago, I saw Yo-Yo Ma play at Red Rocks, ⁓ the Bach Cello Suites. He played all of them by himself. he just sat down. Of course, he's been playing those for over 50 years. But man, he just sat down and played over three hours of music without stopping. No mistake. I mean, it was unbelievable. So ⁓ when you hear somebody like David Russell or Yo-Yo Ma set that

are pretty high, it's nice to try to aspire to that at least.

Jesse Paliotto (15:18)
I have a lot more empathy now for somebody coming in and be like, I'm going to record this in four bar segments and make sure it's perfect. Cause I got to keep up with those folks. you know, terms of song choice, I think you've in my awareness of kind of your repertoire, you've done everything from Thelonious Monk stuff to My Fair Lady. And how do you pick which songs you choose to do?

Sean McGowan (15:38)
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think with, well, with My Fair Lady, there were songs that, of course, I wanted to do and that I knew that people would recognize, but then there were songs that I thought, hmm, I've never heard, like, example, in the jazz world, On the Street Where You Live is a standard. People play that tune. That's a, you know, I've grown accustomed to her face. Of course, Wes recorded a famous solo version of that. But...

no one plays Rain in Spain, you know, no one plays with a little bit of luck or wouldn't it be Loverly, at least these days on sessions. So I thought, OK, wouldn't it be fun? Because I love the scene in the movie. And at the time, my son was infatuated with the movie and Audrey Hepburn. And so we watched it a lot when he was little. And I just loved that scene. And so I thought, hmm, what can I do with the Rain in Spain? Because it's such a fun song, but I don't sing. So how can I capture this excitement, the humor, the zaniness and the craziness of that

the ridiculousness of some of it ⁓ instrumentally. And ⁓ sometimes I'll think back to like my own personal experiences or different styles. So in that particular case, in the 90s, I lived in New England. I was living right outside of Boston and ska was really popular. So I was playing in a ska band all around Boston.

Jesse Paliotto (16:52)
yeah.

Yes, I

remember this period of time, yes.

Sean McGowan (16:57)
⁓

We used to play all over Boston and New England and Austin and all those places and it was like a blend of ska and metal and punk and all these styles. And so I thought, hmm, I wonder if I could like get a ska feel happening for this song. And you you just start experimenting things and seeing if it will work. ⁓

And sure enough, I found a of a ska groove that worked and then the melody would fit over that. And then as that song, as that arrangement goes on, it gets into this big ballroom scene. And so then I wanted to get into more of like a Latin, you know, type of like an Afro-Cuban thing later on. And so those are different things. ⁓ I did a...

all acoustic ⁓ Christmas album. And that was the same thing. Of course, you know, I felt like, okay, I've got to do Jingle Bells and I've got to do Silent Night. So what can you do with those songs that might, you know, and so some songs, at least from my perspective, like you don't want to mess with it all. So Silent Night, I'm just leaving it pretty much like one, five, four.

Jesse Paliotto (17:53)
Yeah, right. Nobody wants

the Ska version of Silent Night.

Sean McGowan (17:57)
No, no, I don't anyway. Yeah. so, ⁓ but then, but then I think, ⁓ you know, after deciding that, then I either like to do lesser known songs or songs in kind of a crazier arrangement. ⁓ So, ⁓

on that album, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, I got into a tuning that I don't play in a whole lot, Dadgad, and I just started doing a really kind of like a block chord, a very modern version of that. Like I was thinking of a chorale, but almost like a, like if it was a 16th century chorale or something. And all these voices just kind of presented themselves in Dadgad that were really cool, like a lot of seconds and... ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (18:30)
A madrigal type of thing or something.

Sean McGowan (18:37)
almost Balkan sounding. ⁓ And then you can just choose ⁓ tunes. And I thought, well, no one ever plays like a lot of Thanksgiving music on holiday records. So I'm gonna put some Thanksgiving tunes on there.

Jesse Paliotto (18:48)
Yeah. So it sounds like, mean, if I had to sum it up, it almost be like following your curiosity feels like a lot of kind of, or following, how can I do this different? Which I guess is a very specific form of curiosity. Like how can I go outside the normally drawn lines on this thing?

Sean McGowan (18:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's a perfect summary for it. And sometimes, actually quite often, more often than not, I don't get this stuff happening on guitar. Like I'll just sit somewhere maybe in an inspiring environment with a notebook and I'll just start writing out ideas, sketching out ideas. And I'll think texturally, like, okay, this song, what do I wanna do? ⁓ And for me, I really try to stay true to the key of the song, which with jazz standards are usually like an A flat or B flat or E flat.

⁓ I don't like it really ⁓ when people change keys. mean, it's fine. Singers do that. That's cool. But for me, I wanted to keep like the Monk record. I wanted to do it in Monk's keys. So in one of those tunes, Trinkle Tinkle, I played in standard, but I just tuned the low E down to E flat so I could get that tonic happening.

Jesse Paliotto (19:43)
Yeah, right.

Sean McGowan (19:53)
But that's where I started really experimenting with a lot of the right hand technique stuff because I couldn't get those textures in standard tuning without using an extended technique. ⁓ But yeah, so I'll just sketch out like, okay, maybe I wanna have some counterpoint here. Maybe this needs to be a little bit more sparse. Maybe this one needs to be full with a walking bass line or something. And I'll just kind of put it together in my mind and then I'll search for ways to put it together on the guitar.

Jesse Paliotto (20:18)
Yeah. Well, and then right hand technique. I know we talked just for a second when we were kind of checking mics and stuff before we hit record, because I would love to hear you talk about your picking hand technique. ⁓ It's a bit of like this kind of funny thing that I'm always curious about because in the world of finger style, there's just a lot of approaches to it. And there's really great players who use a totally different set of things. And so I'm curious, like what's your style? think, I think you're using mainly fingers and thumb.

But maybe you could talk about that. And I think you might have your guitar handy, so maybe you can even show a little bit.

Sean McGowan (20:47)
Yeah, yeah, we

should grab it and we can talk about it. ⁓

So yeah, you're absolutely right. And this is one of the things that I love about our instrument. ⁓ on one hand, it's, it's kind of a disadvantage in terms of the technique, meaning like lacking hundreds of years of pedagogy and technique with like, this is the way to do it, you know, but actually I love that not only, you know, in America, but like all over the world, like people, everybody plays guitar and everybody does it in a different way. And that's how your sound is created. And I love that there's not only not

one way to do it but there's you know thousands of different ways of approaching it. So for me ⁓ the only rule that I ever had for myself was ⁓ I never studied classical guitar I've just kind of all self-taught with fingerstyle stuff and I played pick quite a while before I switched to fingerstyle. ⁓ I don't have nails by the way it's just like there's there's nothing there so it's 100 % for all. ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (21:44)
Yeah. Which is unusual,

I think. I feel like Joe Pass and you. I don't know who else does that.

Sean McGowan (21:50)
Well,

I think I started reading about people that were enough of encouragement. So I'm like, I don't have to worry about it. Of course, I don't play nylon string guitar. that's, you but that wouldn't be a deal breaker for classical. mean, you know, there have been classical guitar players.

before ⁓ Segovia that didn't necessarily use nails. But for me, Tommy Emmanuel, Tuck Andress, Tuck being the biggest influence in that realm, Lawrence Juber, there's a lot of steel string fingerstyle players that don't have any nails, don't use them. So for me getting my sound primarily on an electric guitar, an electric arch top plugged into an amplifier, I can get a lot of the tonal things that might be missing from nails. ⁓

through EQ. ⁓ So my only rule that I had for myself was that I never wanted to compromise my wrist, and we can talk about this with the holistic guitarist book too, but I never wanted to do anything that would cause, know, like if you just look at the way that my wrist is right now, if you imagine with an x-ray, you know, all of the nerves are, you know,

Jesse Paliotto (22:30)
Okay.

Sean McGowan (22:51)
angled in kind of an uncomfortable way that over time that's going to really stretch them and then cause inflammation and all kinds of problems such as tendonitis, carpal tunnel, all of those things. So I keep my hand as straight and if I was adopting that posture it literally just falls right down into the guitar.

Jesse Paliotto (23:01)
Yeah.

Okay.

Sean McGowan (23:09)
So as opposed to having this kind of a posture, it's more like this. It's just because of the way my anatomy is. ⁓ And so a lot of times I'll play lines.

Jesse Paliotto (23:13)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (23:22)
with IAM, but I'll also use the thumb in there quite a bit. ⁓ I have a bunch of courses available on trufire.com as well as artistworks.com. have a, it just came out last year, a whole fingerstyle jazz curriculum that's available on both of those platforms. But the cool thing about artist works is that it's like a graded curriculum, literally from bare bones beginner, know, fingerstyle and beginner to jazz to some pretty advanced things. But one of the things just

to illustrate that I do with my thumb to keep it clean is the thumb is constantly doing what I call shadowing and muting. So if I just even played a very simple scale, I'll play it up here and see so you can see both hands. ⁓ I'll play this way, but as soon as I'm on the low E string, as soon as I go up to the E string, sorry, the A string, the fifth string, my thumb is on the low E. Sorry.

Jesse Paliotto (24:05)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Sean McGowan (24:21)
Then I'll go up to the D string. Now you'll notice that my thumb is muting down. So I'll exaggerate this, but what I'm avoiding is this.

Jesse Paliotto (24:32)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (24:34)
You know, a lot

of people, that's an exaggeration, but that happens, know, and you don't know it until you go into the studio and record. You're like, wow, like what's all this extraneous noise and ringing in the background that's not controlled? So the way that I control it is the thumb just kind of follows along like a helicopter parent on top of my fingers. So if I even just play the scale up and down, now the thumb is basically anchored on all of those strings.

Jesse Paliotto (24:54)
Yes.

wow, you go all the way up, yep.

Sean McGowan (25:02)
and it just, it just, following.

play you know so if I'm improvising a line because you have to with jazz you have to have a technique that's not going to work with just one scale pattern it's not going to work with it's going to work you know you're not going to just fall into the Segovia scale or play that one scale over and over again that's part of a concerto or whatever you have to be able to improvise so you need a technique that will be malleable in that regard so

So then I developed a point where the thumb is not only muting, but it's serving a dual purpose of like playing the lower strings just because it's there. And then I'll also integrate the ring finger up here because it's there. And then if I'm playing like a full blown arrangement, it's quite often the ring finger or the pinky that's playing the melody.

you

thing. So thanks. And if I'm improvising, I can also use the thumb to just suggest the chords that I'm playing over. So if I'm playing, you know, if I'm improvising a single note line over like there will never be another U, the chords are E flat and then... So those are the chords. If I'm going to improvise something, one, two, three...

Jesse Paliotto (26:18)
I love it, it's so good.

Sean McGowan (26:46)
you

you

Jesse Paliotto (26:52)
Mm.

Sean McGowan (26:54)
I can just kind of reference the change by dropping in a bass line if I want to or a chord. ⁓

you

you

at least the freedom I guess or the flexibility with your technique to play whatever you want whether it's a single note solo ⁓ or playing walking bass line or chords and that just keeps it fresh not only to me but of course to the listener.

Jesse Paliotto (27:31)
⁓

I am all I want to do is go play right now. ⁓ Getting me all.

Sean McGowan (27:33)
It's a fun way to

play guitar. mean, I really like whenever I play with my fingers, I feel more connected to my instrument. I mean, I really feel like, and you know, now I was so comfortable for so many years with the pick now I pick up, it's like, ⁓ there's this thing in between me and.

Jesse Paliotto (27:47)
Yeah,

there is like a very tactile like I don't play much piano. You know, I've done what a lot of guitar players do where you learn enough to plink out some chords, but there is that tactile interface like you sit down. You're just like I'm touching the instrument and you feel the vibrations and there's just a lot of like feet. I guess feedback loop going on that feels great. ⁓

Sean McGowan (28:05)
I mean, I

totally agree. mean, look at somebody like Jeff Beck, you know? I the dynamics that he played with and it's like, or old, you know, like classic blues style. I mean, you just can get so much. You're putting all of the energy into the strings and the instrument just with your fingers. And ⁓ so you have that level of control. You have that level of dynamics and connection that I personally don't necessarily feel as much with a pick. You know, I just.

Jesse Paliotto (28:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sean McGowan (28:34)
You have to cultivate that in a different way, I think.

Jesse Paliotto (28:36)
You know, before we get to the book, one quick question on the guitar. Any advice or comments on people who are moving to play archtop from acoustic steel string acoustic or an island string, I guess. But I feel like steel strings more common or electric. feel like archtop when I pick them up, they feel different. And ⁓ I'm just curious if you have any advice like, hey, if you're going to get into archtop, this is how it's different. This is how you should attack it or whatever.

Sean McGowan (29:01)
Yeah, yeah. ⁓ My advice for that would be my advice ⁓ for buying any guitar. mean, I think, ⁓ well...

A lot of people, when they go to consider buying a guitar, usually it's the price is like, kind of one of the top considerations, of course. ⁓ And it's also, I think, good to remember that if we were playing another instrument like oboe or violin, you're going to be spending thousands and thousands of dollars. So we're lucky as guitar players. So I think don't be cheap. I mean, if you can afford it, if it's within your means, then get a really quality instrument. I tell that to everybody, students, students, parents, all of those things.

But

usually people will buy guitars based on what they can afford, what they look like, and of course what they sound like. But sometimes an equally important factor is how it feels, how it fits into your own particular body. And so as an example, a lot of times I'll have students that are smaller physically, and then they'll want like a jumbo acoustic guitar or a dreadnought, and they're just swimming and their arms are compromised, all up here. So it's important to find a body shape

Jesse Paliotto (30:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sean McGowan (30:11)
a thickness and a scale length that works with your body physically and your playing style. Having said that, you know these days we are in a golden age of art. I mean you can get anything on reverb, you can have a guitar built for you, you can buy a vintage instrument and they're all you know there are as many approaches like we talked about to technique you know. This particular one ⁓ and I'm not so picky about string scale length. This guitar is 25 inches, ⁓ it's a little wider so maybe

if you're playing fingerstyle that might be a consideration. This is 1.75, 1 and 3 quarters at the nut. So it's just a little bit more breathing room with your right hand playing fingerstyle than like a Gibson.

Jesse Paliotto (30:44)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Sean McGowan (30:55)
But I also have guitars that are 25 and a half scale length. This is a guitar, you can see it's called LHT. This is made by Tyler Wells, who is a really innovative, cool, archtop luthier in California. And I don't know if you can see it on the camera, but there's this kind of like really cool taper, the body tapers off. So this results in, it's extremely light. And Chad Brown is another great innovative builder that's building like,

arch tops, know, 16 inch lower bout that are under five pounds in weight. So I think it's important to consider ergonomics when you're picking out an instrument. If it feels good and you like the sound of it, then that's good. If you feel in any way that you're like sore or your body posture is getting compromised by, you know, this too big of a guitar or too small of a guitar even.

That's not gonna work, but ⁓ yeah, I think it's hard buying guitars online for that reason. You gotta find a brick and mortar store so you can just get it and play it and see what it's like.

Jesse Paliotto (31:58)
Yeah, it's, I was talking to somebody recently about this with steel string acoustics, which fall into the same camp where when you're trying to buy nice, when you're like, well, where do I go try it out? And so, you know, shows or, um, you know, in guitar meetups or any place you can do that as always hugely valuable for actually getting to try some stuff.

Sean McGowan (32:05)
Yeah.

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, there's a great show. It's not happening this year, but it'll be back in 2026 where I live in Denver called the Rocky Mountain Arch Top Guitar.

show and but there's others you know there's the laconer show in washington north of seattle there i just did one in pennsylvania so you know each major region area has original area has these guitar shows and they're so important to just go and what's really cool if you're considering a hand-built instrument whether it's a steel string acoustic or an archtop you know they're truly bespoke instruments and you can go and meet the builders and and cultivate a friendship with them which is is really awesome to do i think

Jesse Paliotto (32:51)
that's awesome. ⁓ Let me ask you about the book before we get too tight on time, because I know that is coming out soon, I think very soon. And I'd love to just hear sort of about it. I'm curious what sparked it. ⁓ Let me just, why don't you give the intro to it? I don't even want to take the words out of your mouth to try and set it up.

Sean McGowan (32:56)
Yeah, yeah.

very soon.

Yeah, no. ⁓ essentially, so the book is called The Holistic Guitarist, a complete guide to musical well-being. And ⁓ this is a book that has been on my mind and in my heart for, you know, the last 25 plus years. And basically, I'll just give you a quick overview of the book. It's in nine chapters. ⁓ The first chapter, well, the premise of the book, I guess I should start with a quick backstory. Many years ago when I was in ⁓ school, college in

Jesse Paliotto (33:27)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (33:40)
90s, a number of things were going on simultaneously. ⁓ I was an older student. I didn't go to college until I was 26. So I had by that time already been playing and touring and teaching for several years at that point. So I was as a 26 year old, I was in this college environment noticing a lot of younger, know, 17, 18, 19 year old Qatar students physically hurting themselves. They go to college and all of a sudden there's so much competition and so much pressure and assignments that they would, you you'd see

all of these kids with like the, you know, the braces on and suffering from carpal tunnel. And then I noticed that like half of the faculty was at the same, you know, it was like this thing that no one talked about.

Jesse Paliotto (34:18)
Bye.

Sean McGowan (34:22)
And right around the same time I started playing as a solo guitarist, I started playing with dance companies. And I just noticed the differences in how dancers would, ⁓ you know, all be studying yoga and Pilates and Alexander technique, you know, all of these different bodywork methods. They would really stretch and prepare and meditate and do all of these things prior to a show. And, know, with rock musicians, like we didn't do any of that stuff. like you drive to the gig, you show up, you soundcheck, you know, like have a beer and a cheeseburger.

Jesse Paliotto (34:46)
Right.

Right, that's what I was

going to say. You have a beer, that's your warm up. Let's go. I'm loose now.

Sean McGowan (34:51)
Let's warm up with a

beer and a shot and then let's hit the stage and then we'll drive home and like my neck kind of hurts but whatever I'll just power through it. ⁓ And so it just kind of dawned on me that there was literally no... ⁓

Not only no education or no pedagogy that ever talked about this, at least none that I had ever experienced in lessons, but then there were no resources if someone got hurt. And there was this real stigma about it, know, and as I did more research on it later on, this is really true in the classical world, not just guitar players, but symphonic musicians. Like if the word gets out that you're injured, it's like, well then, you know, maybe your career is at jeopardy.

It's really this very important thing that often goes undiscussed or at least, you know, talked about behind closed doors. If people get in trouble and then they they're asking for help. So after many years of research and observation and and and

being a part of this wonderful consortium called the Performing Arts Medicine Association, which is mostly MDs who are musicians who are specialists in this. I decided to finally ⁓ write a book about it. So the book is structured. ⁓ The first chapter is just all about cultivating new habits, ⁓ specifically including a warm up. So warming up the body. So the first chapter, I should mention that the book comes with an accompanying video. There's like 12 hours of video that you just download the video. So it shows me doing all of these stretch

Jesse Paliotto (36:14)
wow.

Sean McGowan (36:17)
but just it's really important to like open up the body and also release the mind. There's a dual benefit there because you don't want to be thinking about your to-do list or the text or your email all of that. know, it's guitar time is sacred time. That's your time. So the first chapter is just all about getting into that and discovering the attributes of ergonomics, whether you're sitting home recording on a DAW or practicing guitar, you your posture, all of those things and discovering maybe tension in your body, whether you're playing guitar or doing anything else.

You could be on your computer or driving whatever it is just building that awareness the the second ⁓ and third chapters are about it's kind of a long list of ⁓ Injuries that have a tendency to afflict guitar players from lower back injuries You know lumbar injuries the l4 l5 surgeries to carpal tunnel tendonitis upper thoracic outlet syndrome jaw issues neck all of those those problems and the book is full of testimonies from guitar players who have ⁓

managed to avoid it throughout their careers or had an affliction that they were able to remedy. A great classical guitar friend

he was walking with a cane before he was 40 because you if you think about the lifestyle of most classical guitar players for example they practice sitting down they perform sitting down they teach all day sitting down so it was literally this constant slouching ⁓ and then the following chapter is a bunch of solutions and wellness resources what happens when you get hurt who do you go see what can you do it's all laid out there there's a bunch of websites testimonials ⁓ lots of advice from doctors and then the following chapters after that

Jesse Paliotto (37:39)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (37:55)
⁓

are about ⁓ spirit and ⁓ mental wellness. And those chapters range from just ⁓ various strategies to deal with performance anxiety to just learning how to build your concentration, your ability to memorize music, ⁓ rekindling the joy of playing guitar and getting rid of the inner critic voice. So there's a lot of, in the spirit chapters, just kind of building fortitude of being a musician. ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (38:16)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (38:22)
whether you're professional musician or just dealing on any level as a musician, practicing at home, whatever it is, and ⁓ adopting some Japanese concepts like Ikigai and some things that I feel are very helpful to keeping motivated, staying motivated, staying inspired. There's a 30 page chapter on technique, which is just all foundational exercises. ⁓

And then chapters seven, eight are all about creative practicing. Another thing that I found that not a lot of people talk about a whole lot is how do you practice? What to practice? How can you practice in a way that's enjoyable and fun and so that you're just as stoked as you were when you were learning your first songs? You wanna just keep that. If it's your goal and your passion and your love to do it for the rest of your life, then you wanna be able to maintain that spontaneity, that joy.

all of those things. So and then the last chapter is just called Good Medicine Advice for the Long Haul and that one is basically I called on a bunch of friends and guitar heroes to help me build information for that so I've got

Jesse Paliotto (39:17)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (39:32)
players like Alex Degrassi, Eric Johnson, Lawrence Juber, Clive Carroll, Grant Gordy, Vicky Genfan, ⁓ Juanito Pascual, great flamenco player. Players of different styles ⁓ offer their thoughts on how they stay healthy, how they avoid injury, how they practice, how they stay inspired, how they tour, what they do, what they teach when they have a student, all of those things. it's really kind of like it's a wonderful summary to everything in all of the previous chapters of like, OK, this is this is how they approach

Jesse Paliotto (39:43)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (40:02)
approach

all of those things.

Jesse Paliotto (40:04)
That is incredible. And you're right. Like there's so much of that that I don't know that I've ever heard. Like you hear people talk about carpal tunnel. Um, probably also my sister, uh, went through music school as a piano player. And so I feel like piano players maybe have more of an awareness because they're constantly in these pretty extended positions. But as a guitar player, I'd like, you just don't hear about it. You, the only time that I feel like it comes up for me with some of this is just having some friends who are older guitar players who ran into it because they didn't know it was coming. And then they're.

55, 60 years old and like, have a really hard time playing.

Sean McGowan (40:36)
And then it's devastating. mean, if all of a sudden you lose the ability to play, of course, a lot of these things, unless it's like a blunt trauma for something like that, a lot of these things are cumulative, which good news there is that they're preventative. And ⁓ they're just bad habits that people aren't even aware of. So it's about, you know, cultivating good new habits. But it's devastating if all of a sudden you can't, you know, make it through a gig or play your favorite song or it's horrible. And then people will do anything to be able to get playing back.

The idea is to ⁓ cultivate a lot of techniques and mindsets to prevent those things from ever happening. And that's why it's called holistic because it's a lot of things that involve playing guitar directly and also outside of playing guitar, know, just the way you live your life. ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (41:22)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (41:25)
And then for people that have been injured, it's also a resource of what they can do and how they can maybe talk to a doctor, how they can maybe find a doctor that can help them and what are some options for them ⁓ that might be not too drastic. You don't want to jump right into surgery or something. It all depends. But at least they're able to educate themselves and inform themselves about like, hey, I'm not the only one that experiences this. Now I have some resources.

Jesse Paliotto (41:39)
Yeah.

Yeah. And the mental game, you know, is it resonates for me because I played for years and years in bands. And what's interesting with like solo finger style guitar, you know, to kind of bring it back to the instrument that, you know, we talk about a lot here on this podcast. Um, you know, there's not many places to hide. And so there's not like this, like, all right, well, if I lose focus or I start thinking about my to-do list,

least the drummer's still keeping the beat. All right, I'm back. can, like, you can't do that. Like, it's you, you're on your own. Like, you need to have your mental game in line with your technique and all of that. And so I appreciate that angle from that. What you've written as well is how do you hone that and how do you do that in a healthy way?

Sean McGowan (42:20)
Yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of advice from me as well as others about that. But something that's literally happening right now, right at this moment with the onset of AI, there's a lot of debates and conversations in our world about this. What is the future of AI? is the future? And I think, and not just with colleagues and artists, friends, but with students that I now have at. ⁓

University of Colorado Denver that are 18 19 years old now and they all share this kind of Sentiment that like I want to see something that's real. I want to feel music I want to be affected by music and that's not necessarily perfection You know, I think I mean I just mentioned David Russell who is technically flawless and so as as guitar players That's really impressive to us. I'm like, wow

Jesse Paliotto (43:19)
Yeah.

Sean McGowan (43:20)
How did

you know, but with David Russell and with other great artists, there's something deeper there. There's something about David Russell's playing that transcends the instrument that you feel it, you know. And that's true of every great guitar player and any style of music. You really feel that. And they don't always have perfect time, right? It ebbs and flows. They make mistakes. Things happen. And that's what makes us all human. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I'm not saying like go out there and be terrible and be sloppy, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (43:48)
You

Sean McGowan (43:50)
But technique is much more than being perfect and polished and super fast and all that. Your technique is your voice. It's the vehicle for which how you express yourself through the guitar so that people who aren't guitar players, which were probably the majority of the people in your audience or listening at home, know, ⁓ they're not guitar players. So they want to feel something. So they don't know what scalar mode you're playing. They don't know what tuning you're in. They don't know how crazy this technique is. Doesn't matter. What matters

is the intention that you're expressing and that you're sharing. And so I think going in, whether it's a gig or a recording or a podcast, anything, writing a book, going in with an intention ⁓ and a vibe and these kind of ineffable things that we know as musicians, because we can feel it through intuition and our ears. But ⁓ that, think, in the future is going to be the distinguishing, that's what's going to distinguish between us and AI.

But.

Jesse Paliotto (44:50)
Yeah,

I totally appreciate that ⁓ perspective. Yeah. And I, I, one of the thoughts that's been on my mind is like, do we get to like a high, low state where if I just want meaningless background music in a coffee shop, sure. AI is fine to go put on what people aren't really listening. But if I want to focus and listen, I want to hear from somebody, there needs to be a person on the other side of it's communication, it's connection. ⁓ and so at that point AI won't do. And so it's almost like, as opposed to now,

Sean McGowan (45:14)
Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (45:19)
one size fits all, maybe that won't be the case. ⁓ I also thought about when you were talking about Bach and maybe it was the Yo-Yo Ma comment and playing perfectly. What's funny is it's only perfect if you know how the song's supposed to go, which 99.9 % of the population doesn't. Like nobody outside Yo-Yo Ma and a couple conductors, does anybody know every note of that entire set of compositions? No. And so he could mess up and I would not know.

Sean McGowan (45:34)
Yeah.

No.

Jesse Paliotto (45:45)
And as a guitar player, I find it's so funny that we're so used to playing for other guitar players to like do this. 99 % of the people are like, I just want to hear a good song. Like I don't need this to be Van Halen.

Sean McGowan (45:57)
Yeah, yeah. Great points. Agreed 100%. You're absolutely right.

Jesse Paliotto (46:03)
⁓ I know we're right kind of up on time a little bit. I got a couple quick questions I wanted to wrap up with, but actually before I do that, for the book, when does it come out and where can people get it?

Sean McGowan (46:08)
Yeah.

So you can actually order it now. There's a pre-order option on acousticguitar.com. If you go to that website, there's a pre-order link. You can pre-order it right now on the howeleonard.com website, as well as Amazon. ⁓ But I think that they're literally being shipped out this week. So ⁓ they're...

Jesse Paliotto (46:32)
sweet.

Sean McGowan (46:38)
hot off the press, can buy them through my website, SeanMcGowanGuitar.com. But I think the actual website, I mean, you can go to AcousticGuitar.com, but their official store is store.AcousticGuitar.com. ⁓ And those will be, they should be mailing out like any time in the next week or so.

Jesse Paliotto (46:50)
Yeah.

Awesome will include links obviously in the show notes. I'll put it at the top of the listing for like the podcast description stuff So people can get to that quickly ⁓ Okay, then a couple quick just random questions quick hits You can you can decline to answer if you really don't want to what do you listen? What's on your playlist right now? What are you listening to today if somebody picked up your phone and actually hit play what would be playing?

Sean McGowan (47:05)
Cool, thanks.

Okay.

Just this morning I was listening to ⁓ a record called Four by a great ⁓ LA jazz pianist Hampton Hawes. And I've been kind of doing a deep dive into his music, but this one has Barney Castle on guitar. Hampton Hawes was kind of a under ⁓ unsung piano player that spent time in jail. Unfortunately, he was part of a drug bust for heroin, but then tried to get his life back and wrote a really interesting ⁓ autobiography. And interestingly, I just found out was pardoned by Kennedy.

JFK

pardoned him and that was arranged for his release. But a phenomenal piano player and great. And he liked guitar. So there's a really great recording called All Night Session with Jim Hall on guitar. And they literally recorded like 24 or five hours in a row. So you get to hear Jim Hall in this incredible like.

unrestrained like ⁓ awesome like setting so that's what I was listening to last night in this morning generally speaking I have a 16 year old that's really into punk and alternative stuff so ⁓ I'm listening to a lot of punk

Jesse Paliotto (48:26)
Right on.

Sean McGowan (48:27)
and stuff these days. New stuff as well as old school. We just saw Stiff Little Fingers recently. ⁓ I really am ⁓ after David Russell. A few weeks ago I'm listening to a lot of classical guitar just because I love it. I don't know anything about it but like you said I'm not listening to the technique. I'm just listening to the musical delivery, the intention. ⁓ I've been listening to Lute. So Nigel North and ⁓

Evangelina Mascardi is this amazing lute player. I think she lives in Italy now, but she is, well, I'll talk about perfection, but she records in a church and it's just the most gorgeous sound. ⁓ And I should just mention, I just finished ⁓ Books on Tape, ⁓ the Herbie Hancock. ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (49:06)
wow.

Sean McGowan (49:13)
book that he actually reads the audiobook of. ⁓ Sometimes that can be just as inspiring. It's called Possibilities. And just hearing his life story is amazing. Sometimes audiobooks can be just as inspiring as listening to music.

Jesse Paliotto (49:19)
Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I, ⁓ I'm a big reader and I had the insight the other day that I was driving by something and I saw a painting and I thought, you know what? Painters don't go around with pictures of their paintings on their dashboard all day and just stare at them incessantly. But somehow as a musician, I feel obligated to always be listening to music wherever I go to somehow like enrich myself. Maybe I should, maybe I don't need to do that. Maybe some books on tape would be better. Like you take a, take a little mental break, take a breather.

Sean McGowan (49:55)
Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (49:56)
⁓ If you had to play at a gig, no notice. Sounds like this would actually be very comfortable for you. ⁓ What would be your go-to tune? Somebody puts a guitar in your hand says, Sean, go. It's live. The audience is waiting.

Sean McGowan (50:09)
Probably all blues, that's my go-to warm-up. That song is kind of like a meditation for me. I recorded it on my ⁓ first record. I've been playing it for over 25 years and it's just like as comfortable as an old chair that just fits right into your body. So that would be my go-to.

Jesse Paliotto (50:26)
I love it. And last one, and this is an unfair question. know this in advance. So answer however you want. Top jazz album, if you were going to say this is my favorite.

Sean McGowan (50:32)
Okay.

⁓ okay, well, I ⁓ I usually say if you could just have one album, know, one jazz album, that would be Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, of course, that that one is perfection. ⁓ Jazz guitar, it definitely would be something with West Montgomery on there.

Kenny Burrell probably too, but it is Uptown by George Benson. I'll sneak in three. But anything by West Montgomery. My favorite is actually his very first organ trio record. It's just called the West Montgomery Trio that opens up with Round Midnight. It's just so, there's something about hearing him and that in his first Riverside label, that organ trio being nervous in New York and there's just the energy is incredible. His playing always sounds incredible, but there's something about the vibe of that record that's really special. ⁓

And for contemporary jazz, Peter Bernstein is one of my favorites as well as Jesse Van Ruler. They're great contemporary modern players.

Jesse Paliotto (51:30)
love it. ⁓ I will put a bunch of links. love everything. Yeah, and 100 % on West Montgomery. I probably would have gone full house, but that's just me. ⁓ I know.

Sean McGowan (51:39)
man, that's a good one. I can't choose. mean, like that, know,

looking at the half note, but Grooveyard with his brothers. He also had a special thing, like when he played with his brothers, Buddy and Monk, that just when the three of them got together with whoever was playing drums, there's just something that was really special about that.

Jesse Paliotto (51:55)
genetic at that point, you can't fight it. ⁓ Anything we didn't get to hit today, I know we kind of talked through a number of topics, so I know we kind of moved quick. Anything that we didn't get to catch before we wrap up here?

Sean McGowan (51:57)
Yeah.

I don't think so, you you're providing links. would maybe just ask to share links to truefire.com and artistworks.com if anybody's interested in that and my website. But we covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time, so I appreciate that. So thank you so much, Jesse.

Jesse Paliotto (52:22)
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely put the links. I've looked at some of your stuff on Truefire. It's so great. ⁓ And I'm going to look more, particularly with some of the right hand stuff, because that's really intriguing for me is how to kind of develop that better. That's great.

Sean McGowan (52:35)
You know, lot of

that stuff I got, I learned from bass players, the shadowing and muting technique was just having the thumb kind of right like there. ⁓

Jesse Paliotto (52:41)
⁓

Sean McGowan (52:44)
initially like a long time ago when I was just trying to get it together, I watched this John Patatucci bass video and I learned a lot from just like how bass players deal with that electric bass players in particular. ⁓ Yeah, just avoiding to keep it clean, know playing all those lines, you know Patatucci was playing six string in this video. So it's very close to a guitar, but it was so clean and you know sounded just like a horn. So and if anything else just hearing a great bass player like okay, well if they can do it then

Jesse Paliotto (52:55)
Interesting.

Hahaha

Sean McGowan (53:14)
I should try.

Jesse Paliotto (53:16)
⁓ such a guitarist. I'm the bass player dude, I can do it.

Sean McGowan (53:18)
Yeah,

I have to, I mean, there's so much harder to get that sound happening on a bass. It's like, you know, we'll just kind of like, you know, but. Right. Right.

Jesse Paliotto (53:24)
Yeah, I don't have strings that are this thick. Like I should be able to figure this out. Well, thank

you so much, Sean, for being here today. It's been an absolute pleasure to hang out for a little bit and chat. I will include links. You talked about some of the places to get the book, which is awesome. And so I'll include all those. Thanks everybody else for joining us. I am your host, Jesse Paliotto. Love being able to hang out with folks like Sean and talk guitar. We will catch you all next time. Have a great week, everybody. Cheers.

Sean McGowan (53:33)
Yeah, likewise.

Right on. Thanks everybody.