Tomo Fujita Trio at AJC 4/7

The Tomo Fujita Trio will perform at the Acton Jazz Café on Saturday, April 7 at 9:30 p.m. Joining Tomo on stage will be veteran New England musicians Aaron Bellamy (bass) and Peter McLean (drums), both of whom are house performers at Wally’s Café in Boston.

Collectively, these three players have performed with such world-class artists as Phil Collins, John Mayer, Chaka Kahn, Martin Luther, Kenwood Dennard, Darryl Jones, Paul Jackson, Ronnie Earl, Steve Gadd, Melvin Sparks, Alan Evans, Bernard Purdie, Steve Jordan, Susan Tedeschi … and the list goes on.

Described by Vintage Guitar magazine as “a classic pocket player who loves to make memorable melodies,” Tomo is known for his electrifying funk and blues playing.  Come on out and hear these guys jam on some hot originals and cool classics!

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Acton Jazz Café | 452 Great Road | Acton, MA 01720 | www.actonjazzcafe.com

AJC offers a full bar, dinner, lighter fare and a dessert menu.  All ages are welcome, and 24-hour advance reservations are highly recommended.  Purchase tickets in advance on the website or call 978-263-6161 for reservations.

Copyright Registration: The Right Stuff

A few months ago, my son called me from L.A. with a request for a few words of advice that he could pass along to one of his friends who was dabbling in songwriting. The songwriter had written a song that he wanted to exploit.  He was wondering whether he could protect his rights in the song by mailing a recording of the song to himself and keeping the unopened, postmarked envelope as proof that he had written the song on or before the postmark date.

This was amazing … a guy who was born after the personal computer and who works in the entertainment industries in Los Angeles was considering the so-called “Poor Man’s Copyright” to protect a song that he considered valuable.  Even more amazing was the rationale for this approach: in his view, registering the copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office would be expensive and inconvenient, and all the media buzz over infringement cases in the past few years seemed to suggest that a formal registration would not offer much protection anyway.  As Seth and Kermit might say, “Really!?!”

Is any creator of copyrightable works relying on the Poor Man’s Copyright in the twenty-first century?  I hope not, given that formal registration with the Copyright Office is both affordable and accessible.

If you are a songwriter, a copyright registration is one of the least expensive and most convenient “insurance” purchases you could ever make. The fee for registering a song online with the Copyright Office is a mere $35 as of the date of this post.

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Limina | Fujita | Belfiore in Boston 2/8

On behalf of my favorite client, I would like to advertise a live show: Tomo Fujita will join Dave Limina and Andrea Belfiore at The Beehive in Boston on Wednesday, February 8 at 8:00 p.m.  Here is the “official” gig announcement:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dave and Tomo have played together many, many times. Here is a link to a YouTube video (performance of “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” – November 2011) showing these guys with Ronnie Earl and The Broadcasters at The Iron Horse.

If you are in Boston on the 8th, we hope to see you at the show!

Tomo Fujita: Guitar Book Excerpt 3

This post presents the third in a series of excerpts from a guitar method book by Tomo Fujita, a guitar professor at Berklee College of Music.  The book offers a new approach for learning to play the guitar – an approach that is outlined in previous posts.

The advice that Tomo provides in the following excerpt will undoubtedly seem basic or even obvious to guitarists who have been playing for a while, but it is integral to two of the main themes of the book: improving basic technique and re-discovering your musicality.

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Tomo Fujita: Guitar Book Excerpt 2

As previously mentioned, I have been working with my client, Tomo Fujita, on a method book that offers a new approach for learning to play the guitar.  The approach is based on three key themes: (1) improve basic technique, (2) brush up on core musical concepts and, perhaps most importantly, (3) re-discover the musicality that led to your taking up the instrument in the first place.

Tomo has developed this approach over the course of nearly two decades as a guitar instructor at Berklee College of Music. He incorporated this approach into the three guitar method books that he authored in Japanese, and at least one of these books went on to achieve best-seller status (in the music category) in Japan.

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Tomo Fujita: Guitar Book Excerpt

Recently I have been working with my client, Tomo Fujita, on a book that offers a new approach for learning to play the guitar.  Tomo is a professional guitarist and an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston.  He is also one of the most popular guitar instructors at Berklee.

Tomo has released various instructional materials in the United States over the past decade, including Accelerate Your Guitar Playing and Berklee Instant Guitar.  These materials follow a (more or less) traditional route – exercises, sheet music, audio clips and video demonstrations.

The challenge for guitar players who learn with traditional lesson material is that many of these players progress to a plateau and then hit a wall.  They feel stuck, and very often the obstacle to their progress is in the rear-view mirror.

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