Teaching

My musical year 2020

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Sometimes I email news to fans. This is how I recapped my 2020. If you wish to receive such condensed messages from me in the future, subscribe here. If you prefer fresh news, you can find me on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ondra KozákI’m a musician and tutor who likes asking Why? and talking with clever people. … Read more

Fiddle tunes for fiddle, guitar, and mandolin

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I’m a fan of fiddle tunes – old traditional instrumental tunes usually played on violin or other stringed instruments. I like to use them for practicing because they let me work on several things at the same time: rhythm, melody, scales, fingerings, and improvisation. They also broaden my repertoire of standards so I have new songs … Read more

Grant from The IBMA Foundation

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We received a grant from The IBMA Foundation to pick for preschool children with my former bandmate Petr Brandejs. The program will introduce bluegrass instruments and basic music terms like rhythm, pitch, tempo, etc. to small kids in kindergartens in the Czech Republic. More info (in Czech) here.   Thank you, The IBMA Foundation! Ondra KozákI’m … Read more

Video bundle for fiddle players: Fiddle tunes in A

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After I finished my guitar album Overtones, I’ve been focusing on fiddle quite a lot. Part of it is this new video bundle with 6 traditional fiddle tunes. It contains sheet music (melody, simple and advanced solo, intro, outro), video and guitar playalong tracks in two speeds for the following tunes: Cripple Creek, Cherokee Shuffle, … Read more

My November 2018

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I’ve heard that November is a good month for musicians. I certainly enjoyed it. Here are a few videos and photos from it.   1st bluegrass workshop in South Bohemia I organized the first bluegrass workshop in South Bohemia. Ralph Schut helped me a lot with teaching. 30 people attended this event and we’re about to … Read more

Life Hacks For Musicians

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  Three types of musicians   The world is evolving fast and we as musicians can use the modern technologies to our benefit for sure. Some people refuse them and this approach is certainly good for not being distracted from playing. Others don’t mind being distracted and they love comparing parameters and watching video reviews … Read more

Tunefox – A Way To Improvisation

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New instructional application for musicians playing on banjo, mandolin and guitar called Tunefox has been launched recently. It is focused on improving improvisation skills using licks in an innovative way. It actually offers several helpful functionalities that make Tunefox a very versatile and powerful tool in my opinion. The most innovative part – exchangeable licks – is … Read more

Do You Play? So Listen.

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listening

The Importance of Critical Listening for Musicians. List of Recommended Bluegrass Recordings. How to become a better musician — universal answer HERE! Every year I meet a lot of people who want to become better musicians. They want to play better rhythm, tasteful fills, faster solos, fancier chords. They would like to sing more convincingly, … Read more

“Gillova vokální dílna 2017” – vocal workshop

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Our first vocal workshop “Gillova vokální dílna” was held in Rejvíz, Jeseníky Moutains, Czech Republic in September. 29 students came from different parts of Czech and Slovak Republics to immerse in singing lead and harmony vocals, proper vocal technique, ear training etc. According to the feedback from them, the most helpful parts in the program … Read more

On the road with music in August 2017

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The first 2 weeks in August were full of travelling, concerts, teaching and working on TABs for the TuneFox application. I played 2 concerts with The Songs Of The Fall in La Roche sur Foron (France) and Bytřička (Czech Republic). Cia Cherryholmes and Stetson Adkisson are wonderful people and musicians and you can read abouth … Read more