Welcome to GuitarBurst
The Site for Musicians, Educators, and Performers!
The purpose of this site is to provide guitarists of any level the tools they need to be successful.
For the educators and students, our goal is to provide content and information on how to become better musicians. This will include lists of graded repertoire for classical guitar solos and ensembles as well as contemporary rock music, lessons and exercises, and lists of teachers, music stores, and schools that offer lessons and music programs.
For the performers, our goal is to provide a list of venues in the Los Angeles area (to start) that are looking for live music, as well as lists of performers looking for gigs, from classical and jazz musicians for weddings, parties, and events, to bands looking to book nights at clubs.
For all musicians, we hope to have interactive forums where users can discuss these topics, ask questions, get answers, and network.
The first part of the websites focus will be on graded repertoire lists. As a long time guitar teacher in the classroom, I know that one of the biggest hurdles for instruction is finding proper pieces of music for their students to work on, especially in styles of music the teacher may be less familiar with. Most other types of ‘classroom’ music has graded repertoire, from marching band to orchestra and choir, yet guitar hasn’t done this yet. I have started by reviewing every piece of classical guitar music in my relatively extensive library and reviewed it, placing it in an easy to use database for search. The music itself is not on the site, but it can point one in the right direction in terms of finding it.
With the opening of this site, we have entered around 2300 pieces of music and hope to expand this as we purchase more.
After the completion of the solo classical guitar database, the next portion of the site will be dedicated to rock guitar music, and will be limited to music that is relatively easy to find and purchase. At the same time, exercises and lessons will start to come online as well, focusing on improvisation, rhythm playing, and immediate tools to making practice more fun and useful.
The next step will be adding the classical guitar ensemble music, hopefully added to the site in time for teachers to use it for their Fall 2010 class planning. Finally, the venue and performer lists will come up last.
Guitarburst Productions is a team of Scott and Michael Burstein. At this time, Scott is handling the content while Michael is in charge of building and maintaining the site.
Dr. Scott Burstein has played guitar since 1989, performing styles of music ranging from classical, rock, funk, jazz, metal, Mariachi, and salsa. He got his undergraduate degree in music from UCSB, worked on a PhD in Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music, and taught public high school music for ten years, with classes including marching band, AP music theory, Concert Band, Jazz Band, Guitar, and Rock Band. He received his DMA in Music Education from the University of Southern California.
Currently Dr. Burstein is the Director of Teaching and Learning for the non-profit Little Kids Rock, where he supervises all music curriculum production and professional development. He also published "The Modern Band Method" book series with Hal Leonard, an instructional method for guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. You can also find him playing guitar on Instagram at sddogg
Michael Burstein has been a musician since 1996, following in the footsteps of his brother. He briefly attended the Guitar program, GIT, at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California, before persuing a degree in Business Management at the University of Arizona. Michael is also a self-taught web designer and budding computer programer.