A Lesson from Greg Seaman: Musician Turns Author with a New Book of Hot Licks

Few musicians have had a greater impact on Northern Michigan’s rock, folk and jazz scene than Greg Seaman. Why? Because over the past 20 years Greg has taught hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of area residents how to play the guitar.
“I’ve got some former students who went on to the Musicians Institute of Technology in California and some who now play gigs here or teach lessons themselves,” he says. “Some are players that I started out teaching in junior high school and now they compete with me for lessons and gigs,” he adds with a laugh.
Seaman, 46, currently has 66 students under his wing at Good News Music Center in downtown Traverse City, instructing in both guitar and bass. But he’s not just an educator -- he performs with a sense of gusto, confidence and professionalism that few locals can match at venues such as the Park Shores Lounge in Acme, or Garland USA in Lewiston, where he’s booked for January and February.
AUTHOR, AUTHOR
And now, added to his credits, is the appellation of author, because Seaman has just self-published his own book, “Improvisation for Blues and Rock Guitar” which includes a CD and note-by-note advice on how to master blazin’ leads through 16 classic licks.
“The book came out of years of teaching that turned into handouts to my students and finally a folder of ideas,” he says. “Then I realized that I could make a book out of this.”
Thus, the 45-page illustrated book has easy-to-follow advice on how to play funk, blues, R and acoustic lead guitar. And for anyone who ever suffered through a music theory class, there are handy diagrams of the major and minor pentatonic scales, mixolydian modes and such for the budding Stevie Ray or Jimi Hendrix.
“There are also backing tracks that you can play along with on the CD,” Seaman says. In fact, nine full-band jams are on track to help showcase your new guitar licks.
“I’m hoping this is the beginning of my own educational music publishing company,” he says. “I’ve got so many ideas that I had to save some for my second book.”
The book is available for $16.95 at Good News, or see www.GregSeamanMusic.com to order online.
Music comes easily to Seaman. He started teaching guitar when he was 15 years old at Strode Music in Peoria, Illinois. “I was a freshman in high school,” he recalls. “They needed a guitar teacher and I knew how to read music because I was in the school band. At one point in high school, I had 35 students and bought my first car -- a Ford Galaxy 500.”
MOVIN’ ON
Seaman’s family roots date back to the 1800s in Antrim County and he summered here as a youth, so moving north was a natural when he turned 18. He started at Good News a year after the store opened in ‘79 or ‘80 and has been giving lessons there ever since.
Except, however, for the five years he spent pursuing his dream as a songwriter in Nashville, followed by a move to Seattle. Inspired by the example of Tim Fuller, a manager at Good News who moved to Music City, Seaman headed south to seek his fortune.
“Nashville is the biggest songwriting community in the world,” he says. “I loved living there; those were probably the best years of my life. Some people talk of being a starving musician there and coming back with their tails between their legs, but it wasn’t like that for me at all.”
In fact Seaman had a good response from music publishers and options on his songs. He also became a regular at the prestigious Bluebird Cafe, where folks such as Garth Brooks were discovered. Playing there requires a cutthroat audition where only the very best are chosen, judged by the likes of bluegrass star Kathy Matthea and songwriter Don Schulitz of “The Gambler” fame among other tunes.
Ultimately, however, a desire to be invol-ved in his children’s lives led Seaman to move on to Seattle and then back to Traverse City.

HOME SHOW
This Sunday, Dec. 5, Seaman will serve as maestro to his pupils’ talent with a Student Guitar Concert to be held from noon to 7 p.m. at the Governor’s Ballroom at the Grand Traverse Resort. Some 40 musicians will be playing, including 12 bands, mostly from the junior and high school levels. The public is welcome to attend.
“These student concerts date back to the ‘80s and I try to have two or three of them a year,” Seaman says. “When students have an event like this coming up, they practice like crazy.”
In fact, that’s the secret of learning music: getting fired up.
“Mostly, it’s the heart’s desire; that’s the most important thing, almost equally as much as talent when it comes to learning to play,” Seaman says. “I’m the coach and motivator. I try to instill that excitement of playing an instrument, and once that seed is planted and takes hold, they get that fire in them about playing the guitar. It’s fun to see the joy in a student’s face.”




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