Gringo In Belize

This is me, doing what I love to do; playing music on the beaches of Ambergris Caye in Belize. Belize, which used to be called British Honduras, is a tiny country almost hidden between Mexico and Guatemala. It is only a two-hour flight from the U.S.

I am not a concert musician. I am proud to be a club musician; a honky-tonker. Anyone who knows fifteen songs can play a concert. A club musician plays four to five hours a night. At times I sing and play eight hours in a day.

After living here for over twenty years it must be said that it is great to live in a place where club musicians rank higher on the social scale than lepers. As a respected member of the community, I write a humor column for the local newspaper, support myself by working as a musician, own a home and have a family. Hell; I even have credit cards and insurance. All of those things make it different from being a club musician in the U.S.

The Band

Wolfe’s Woofers I write a humor column for the local newspaper, the San Pedro Sun. It is changed weekly and can be found at bottom of this page.

Drummer Dan is Dan Van Patten. He is pedigreed; with three platinum albums and several golds. These are for work in his former life as drummer for the group Berlin and his work as a producer. He produced Berlin among others, as well as working with Agent Orange, Social Distortion and the Violent Femmes.

Dennis Wolfe Jr. is the tall sixteen year-old on lead guitar. He can play it all, but his blues sound like a fifty-year old ex-con who spent twenty years in the pen honing his chops.

Sherry Moore plays keyboards and harmonica, in addition to singing like a bird. She looks after us, keeps us organized and she also looks a lot better than the rest of the band.

The little guy on bass is Derrick Baňos. He is fourteen years old and if you ever wondered what Jaco Pastorius sounded like at fourteen, listen to Derrick.

Practical MIDI for Musicians

When MIDI was the new, hot ticket in music, I embraced it as the answer to a working musician’s prayers. With all of the instruments available it was easy to visualize having that horn player that you could never afford or the drummer who never got drunk and hit on your girlfriend. I bought all of the equipment available and then began to flounder around like everyone else. MIDI seemed to be time and labor intensive. The equipment was quirky; working correctly only when the stars and planets were lined up exactly right. I would leave it and come back to it only to leave it again; recognizing that somewhere I was missing something. Then, a few years ago, I finally had a breakthrough. I discovered that my equipment investment was a waste. Today’s hot MIDI sequencer is next month’s junk. The most important things were to own a computer and to have access to the internet. All of the necessary programs are free for the downloading. I can now make a workable MIDI on my computer for one of thousands of popular songs in less than an hour and I do it mostly with free programs.

What Is A Practical MIDI?

A practical MIDI is a seamless background that replaces all or part of a backup band for a musician. It has a beginning, a solid ending and realistic-sounding instruments, is accessible quickly and easily and requires no special equipment to play at a gig. It is designed for the guitarist or piano player who wants to sound better than when playing alone.

I use MIDI sequences one night a week as a solo act. They sound great. I know because many musicians who have seen my act think it is some kind of trick and try to figure it out. On another night, I use the same sequences to work with a drummer and a keyboard player. You should see musicians trying to figure out who the hell is playing bass.

If you want to learn how to do this, click on the link below. The information is free and it might be the ticket to your musical freedom as a working musician.

My Band The Usual Suspects

The 5 Note Lead Guitar Method

Learn to Play Lead Guitar in Fifteen Minutes

A guitarist working with MIDIs will need some way to fill those holes in a song that call for a lead break. Of course, with MIDI, you could write the lead part and let the sequence play it. If you can do it yourself, though, it will sound a lot better and be much more impressive. Furthermore, it’s not that hard to learn.

I am a bass player by trade who never wanted to teach music. As a musician who likes to eat and pay rent, I recognized that teaching someone to play is much more rewarding for me than working with someone who already knows it all. My lead guitarist and bass player have both been playing for less than two years but you can tell by
the sound clips on this web page that it sounds like they have been playing for much longer.

I have written a book about this method. If you click on the link below and follow the instructions, you can be actually playing lead guitar in a short time. The methods are based on practicality; learning what you need to know to do the job.

If you are simply an aspiring lead guitarist this method could be your ticket to stardom.

The 5 Note Lead Guitar Method

Wolfes’s Woofer of the Week

Give Me the Wallet

“Hey, man. Can you give me a drop?”

“Sure.”

I pulled over the golf cart and waited for the guy to get in.

“Where are you going?” I asked. “Home?”

“No. I’m going down by the DFC area to see some friends.”

“At this time of the night?” I said. It was 1:30 in the morning and I was on my way back from playing music at Crazy Canuck’s.

“Yeah. My friends stay up late,” the guy said.

As we drove along I started feeling sort of uneasy giving this guy a ride. After all, there aren’t too many other vehicles on the road at that time of morning and he wasn’t exactly a clean cut looking type of guy.

Suddenly, I thought about my wallet. I carry it on the seat beside me when I drive. I looked over and sure enough, there was no wallet.

“All right,” I said, as I slammed on the brakes. “Give me the wallet! Right now!”

The hitchhiker reached in his pocket, pulled out the wallet and threw it on the seat. Then he jumped from the cart and ran through the bush like the devil was chasing him.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened to me just now,” I told Dulce, when I got home.

“Let me guess,” she said. “I’ll bet you got stopped at a traffic checkpoint and didn’t have your license.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked, puzzled.

“Because you left your wallet at home tonight when you went to work.”

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Usual Suspects Photo Site | Free MP3's of Some of My Songs

The 5 Note Lead Guitar Method | Practical MIDIs For Musicians | Practical Midi Downloads

copyright © Dennis Wolfe 2007