IT’S NO SECRET that social media is a powerful vehicle for informing and influencing musicians. From ax-wielding upstarts attempting to show the world what they can do to established players giving curious fans a glimpse into their process as they flesh out ideas, the platform is ripe for opportunity. The catch is that you will be met with a discerning audience that has endless options to follow. To rise above the pack, it helps to have a thing.
Enter the proverbial new sheriff in town: multi–Grammy winning guitarist Mark Lettieri. With no interest in sounding like anyone else, and equipped with a production-line Danelectro baritone guitar — a six-string instrument with a longer neck and scale length that is meant for playing in much lower tunings than a conventional guitar — Lettieri showed us he had the goods when he started to drop a consistent barrage of infectious clean-tone, funk-style riffs played over what he calls “Minneapolis grooves.” His playing made an immediate impact and fueled a pair of albums: and . In this lesson, Mark guides us through his world of baritone funk guitar using some choice