"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

Finally took a few minutes to just sit and play today.  It was long overdue.  I didn't even work on anything in particular, just sat and played for a while. Tomorrow night I'm really hoping to have some time to dedicate to the Vai Workout and the DGC, because the little bit of work I got in on the workout last night just didn't cut it for me.  I've been craving that longer chunk of time that never really seems to materialize. Also, we perform for the praise team in a week, and I still don't have the list of songs we'll be doing for either next Wednesday or next Sunday.  I understand that I was gone for a week, but I've been back for almost two and a half weeks now, and the fact that nobody has made any effort whatsoever to set up a practice time is starting to get on my nerves.  What really gets me is that I emailed them my concerns on the 4th of October, and other than a basic acknowledgement of my email, none of them have been addressed in the slightes

Taught today.  Started working on Christmas carols with one of my students.  They have been asked (by my lovely wife) to perform for the annual youth Christmas Play, which happens this year on the 12th of December.  We're going to be learning two songs, I believe, "Jingle Bells," and "Go Tell It On The Mountain."  We're starting with "Jingle Bells."  The notes are all perfectly in her wheelhouse.  It's all things we've covered before.  And yet, there was trouble focusing today.  It happens, I know, but I know she's quick enough to pick this up faster than she seemed to today.  And I still can't get her to use more than a couple of fingers to find notes. Anyway, enough of that for now.  I got home tonight to find that S. had added a few music books to my shelf of rock & roll awesomeness.  Two books on R.E.M., and Juliana Hatfield's biography now have a spot on that shelf, and I've got to say... I want to read them all r

No lesson today.  My student was home sick. One theory on this is that it will give me more time to play.  I'm still hoping for that later on tonight, but for right now, here's a quick update on everything before the non-musical part of my life steps in and demands attention for a while. I took a couple of isolated baby steps (i.e. not enough progress for my blood) in regards to the Vai workout last night.  For my own sanity, I need to take at least a few more tonight. After re-setting Kasey Anderson's story the other day, today I saw a link to a story about an artist putting out 3 records this year.  In my head, somehow, there's a bit of a disconnect there.  That statement probably deserves a longer mention in this space, but that will have to come at a later date. Here's the other crazy thing I stumbled across today.  It's only 94 days until February's "album in a month" RPM Challenge.  I know it's bad form to mention that as I'm

Considering that I teach tomorrow, and do so right after work, I figured that this afternoon might be a good time to do some lesson planning for my students, and for myself. We're dog-sitting for S's. mom this weekend, so I took my strat, my Dave Grohl Challenge notebook, my lesson notebook, and my copy of Vai's 30 hour workout over with me.  There will be updates tomorrow on everything. I've decided that now is the time to start messing about with that workout in a serious manner.  Not in a giant 30 hour stretch, mind you, but definitely in manageable chunks.  I figure, even an hour here and an hour there are bound to result in improvement if I approach it with the clarity and focus that Vai is prescribing. I know I talked about Kasey Anderson a lot yesterday, but since I didn't mention it in yesterday's post, I'll say it today:  I'm really excited to hear his new record.  Especially since it might be the last we hear from him for a while. Also,

I got back to playing for at least a little bit today.  It's amazing how much the simple act of strapping on a guitar functions as a shield from everything else going on around you.  Those of us that have come to cherish that feeling on a part time basis long to have the ability to feel that way all the time.  We tend to sit and wonder about how awesome it must be to play music for a living and get paid for it.  What we tend to overlook is that those who are getting paid to do what they love are often not making enough money doing it to survive.  In an era where major label deals simply aren't what they used to be, and even those labels are cutting costs (and corners), it's tough on artists out there.  And as much as we like to think that the advent of the internet, cheaper recording software, and itunes makes it easier for musicians to be heard (and, to be fair, it does) those same things that can be tools of assistance have also led to the market being crammed full of p

Today was another day made up mostly of listening.  That part is getting kind of frustrating, honestly.  I'd really love a day where I could just crank things up and rock out for a bit.  Hopefully that will happen tomorrow, as I've got a Saturday off.  The listening part was made up of a lot of the new Marcy Playground record.  They cover both "Whiter Shade Of Pale," and "Hallelujah."  Kind of an odd juxtaposition, if you ask me.  I had never, ever heard someone cover "Whiter Shade" before.  They did a kind of cool version of it, though. S. threw down a bit of an ultimatum yesterday that I don't think I made note of last night.  She said that once things get re-organized in the living room/studio space, I actually have to record some stuff.  I'll accept that ultimatum.  I really need to get back to my Dave Grohl Challenge.  I played through a couple of the ideas in the few minutes I had to play before work this morning, and I still really

Finished up the last track on the Dan Andriano record today.  I knew I was close to the end of it yesterday, I just didn't know I was quite that close.  I put in the new Marcy Playground record in its place.  Jon Wozniak (the lead singer for MP) has such a distinctive voice, and such an odd lyrical approach, I think I'd recognize him anywhere.  Only a couple of tracks in so far, but it's good. Taught tonight after work.  I had my student working on chord progressions while we were away for the wedding week, and she wound up starting to write something while we were gone.  She's also made substantial improvements in getting her chords to sound clearly, which is really cool.  She wants to play a song (or two) during the Christmas play this year at the church, so next week we'll probably get started learning that. Started to re-arrange the studio stuff tonight as a way to make room for some of S's stuff in the living room.  Found what I think will be a more con

I took the Dan Andriano record with me in the car today, to listen to on the way to and from work.  As it happened, I wound up listening to it on my lunch break too, so I made it through almost (if not all) of the album by the end of the day.  Having bought that disc based solely on past Alk3 purchases, I've got to say that on first listen, I'm impressed.  It sounds like a more acoustic-flavored trio record.  I'm actually really excited to go back through and listen closer, with headphones, as opposed to trying to concentrate on the music while driving or doing something else. The only other piece of music news today is this:  S. handed me a packet full of CDs for praise and worship stuff that is (apparently) all of the songs in the binder, in the order in which they appear.  This will be a good thing, because I've known in the back of my head that I need to dive into that stuff a lot now that we are back and all of the hoopla surrounding the wedding has passed.  I th

So, I finally got around to looking through all of the music I bought last weekend.  Started opening some of it, and getting ready to hunker down and do a serious import of a lot of stuff.  Not sure of the exact timing on that, but by the end of the weekend (I'm off Saturday and Sunday) I'd like to have everything new imported, and at least some of the new vinyl listened to. Okay, so embarrassing confession time:  My brother sent me a link to a youtube video today of an acoustic blues cover of LMFAO's "Sexy & I Know It."  It's astoundingly catchy and funky and pretty much awesome.  And as an added bonus, I found it as a free download on NoiseTrade. Didn't really have much time to play today, I went out for dinner after work and the rest of the night got away from me music-wise. I need to do better tomorrow.  Still not sure whether that will involve getting up and playing before work (super-early), or if setting aside time right when I get home ma

I taught today.  First lesson in almost two weeks.  It felt good, if a little odd, to get back to it.  My student is making solid progress, so that's cool too.  My other lesson for the week got pushed back from tomorrow to Thursday, but with tomorrow being the first day of work at the new job, I figure that might turn out to be a good thing. I had grand intentions to spend a lot of today listening to all of the new music we picked up in WI, and never even made it over to the bag of stuff to pick something.  Although the Josh Ritter EP was still in the car from yesterday when I drove to my lesson, so that counts for something, right?  No, instead it was a lot of stuff I already had, highlighted by some Jackie Greene.  His record Giving Up The Ghost was an in-store play way back when I started at B&N five years ago.  It's a great record.  I have two of his other discs, but I will need to find the rest of his stuff at some point. I got to my lesson early enough that I got

Well, I made the always excellent trip to Exclusive Company.  Between S. and myself, we did pretty spectacularly, I thought.  Here's what we ended up adding to the collection: 1) Old Believers - Cory Chisel & The Wandering Sons (vinyl) 2) Babel - Mumford & Sons (vinyl) 3) Break It Yourself - Andrew Bird (vinyl) 4) Lunch, Recess, & Detention - Marcy Playground 5) Til The Casket Drops - ZZ Ward 6) Live @ Earl's Court - Deadmau5 7) Bringing In The Darlings - Josh Ritter 8) Hurricane Season - Dan Andriano in The Emergency Room 9) This Is Not A Test! - Missy Elliott 10) Under Construction - Missy Elliott 11) Australia - Howie Day 12) Before Everything & After - MXPX 13) Much Afraid - Jars Of Clay 14) St. Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley 15) Game Theory - The Roots We also snagged a cool poster advertising the new Wandering Sons record. I looked for Missy Higgins and Ben Lee (to no avail), and spent a long time wandering around in search of another elusi

Picked up the latest issues of Guitar World and Acoustic Guitar at a book store in Door County the other day.  The latest GW has a cool looking article on the psychedelic era of The Beatles.  That ought to be a fun read.  The issue of AG has articles on transposing chord progressions and learning scales up the neck that look like they will be fun and informative as well.  Good stuff all around. Brought an acoustic along with me on the honeymoon (S. said that it seemed wrong for me to not bring one), but haven't gotten around to taking it out of the case yet.  Maybe tonight, now that we are at my Mom's, there will be a bit of time for that.  We shall see. In other news, S. also promised me at least a $100 allowance to spend at Exclusive Co. while we are here.  We'll probably make that pilgrimage in the next day or so, meaning that sometime in the next couple of days there will be a post chronicling my purchases. That's really all for now.  More tomorrow.  Exclusive

Sort of continuing on the theme of yesterday's post, there are already a few cases that I've pulled for albums that I'd really love to hear that, in the moment, don't have discs in them.  :( Right now, they're records by people whose other music I've really enjoyed, so it's a bummer that I don't get to hear them yet. The two albums that really jump out at me in the limited time I've been looking through stuff are as follows: 1) Ripe - Ben Lee 2) The Sound Of White - Missy Higgins The Ben Lee stuff S. has been introducing me to for the last year, and I've really enjoyed what I've heard, so it's more of an "I really want to see if the rest of his stuff fits in well with what I've heard" sort of situation. As for Missy Higgins, we had her new record, The Ol' Razzle Dazzle on in-store play when I was at B&N, and I just fell in love with it.  She was another of those that I had always heard good things about,

Seeing as most of S's music is over here now (we have until the end of the month to integrate the rest of the stuff from her place over here, so there may be more music, I don't know), I have started the process of going through it all.  It's so fun to have a bunch of giant cases full of music just sitting in the dining room, it's like I went on a giant music buying binge, and I didn't have to pay for any of it! Some part of this process involves going through all of the cases, and seeing if the CD inside matches the case.  Or, in some cases, if there actually is a CD inside the case.  That will be the interesting part, as this process slowly continues, setting aside the empty cases, and seeing how many of them get music put into them as we go along.  S. has already told me that it will be good for the safety of her music collection that we're married, because as much as she loves music, I'm better at taking care of it than she is.  I will take up that man

So, today's post is about the awesome musical moment that didn't happen over the weekend, but should have. As my brother and I were testing out the sound system in the chapel on Saturday night, an idea came back to me that had started to bloom earlier in the day.  On a whim, I cranked up "Free Bird" on my ipod (which was plugged into the speaker system).  He started playing along with the slide guitar parts, and then with the solos, and the idea was cemented.  If I could play the base acoustic part for "Free Bird," everything else could be handled by my brother. It made me chuckle, and so I shared my thought.  He, of course, loved the idea.  Unfortunately for the world, we didn't have enough time to run through it enough to be able to pull it off at the level we'd have liked to, so, it didn't happen. Look out, Christmas, for the glory that is "Free Bird."

I know I've talked about it a lot in this space, but I'm going to bring it up again because I can.  For 8 years now, I've held on to an issue of Guitar World that had Steve Vai's 30 Hour Workout in it.  It's also got a transcription of "Red House," as if I needed another excuse to keep it around. I keep threatening to just take the plunge and try the whole 30 hours.  Seriously, go back and look.  I've probably done it at least once a year while I've been blogging.  The thing that has, at least in part, held me back, honestly, is a bit silly.  I keep wanting a copy of the workout outside of the magazine.  I mean, sure, I could take the pages out of it, have them laminated, etc., but that has seemed like an awful lot of work.  I know what you're saying: it may well be an awful lot of work, but it's nothing compared to the amount of work actually sitting down and doing the 30 Hour Workout will be.  And you're right.  But still. Over th

So, this is slightly behind schedule, but I'm really digging the new Wallflowers record, Glad All Over .  It's always fascinating to me when a band can go away for a long period of time (7 years, in this case... oddly enough, the same length of time the Stones have been away before releasing new music), and then come back like they've never even been away. As with the last couple of records, Jakob Dylan has pulled in a few new influences (reggae, most notably), brought in a friend or two (i.e. Mick Jones of The Clash), and then set about making a record that fits flawlessly in with the rest of his band's material.  The Wallflowers have always been great about making records that evolve while still managing to sound exactly like they ought to, and Glad All Over is no exception.  In fact, I'm tempted to say that it's their most consistent record since Breach , which was released all the way back in 2000. Don't misunderstand me, I have absolutely loved all

Well, the big day is FINALLY here!  SL and I are getting married today!  The six months of crazy planning have finally been put in the rearview mirror, and we're finally able to relax (?) and just enjoy the day with our close friends and family. One of the things I've been working on this past week has been the playlists for the time before the wedding and the lunch/reception after the wedding.  Picking music for something like that is a lot like picking songs to put on a mixtape.  There's an entire post in that sentence that's begging to be written, but that's not what I'm after today, so... watch for that one sometime soon. Other than the obligatory inclusions of "Iron Man" and "Ice Ice Baby," most of what we have on this list could (at least in some way) be construed as love songs.  For the record, we've even got one called "Love Songs" (by Brandi Carlile, from her XOBC EP), and "I Love You" by Barenaked Ladies.

So, I stumbled across a Rolling Stone interview with Paul Westerberg the other day.  He talks about his new self-released single, "My Road Now," (which I believe I mentioned in this space a couple of weeks back), and also touches on the somewhat informal Replacements reunion that took place recently.  Paul reunited with 'Mats bassist Tommy Stinson (who otherwise holds down the bottom end in the latest version of what used to be Guns N' Roses) to record an EP at the urging of Slim Dunlap (who played guitar in the Replacements from '87-'91).  Slim is in the process of recovering from a stroke he suffered in February, and proceeds from the EP will go to help funding his recovery. I came to the Replacements late.  I stumbled upon Paul performing "Let The Bad Times Roll" right around the time that Stones best of I was talking about yesterday came out.  Watching Paul on Leno that night, time stopped.  The house could have been falling down around me, and

So, the Rolling Stones are releasing yet another greatest hits compilation in November, and with it are coming the obligatory two new tracks that seem to find their way onto every hits package these days.  I still remember the last time they did this sort of thing, back in 2002 with Forty Licks .  Those songs, "Don't Stop," and "Losing My Touch" were actually solid additions to the Stones catalog.  Even 2005's studio offering, A Bigger Bang had some worthy cuts on it, with "Laugh, I Nearly Died" being a personal favorite of mine.  In spite of these recent successes, there was a bit of fear in my heart today as I clicked on a link to listen to "Doom & Gloom," the first single off of the new package. That said, to hear aggressive guitar riffs open the song shocked me.  The riff has muscle to it, and Mick sounds in good form vocally.  With a lyric that reflects current events/mood, it sounds like the Stones are relevant again, at least

I taught today.  For what will be the last time for about a week and a half.  Knowing that feels weird.  I know I've only been teaching again for a month and a half, but it will still feel strange not to teach next week. It was another quiz this week.  On chords this time.  My student did well, but not perfectly.  We're still working on getting chords to ring clearly.  I keep remembering how hard that was to get the hang of (and then, later, to get the hang of consistently ).  I can tell that my student is starting to get frustrated that it's taking her some time to get the hang of it, and I really wish there was something I could do to alleviate the struggle, but the only way to make that easier is just to stay at it.  You almost have to get mad at it in order to conquer it, but telling an 8 year old that seems to be (at least right now) inviting a bit of trouble. As a follow-up to last night's wondering as to what will happen for posts in the next week or so, I

Spent a little bit more time on the Dave Grohl Challenge today.  Made a little bit of lyrical progress, as well.  Nothing earth-shattering, mind you, but I'm at least a few thoughts closer than I was yesterday, and at this point, I'll take that as progress.  Also, I think I'm starting to get a picture of how the song ideas I have so far might wind up coming together to form a cohesive unit.  Things are still in pieces enough that it's hard to say for sure, but there's a bit of hope there for an EP at the very least. So, part of learning and challenging myself musically is listening to things that are sometimes outside of my comfort zone.  I mention this tonight because my brother sent me some music by a group called The Gotan Project tonight.  It's music for dancing the tango, and it's way outside of my usual listening.  Haven't sat down to check it out yet, but I'm positive that there's something to learn from it that I can apply to my playing

Okay, so I was absolutely convinced that I wrote yesterday.  Then, just now, I went to check and see what I had written about, and discovered that, somehow, I missed blogging last night.  So, in order to keep up my "365 Posts in 365 Days," I need to take a moment to write a bit about what happened yesterday. Most of my musical output concerned my Dave Grohl Challenge.  I sat with the acoustic for a while yesterday, and found 2 more song ideas.  One of which came out almost complete!  Well, okay, so it came out almost musically complete.  One of the two sounds a little bit like one of my earlier ideas, but I like this new one a bit better right now, so if push comes to shove, the newer one will win out in the end, I think. I spent a bit of time yesterday listening to various solo acoustic performances, trying to get more perspective on how it is they manage to make their performances sound full when it's just them and their guitar on stage.  I'm pretty much resign

Taught today.  Second lesson with my second student.  Went really well, I thought.  I can already tell that her fingers are getting stronger, that the notes are getting easier to fret.  She used her notebook this week, to write down some songs she wanted to work on.  Most of them were fairly simple melodies, and of those, we ended up working on "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."  Talk about teaching a lesson that took me back to my Suzuki Method, Violin days!  In all seriousness, she picked it up really quickly (again), so that was cool to see. Spent a couple of hours today perfecting the playlists for before the wedding, and during lunch/the reception.  Sorted through all the songs to make sure that the ending of one song flowed nicely into the beginning of the next... and totally forgot that we have a few songs we need to buy off of itunes yet, which will likely mess up the entire flow.  Hopefully it won't do so too badly, however, and reshuffling things won't take

What I really, really need right now is a block of time to just sit and play.  To just pour all of the stress and all of the tension into the music, and work it out of my system.  The wedding is in a week, and things are getting a bit nutty. One of the cool things about that, though, is that SL is slowly moving her stuff over to the house.  This includes CDs.  All told, she's brought over 5 pretty huge cases of music.  And one of those is all bootlegs of live shows by various bands (with a lot of Counting Crows gigs mixed in!).  It will, of course, be my job to sort through everything, make sure that the cases all have CDs in them, and then (if necessary) take inventory of what's missing. Found something cool and musical at the grocery store tonight, of all places.  Apparently, Guitar World has decided to publish what they claim to be "The Best Instruction Guide Ever!"  The way I see it, if it provides a solid overview of the basics, and helps both me and my stud

I've had some great Skype-related conversations with my brother in the last twenty four hours.  Two of them, in fact.  In the first, we got to the bottom of a 5 year old musical mystery, only to discover that the chords involved are (in the end) a fairly normal G minor 7th, and an F chord with a suspended 4th.  The backstory on that is this: 5 years back, I was messing around with regular, 1st position chord shapes, but playing them up the neck.  I found a few that seemed to string together really well, and have kept returning to the germ of a progression that I found as time has gone by.  Every time I've tried to figure out what the chords actually are, however, both I and those I have asked have gotten confused during the process (mostly because of a few odd open strings that get thrown into the middle of the chords).  If the ringing of the open strings didn't completely make the overall sound of the progression, I'd have given up on it a long time ago.  Either way, w

Taught a make-up lesson tonight for my student who missed her lesson on Tuesday.  There was a quiz on note identification, and she got 10/10! Played around with the RP100 for a while today.  Wanted to make sure that it worked just connected to a guitar and a pair of headphones.  Well, it does.  Had some fun with the opening lick to "Stairway."  Never did get around to actually plugging the pedal into my amp (or my recording gear, for that matter) but that's what having a whole Saturday off is good for, right? Also of note today, it dawned on me yesterday while I was searching for guitar tab for a specific song that, as well organized as all of my music stuff appears to be in the new place, it's not well organized for practical use.  It does me no good to have everything seem in place if I can't find anything when I need to.  Perhaps tomorrow I shall devote my day to re-organizing the giant shelf of music with the goal of making it easier to find things. Lis

So, I took my Strat down to the church this afternoon to test out the amp.  All went well on that front.  Plugging straight in works without a hitch.  Trying to connect the effects pedal that someone left there going on six years ago?  Not nearly as easy a task for some reason.  It's a DigiTech RP100 pedal, and while I've never owned one before, I swear that somewhere in my musical life, I've used one.  And from what I remember, it was a pretty cool pedal.  I got everything hooked up correctly (or so I thought).  I could even hear a very faint sound coming out of the amp for the built in rhythm section that's included in the pedal's effects, but I couldn't for the life of me get the effect to come out through the amp, and I've got no clue as to why. The plus side of all this is that I got to bring the pedal home with me to play around with for a bit.  "Consider it your gift from the church," he said, and I stopped and thought to myself how funny

First rehearsal tonight with the praise band.  I really was going to just sit and listen.  Until none of the songs they picked actually had the canned music they've been using.  So, while I didn't play for the performance part, I definitely played along a bit at rehearsal.  It helps to have a guitar stored at the church in these instances.  Apparently they were impressed with my ability to pick things up at the drop of a hat. As an added bonus, they said it was totally up to me whether I used the acoustic or the electric during the performances... they've got an amp and an effects pedal that someone had left there years ago.  So, I imagine that at some point in the next week or so, I'll wander into the church after hours, with my Strat, and test everything out. After I got home tonight, I skyped with my brother, and we got to talking about Circle II by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  We grew up with that album, on family vacations and road trips, and I'm not sure

No lesson today, my student was sick.  We rescheduled for Friday afternoon, though, so that's cool. Took a look at the music for tomorrow's praise and worship service.  Found a few transcriptions online that put the songs in easier keys for guitar, so that was cool.  Also, I printed off music for "God's Gonna Cut You Down," by Johnny Cash.  It's from the 4th volume of his American series of records.  Not sure it would really work for this group of people, but it's a cool song with a great groove that would sound fun with a church choir behind it.  Now that I think about it, how fun would it be to try something like U2 tried with the version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from Rattle & Hum ? Two other bits of news on teaching today: 1) I got an email from someone looking to set up a time to discuss lessons for her daughter, so that's cool. 2) I got a text from a friend whose son wants to know if I can teach

I got my email about praise and worship music for Wednesday this afternoon.  It's a decent list of songs for the next week.  Tomorrow I need to sit down and sort through the songs that were picked, and figure out what the best way is to approach the chords, where to capo things in order to make it easier on both myself and the other guitar player. Taught today, too.  New student.  She seems really smart, and it looks like she's going to pick things up quickly.  Not that I can really tell that from a half hour lesson, but that's just how it feels to me.  She's got a bit of music in her background, and seems like she'll be able to pick up the notes pretty quick, which is great. Just about the only thing I didn't get to today was any work on "Red House" or the DGC.  I'd like to settle in for a while tomorrow and work on record stuff and the Hendrix. Gotta remember, too, that I teach at 4:30.  Should be a fun lesson tomorrow.  There's a quiz