"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

I started listening to the Cornell and the Ani today.  Didn't get all the way through either one yet, but started in on both.  Cornell's acoustic version of "Fell On Black Days" is amazing.  I wondered how he'd pull off such a hard rocking, electric based song solo on acoustic, and he served to remind me just how heavy an instrument the acoustic guitar is.  This album is going to be a lot of fun, and I really feel like it's going to be informative, from a solo-acoustic performance point of view. As for the Ani, I've really only had a chance to listen to the first track.  It doesn't start out in typical acoustic fashion.  It opens with electric guitar, before finding its way to a typical Ani story song.  That provides an interesting open for someone like me, who has become a fan of her consistency and her anger and her hope for a better world. Did some more reading in Guitar Zero today too.  That book is really spectacular. Also, picked up the gu

Had a great morning before work today.  Got a chance to sit down and play guitar before heading off to the madness that was work tonight.  I had some serious fun messing about with the natural minor scale in the key of A.  I discovered that the melody from "Mexican Wine" by Fountains of Wayne is firmly rooted in the natural minor scale.  That was a fun realization.  It's one of the things that makes the learning fun.  It's one of the things that keeps the information in my brain. Also, went in on the last day of the buy 2, get the 3rd one free with T. from work tonight.  I only had a couple of things that I really wanted, so I let him pick out something and we went in together.  Here's what I wound up with: 1) Songbook - Chris Cornell. 2) Which Side Are You On? - Ani DiFranco The Cornell record will be fun.  It's a record of his solo acoustic tour last year.  I'm really curious to hear his takes on songs like "Fell On Black Days," and &quo

I realized today that I've had Guitar Zero for a week, and I'm made a whopping 3 pages of progress in it per day.  Really, really pathetic if you ask me.  So today before work, I sat and read for a while.  Now I'm up to about 6 pages per day, so that's progress, I guess.  I've been thinking all day about my statement that I need to play more acoustic/play live this year.  In that spirit, I went back tonight to an itunes playlist I made last year sometime called "SetList," the theory being that it contained all of the stuff I'd like to play live somewhere. Songs on this list include: Tombstone Blues - Bob Dylan I'll Be The One - Warren Haynes Sister Luck - The Black Crowes Deep, Dark Truthful Mirror - Elvis Costello Forget The Flowers - Wilco Between those 5, and the 4 I worked on for a bit the other day, I figure I'm on my way to having a decent list of songs I can approach feeling comfortable with.  Every time I get antsy or frustr

After spending a bit of time with the acoustic yesterday, tonight I sat down with the electric for a little bit before phone calls and life interceded. It was fun.  I dove in with a sheet of essential chords and scales, started in the key of A, and just went for it.  I like the differences inherent in the acoustic and the electric.  The differences are startling.  I like the feeling of hunkering down where the acoustic is concerned, the feeling of looking at the bones of music, the structural pieces of songs are born on acoustics, to me. The electric, on the other hand, seems to me, to be an instrument both of adornment and rage.  There's more of a sense of discovery on the electric for me, at least right now.  It's a sense of slowly putting together all these pieces that I once had at my immediate disposal that have since gotten scattered hither and yon. The joy in both instruments right now is in the small things.  Realizing the shifts in scale patterns on the electric,

So, I promised myself some time with a guitar tonight.  I was fully expecting it to be time with the electric, but that's not what ended up happening.  I wound up sitting with the acoustic for a while instead, strumming through a series of random songs that itunes told me I wanted to hear/play, etc.  The list included: 1) Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows 2) Million Dollar Bill - Middle Brother 3) Deer - Manchester Orchestra 4) A Letter To Georgia - The Airborne Toxic Event The toughest part of those four songs?  A few really quick chord changes in the Counting Crows song, and the picking pattern on the Airborne number.  Both are great songs, though, and I vow to learn them both, and get them up to performance quality.  I need to play live somewhere in 2012. Also, I just need to play more acoustic.  My fingers were hollering at me a bit after that little session.

Talked with B. today about everything currently going on with the band. She agrees with J. and I about the EP idea, which, to be honest, really surprised me, as she has been a vocal proponent of the full album idea since we started the project.  Whether or not she entirely agrees with my song selections remains to be seen, however.  I told her to look over the list of songs and let me know what she thinks by my next day off (Tuesday). According to the latest messages from J., he won't be up and running again until early February, which seemed like a long time from now, until I realized that early February is actually next week .  Still, this gives B. and I time to get some more work done.  Hopefully that makes it easier on J., as he will then have a lot to work on. And, yeah, I was all set to play a lot of guitar today, and then I spent 3+ hours on the phone, first with my brother, and then with B., so the marathon guitar session will have to take place tomorrow after work. 

Sent messages to both J. and B. today regarding the tempos.  B. was excited, and I didn't hear back from J. Started to page through Guitar Zero today, too.  Just reading the first page makes me think that this book is going to be an incredible read.  I'm excited to see what the process was that the author took to learning the instrument, having had no previous experience with it.  My situation is, admittedly, not the same, but I'm certain that there will be some things in this book that I can take and apply to my current learning situation. I didn't play today, and I'm feeling horrible about it.  Tomorrow needs to have a few hours carved out for some hardcore practicing, or I fear that I may go at least somewhat insane. Not doing so well on the 20-50 hours of practice/week, at least so far.  That may not be a feasible goal, but I've got to try before I make that determination for real.  It's about fitting it in between all of the other things that my l

Today was a serious case of good news/bad news where the music is concerned.   The bad news?  I never did get in much of a chance to pick up the guitar and just play.  Granted, I go in late tomorrow (@ 2), and have Thursday off, so the opportunities are there for playing.  It'll happen Thursday at the very latest. But the good news, oh the good news offsets the bad by a lot.  To me it does, anyway.  That program that I mentioned yesterday worked!  I now know all of the tempos for the demos.  It seems that we enjoyed writing things that fell on the half beat (89.5, 101.5, etc.).  Anyway, with the tempos figured out on the old demos, now I can begin the process of figuring out whether we were right all along, or if a few things need to be sped up/slowed down.  It does seem that, if the BPM is kept as is, most of the EP will have roughly the same tempo.  We'll have to change it up somehow. Haven't let the others know yet.  I'll fire off a few messages in the morning

Okay, so after yesterday's manifesto, here's what has happened musically for me in the last 48 or so hours. 1) I found a book called Guitar Zero .  It was blurbed on NPR.com.  Here's the story with it.  The subtitle is The New Musician and the Science of Learning .  The book's about a scientist who, at age 40, and never having played before, decides to learn how to play guitar.  This, from the inside flap, "... traces Marcus's journey, what he learned, and how anyone else can learn, too.  A groundbreaking peek into the origins of music in the human brain."  Then, later, "Marcus investigates the most effective ways to train body and brain to learn to play an instrument." 2) In my quest to get things cleaned up around the house, I went through the area of the living room that is currently devoted to my studio space.  In so doing, I found a lot of unmarked CDs that I knew had band stuff on them, but didn't know what all was there.  Finding t

The message was the same everywhere I turned today, and the message was this: Stop Thinking About It, And Just DO IT!   I heard it from J., whose final word when we were messaging back and forth about tempo issues was, and I quote, "cut it where it feels good.  Who's to say that the old tempo was the right one?"  Then tonight, I got it again from SL in regards to graduate school instead of music.  The topic may have been different, but the message was the same, and it was, "at some point you either just need to do it, or stop talking about it."  Definitely a put up or shut up moment if you ask me, and kind of ultimatum-ish at that.  Before that last sentence starts some sort of firestorm, I needed the kick that those comments provided, maybe more than I knew.  They're both right though.  Sometimes (heck, a lot of the time), I think we live our lives afraid to fail, and that fear keeps us from doing things we know, in our hearts, that we can do with ease. 

I reached out to J. today in an attempt to find an easier way of figuring out tempos on the old demos than sitting with a CD of the songs and a metronome, trying to match the two.  If only we hadn't been in such a rush all those years ago, we might have had the good sense to record the songs against a click track of some sort.  Oh, how easy that would have made this process.  I hesitate to even think how much farther along we'd be with solid tempos noted for everything.  At the very least, it would have made the drum parts a whole lot easier, which would have given us a start on every song on the record.  Oh well, can't go back now.  We've just got to find our way through from where we are. The other major music news that I somehow forgot to mention yesterday... the world has lost another one of its classic voices.  Etta James passed away yesterday at age 73.  A link to her most well known (if not her highest charting) single:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9JOxag

Sometimes my musical coolness for the day is all about who walks through the gate at work.  Today, it was a customer who, because I was playing Nick Lowe's new record when she came in, mentioned that she had just seen him open for Wilco when they were in the DSM in December.  That, I told her, was an amazing coincidence, because, while I hadn't seen them here in town, I had been to the show in Madison at the Overture earlier in the year. She one-upped me, though, by telling me that she and her family got to go to sound check for the show at the Val Air.  How did they manage this, you ask?  Simple.  Her husband used to be in a band that toured the country, and in the process, he got to know Jeff Tweedy's wife, who used to book bands in various clubs around the States. Let's see, what else happened today?  I picked up the new issue of Guitar Techniques , which has a gigantic article with 200 tips to make you (me) a better guitarist.  And it has the tab of "Hey Jo

Talked to that co-worker today about the artist he recommended the other day that I couldn't remember.  Chad VanGaalen was the guy's name.  I looked him up again today.  It's weird folky kind of stuff, but it's interesting.  He also recommended a band called Menomena.  They appear to be fronted by a sax player, and have another member that plays guitar and keyboards.  At least, that's what it looked like in the video I watched on Youtube.  It's atmospheric indie piano based pop.  Kinda funky, but enjoyable. I slowly started the process tonight of figuring out tempos for the demos we have, so that we can hopefully give J. a leg up when it comes time to do drum tracks.  It's surprisingly tough to match up a metronome to a previously existing performance.  Having listened to the demo for so long almost hurts me in this case, because the tempo just is what it is at this point.  I'll dive into it and get them all figured out, though, because it needs to h

Heard back from J.  He wasn't as crushed by the news that I don't think what we've spent 7 months working on belongs on the EP as I thought he was going to be.  This was unexpected.  And also really good news!  In fact, he sort of backed up what I've thought all along.  Here's the exciting stuff from his comments: After stating that we started where we did because it was the easiest entry point, he said this:   I wanted to make sure we could get through the process before starting to work on the harder (more important) ones. Then, he laid out a plan for expediting things going forward, saying:     I'd like to figure out how to speed the process up before getting too deep. Ideally, each track to be recorded should have a turn-around between 3-7 days, considering work schedules, etc. mixes should take about the same. If we could do an entire song in the span of a couple months, it would be easier to keep focus.  He's right about the shorter time

Dropped the big piece of info on J. today.  That the song we've spent forever working on isn't on my list of songs that ought to make the EP.  We'll see what kind of a response that gets, and go from there. I'm hoping that, by bringing the demos and a notebook, maybe I can get a few lyric ideas at least for my afternoon/evening in Cherokee with SL.  Weather delayed my leaving, but such is life.  Either way, I'm back to taking a notebook with me everywhere, which feels good. I'll take good music with me for the road, and it'll be good.  Short post today, I know, but I promise that tomorrow will be a longer writing and more will get done.

This whole slow conversation with J. thing needs to pick up the pace a bit.  I got a one line response, indicating that he agrees with my thoughts about doing an EP instead of a full record.  "I agree," he wrote, "at least get through three, and go from there."  He's thinking 3, and I'm thinking 7.  I promise you this: it will end up 7.  I'm tired of letting other people run the show on this one. Tonight was the last of 6 days straight at work, and man, oh man, was it slow!  Slow enough that I got to spend a bit of time talking with a co-worker about music.  He recommended someone to me that I checked out (and was intrigued by), but as I sit here now, I can't for the life of me remember the artist's name.  After that we got to talking about recording (something I had no clue he was into), which led to a discussion of what I'm working on currently (and the projects I'd like to be working on).  He told me that he's got GarageBand, and

So, I bantered back and forth a bit with both J. and B.  Nothing terribly constructive, but J. and I both seemed to agree that we ought to get back to discussing music stuff.  I sent him a quick blurb about what I'm considering EP-wise.  That, if nothing else, ought to start more of a conversation. This is good, because, knowing that the others are out there and ready to get stuff done will be the thing that motivates me to pick up the guitar and get better.  Because in order to do the recording justice, I know without a doubt that I need to improve my playing. All told, today was a long day with not much traction.  Tomorrow I go in late, and then I'm off for two days.  If I can get up early tomorrow, I should be able to get a pretty good jump on getting some serious work done in the next 72 hours or so.

Got up later than I had hoped to this morning, but still took at least a few minutes out of my day to sit down with the chord progression I got from B. last night.  My fingers keep wanting to go to the same place after I play through what she gave me, but I'm not sure if that's the direction I really want the music to go in.  I guess another day or two with the chords will answer that question definitively, but some part of me doesn't want to wait that long for answers.  With the deadline in place (at least in my head), each day seems more vital.  Still, I'd rather know that the music is right than rush through something just to get it done. No word from J. today.  I really wish that all  3 of us could find a way to just get in the same room together and get some work done.  There are so many breaks in communication doing it the way we have to, that it gets frustrating.  The key, I know, is just to stay on top of the whole thing.  I know that, if I do everything I pos

Went back and forth a bit with J. today.  Still waiting to get around to the musical discussions, however, but I know that'll happen soon enough.  In the meantime, I've spent tonight trying to work out some of the kinks in what we have partially done.  I've been texting back and forth with B. in regards to one of the song pieces we have that I think ought to end up on the EP.  It was something she came up with, though, so I had to find out exactly what the chords were in order to start working on the rest of the song.  Got that taken care of, and also told her that, if this round with J. doesn't work, I'll buy ProTools, and we'll just produce it ourselves. SL blogged about Counting Crows tonight.  She finally got around to watching the live DVD, and her blog post got me in the mood to listen to a bit of Adam and the guys.  I wound up figuring out the chord progressions for "Recovering The Satellites" and "St. Robinson In His Cadillac Dream."

So, I started the process of firing up the band again today.  I sent J. a message asking how his holidays were.  This, I figure, will open a line of communication that will eventually lead to music discussions. And so, in that spirit, I came home from dinner with a friend, sat down, and proceeded to go through every single thing we have recorded for potential inclusion on the record.  It's 34 files.  I broke them down into 3 categories (yes, maybe, no... they seemed like obvious choices), and when all was said and done, I switched a song from the "maybe" pile into the "yes" pile, and wound up with 7 yeses.  Exactly the number I was hoping for. That number of songs (assuming, of course, that I can get B. to agree to the list) not only gets us a full EP, but it also puts our best musical foot forward. A couple of the songs aren't complete quite yet, but having what I/we do of them done, they shouldn't be too hard to finish off.  There's also likely

I got pretty down in regards to the state of the band after I finished posting last night.  I know I had touched on it in the last little blurb I wrote before posting, but it got more frustrating after that.  What gets me the most is why it takes me (seemingly) having to nag at people in order to find out what's going on with the studio stuff.  Haven't heard from J. since the beginning of December.  The 3rd in fact.  He said then that he'd be back up and running by about the 17th, and refreshed and ready to get to work after Christmas.  Well, Christmas was 3 weeks ago, and I haven't heard a word from him. I'm not sure why, if he's the one with the studio issues, that I have to be the one to reach out to him and see what the deal is every single time . This whole project is starting to feel more like a millstone around my neck than it was in the 5 years we weren't really working on it at all.  It's stifling my creativity to the point where other peopl

So, as it happened, I ended up having a good chunk of the late afternoon & all of the evening.  I used it to my full advantage, by diving back into Vai's 30 Hour Guitar Workout.  Only this time around, I'm actually doing what he suggests.  I'm playing through the exercises at a slowish pace, and I'm keeping track of what exercises I worked on.  I got in two hours today, and while a lot of it was running scales, it was a good start for getting my playing in order. I've been thinking about the band again too.  This record needs to be done in 2012, if only so I can move on to whatever else I'm supposed to be working on. Really short tonight, I know... I spent too much time playing tonight, and didn't leave myself enough time to write about what I did.  This can be seen as a good thing, right?

So, my brother e-mailed me a couple of classical pieces today.  I printed them out and have every intention of putting them in the binder.  Whether or not I get to them right away is another matter entirely. I picked up the new issues of Guitar World and Guitar Techniques tonight at work.  I may be trying to save money right now, but I figure I can treat myself to $15 worth of magazines once a month. I'm off tomorrow, and I'm really excited to have a day off after the fun of having family here.  It'll be nice to catch up on a few things, but it'll be great to have a chance to sit down and play.  The first 9 days of the year have been about setting things up for success in the new year, and now, starting tomorrow, I need to start putting things into action.  It's going to be nice to dive into a great number of things.  Hopefully I'll be able to get up early enough to put in a LOT of time.

Feeling pretty good today.  Stayed up into the wee hours of the morning talking music and practice regimens with my brother.  It was just good to be able to talk about it with someone.  Chatting with S. always fills me with confidence.  He makes me believe I can do anything I set my mind to. Also, his advice about practicing was simple: "you already know," he told me, "what you need to be working on.  So set up a system to work on that, but if you don't feel like practicing that stuff on a given day, it's okay to work on what gets you excited." It really is that simple, isn't it?  I have this feeling that I spend all this time worrying about what to work on, and if I'd stop over-thinking things and just play, I'd be in much better shape.  I need to stop over-thinking myself this year. Oh, one other thing I did today was spend a few minutes researching hard drives for my eventual refurbished ProTools laptop.  It looks like a decent sized har

So, remember way back when, in November, when I was learning "Classical Gas" (at least for a little while)?  Me too.  I also remember a conversation with my brother wherein he said that, when they were down around Christmas, he and I would go through it together and try to dissect it.  Well, Christmas turned into the beginning of January, but tonight we finally got around to going through the whole of "Classical Gas."  It was awesome.  He, having learned it already, was able to give me some pointers, and make a few adjustments to the allegedly "official" transcription I got out of an issue of Guitar Techniques . All told, I've got some really good strategies for approaching not only that, but practicing in general.  Just another small piece in the puzzle that will be my year in music. Might just push "Classical Gas" back onto my list of things to learn too.

So, family is here for the weekend.  I'll still find time to post the next couple of days, but they might be shorter in nature. Tonight, only one thing really occurs to me: watching my brother play guitar really makes me want to become a better musician.  He has more natural talent for it than I ever have, and seeing how quickly he has picked things up over the last few years just makes me want to practice harder, learn more, and be a better musician. My response to that is that I'm actually going to start tracking hours hardcore this week.  I'm smart enough to know I likely won't get to 50 hours/week, but if I can do even half of that (hell, even 1/5 of that) it'll make me a better player almost immediately.  And that is what this whole process is all about.

So, I picked up the Tender Mercies record today.  It's quite spectacular.  There were a few things on it that I knew ("Wise Blood," "Four White Stallions," "Mercy") from Counting Crows bootlegs and overseas releases, but even having those touchstones, the record still impresses me.  It comes across as a bunch of guys sitting around in their living rooms, playing songs they've played for years, except that it has a cleaner, more thought out sound than most living room records I've ever heard.  Even Dan Wilson's "Free Life" from 2007 feels more "studio record" than this.  It's good though, because the musicianship and the songcraft shine through.  The band features 1/3 (I think) of Counting Crows, in the persons of Dan Vickrey and Jim Bogios.  The coolest part of the record?  The fact that I got to pull out the acoustic tonight after I got home and play along with "Four White Stallions."  I really, really l

First of all.  I saw something today that made me smile.  Apparently The Black Keys aren't huge fans of Nickelback.  Here's proof: http://music-mix.ew.com/2012/ 01/04/black-keys-nickelback- feud/ My order at work came in today.  Didn't pick it up yet, if only because it's going to be part of a sale, and I need to find one more disc, or maybe a DVD in order to take advantage of the sale. Also, I went back tonight to that DVD I'd exchanged at Half Price Books on a recent trip there.  It still skips a bit, but this one skips a lot less than the first one, so I'm going to consider that a victory and learn all that I can from it.  I bounced around to a few of the different licks, just to see if it held up a multiple points in the DVD, and it seemed to do okay, so that will be cool. So, I have this devious plan for tomorrow afternoon.  It goes like this.  I'll be home by 4ish (I go in at 7 tomorrow for the first time in two months... yea!), even with running

Today was an odd hodgepodge of stuff. I spent a bit of time playing this afternoon, but far less time than I had hoped to put in last night as I was writing and full of optimism.  My errands took longer than I thought they would today.  Still, I had time to pick up the electric for a while.  What I really need to do is sit down and figure out some short-term goals that are at least somewhat easily accessible.  That way I can build up to bigger successes as the year goes along.  I've got a few ideas.  One of those ideas happens to be buying a copy of ProTools and an interface.  According to Amazon, I should be able to do that for under $100.  That would be sweet.  Second on that list would be trying to refurbish an old laptop, so I can have a dedicated computer for music stuff.  The second step will cost me more (a hard drive and operating system), but it would be so worth the trouble if it let me speed up things for the band. I wound down the night by cracking open a book on

I got up early today and worked late.  This seemed as if it would be a fortuitous happening, and yet, the morning was muddled with small projects around the house.  I did manage to get a bit of work done on the binder, but it was more written and organizational than it was playing. I had been hoping that my Tender Mercies record would come in today, but forgot that, with the new year falling on Sunday, we wouldn't get shipment today.  No worries, I'm sure it'll be there Wednesday when I go back. Having tomorrow off comes at the perfect time.  All of the stuff that needs done around home ought to go fairly quickly, which should leave me a wide-open chunk of time to play.  I need it.  I'm feeling out of touch with that aspect of my life right now, and could really use a good few hours of woodshedding to get myself back in the groove. Oh, and I found that replacement copy of the guitar DVD I picked up from Half Price Books a few weeks back while I was cleaning this m

First day of the new calendar year.  I opened at work today.  Here was the rotation of music that opened the store on New Year's Day Dedicated - Steve Cropper Torches - Foster The People Zaz's selftitled record Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons Let Them Talk - Hugh Laurie It was, I thought, a solid set to kick off the year.  Liked it so much that I played it twice. I had vowed to do better with practicing and keeping track in 2012, and so tonight, I sat down with the electric, a sheet of essential chords and scales, and the timer that I bought last fall. I ran pentatonics up and down the fretboard, playing the scale up and down at each fret, from the E minor pentatonic with open strings all the way up to the same scale at the 12th fret.  When I got to the 12th fret, I stayed there, and then worked my way back down. After that, I played E position barre chords up from F at the first fret to the F that sits at the 12th. Then, I switched back to scales and ran the