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Day One Hundred Eighty Four (Year Two)

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 them gave me a chance, not only to go through and jot down what the discs contained, it also let me put them all in a separate folio, and it let me listen to exactly what was there with a critical ear.  I figured some things out for myself about how I want the drums to sound on the record in the process, so that's cool.

3) I found a free program online yesterday that claims to help identify bpm while a song is playing.  I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but if that works in helping me/us out for tempos, I'll definitely make use of it.  It's worth a shot, at the very least.  I'll test it out tomorrow and see what happens.

4) I had a customer tonight call in looking for "Fake Out," by Frankie Sardo.  We didn't have it in, but the customer's story was one of the cooler ones I've heard lately.  He's distantly related to Ritchie Valens, who died in the plane crash with Buddy Holly & J.P. Richardson.  Frankie Sardo was the opening act that last night in Clear Lake.  This customer has looked for "Fake Out," which was a moderate midwestern hit, for years, without success, and even though we didn't have it in at work, I was able to find it tonight after work, so I'll be able to hook him up with that.  Those are the moments that make my job worthwhile.

All told, it was a good couple of days for music stuff.  And with tomorrow being a day off, I'm hoping to get some playing in.  Feels like it's been a while on that one.

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