"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

Most of my musical activity tonight was ukulele related.  I hadn't picked it up in about a week, and on a whim, after running through my lick for Guitar Aerobics , I took it out of the case, and tuned it up.  I was a little bit rusty, but went back through a few basic chords, and found that it came back pretty quickly. Also, I finally found the "Learn Ukulele" book that I had snagged at Half Price Books over the summer.  It's got good lessons in it that advance at a good rate for someone just starting out.  There's also a huge chord and scale dictionary in the back part of the book, which is awesome. After playing for about half an hour, I ventured out to the computer, and tried to find a tabbed out version of Jake Shimabukuro's take on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."  I found something that at least comes close , from the sound of the description, and that will be a good enough place for me to start.  His version of that song is my holy grail on...

For the most part, today was a quiet day, music-wise. I kept working on the song from last night.  Figured out a few ideas for bass parts, but all of them seemed terribly rudimentary to my ear tonight.  I know there's beauty to be found in simplicity, but having it feel too simple isn't good either. Even though I'm not (yet) working at my pace from this summer, it still feels good to be making some sort of progress toward that somewhat elusive goal of recording at least an EP for every year we're living here. I know I said last night that I really need to get back into the Blues Goldmine book.  Tonight, I'm thinking that, what I really need to do is find a happy combination of the Blues book, and the Rock book. The other thing I did tonight was go back through the 3 licks for the week from Guitar Aerobics .  They're tougher than last week's (which is the plan), but if I keep at them, I'll have them all nailed down by Sunday night. That's re...

Tonight was a songwriting night, all the way.  Or, perhaps more accurately put, a demo starting night. I sat down tonight with the goal of making sure the chord progression I've been tinkering with since the end of last week (the one that, in my head, opens my debut record), was finished, and I think that, with the little bit of tinkering I finished up over the weekend, it is.  At this point, anything else that needs to be adjusted will become obvious in the recording of the demo. Setting the tempo for the song was a bit tougher, and it took me a little while to figure out where the groove was, but I got there eventually.  I also started to figure out drum sounds for the demo, and found something that seems to work pretty well, so that's cool. That got me through the first step on my list from the #STARTexp this summer.  If I were holding to the pattern from July and August, that would mean that tomorrow night I'd be writing the bass line.  Not sure that I...

So, I'm doing some studying at work today before taking a test about the first third of my training, and I come across a quote that the management team uses.  It goes like this: "plan your work, and work your plan."  Seemed fitting, especially given last night's post. Tonight, then, I sat down in the studio and got down to the work of planning.  I'm really happy with what I see as the first layer of learning.  It's got a musical progress form from Berklee, a fretboard diagram, scale degrees, the circle of fifths, the location of all the A's, B's, C's, etc.  I've also got a lesson that lays out a way to locate and identify notes based on an octave system. I've also got a detailed list of everything I've pulled, resource-wise, for the binder.  Next on my list is figuring out what of that belongs in the next layer of things.  Most of it, I think, will be book-related.  The Vai workout, the Blues & Rock Goldmine books, perhaps th...

Now that it's over, this week feels a little bit like one that got away. That said, it was also a good chance for me to see where I need to improve.  More often than not this week, it wasn't a question of "oh, my playing isn't good enough there" (although a couple of times it was), it was more a question of knowing that, with more focus, things could be even better than they are right now.  I keep missing chances to work on specific things and feeling badly about it.  Things just felt very disorganized this week for me, music-wise. Now I need to spend a serious chunk of time (tomorrow night) getting things put in order a bit more.   Basically, I’ve got all these things I want to get to, all these different areas that I can look to for motivation and improvement, and I really need to make sure I get to everything in an organized manner.   I need to find a way to make sure I get to everything, while at the same time, leaving enough of an opening for something ...

Oh, what a day.  It didn't go at all the way I hoped it would, but it went, nonetheless. The good news?  I got 95% of the music I wanted to get imported into iTunes uploaded onto the iPod and got the pod freshly charged. The less good news?  I spent almost the entire rest of the day fighting with the cable company, and only ducked into the studio for a small amount of time tonight.  That said, the time I did spend in the studio was enough to: 1) Mess around with a new song idea. 2) Work my way through today's lick in Guitar Aerobics . 3) Get some things reorganized and set to rights. All told, not the most productive of days, although the listening that got done after the iPod was charged up was definitely a plus. Still, tomorrow needs to be so much better .

I can't believe I'm a week away from the 100th day of year #4 of the blog.  As fast as the first three years went, the last 100 days have flown by.  So much has happened in that time... a move, a new job (or two), getting adjusted to being in a new city, and that's not even the music stuff!  As for the musical experiences, there were the two rounds of the #STARTexp, moving into and setting up the studio, adding a new instrument to my collection, slowly starting to teach again, and all of the learning I've done on my own.  Year 4 has definitely been a productive one thus far. I'd like to think in broad strokes for a second here:  While I realize that the holiday season is approaching, and that things will start to get busier, what I'd like to do in the next 90-100 days (so, by the end of January-ish) is this: 1) Learn at least a small set list, and play out somewhere , or go to an open mic at the very least. 2) Write and record some more demos. 3) Add at ...