Inspiration

     Music today, in my opinion, leaves a lot to be desired.  What happened to the honesty and integrity. I know the bands of yore used studio musicians, but it was actually them singing on their own records the way you would hear them when they sing live!  And even with the studio band, most musicians played their instruments live.  Studio time was money...and lots of it!
     Now we turn on the radio and what do we hear, Miley Cyrus, Rebecca Black, Ke$ha and the list goes on.  Get a keyboard, auto tune and a blank garage band session and you too can cash in on this assault on music.  Run of the mill simple 4/4 drum beats and disastrous melodies all topped off with auto tuned vocals because the "artist" who is "singing"couldn't hold a tune to save their life.  So now it sounds like they are singing underwater.
     So now the point of all this gibberish.  
     A Few months ago I was driving home from work and was flipping through the stations and caught the end of a contest on the radio station "so be the 23 caller at 111-222-3333 to win two tickets to see Kris Kristoffeson at the Celebrity Theater".  For those curious, it was 23 caller because the show was on the 23.  I knew my memory was good, but I was also surprised I remembered the number.  Long story short after three attempts, I won the tickets.
     It was a great show with just him and his Gibson SJ-200 alone on the stage.  The only other performer was none other than Miss Jessie Colter (Waylon Jennings wife) who came out to sing the duet Help Me Make It Through The Night.  Never seen such a fantastic show in my life.
     Most people who haven't heard of Kris Kristofferson, have heard one of his songs performed by someone else.  I.E. Me and Bobby McGee, Sunday Morning Coming Down, Help Me Make It Through The Night, etc.  Kris has a unique voice.  Kind of gravelly.  Kind of flat.  But I will say this.  NO ONE can sound like Kris Kristofferson.  The man is who he is and can write a better country song than anyone today.
     In this age of cookie cutter, auto tuned junk out there, it is refreshing to look back and see who really has the talent in the music industry and listen to them.  Could Johnny Cash sing?  kinda.  Willie Nelson?  my dad says yes, I say no.  Listen to ladies who sang swing back in the 40's, its kind of flat.  Kind of piercing, some of that due to recording technology.   But in the end...I want Willie Nelson singin City of New Orleans, with his out of time phrasing and sounding like he has a cold.  Pavoratti couldn't do that song like Willie can!   And Kris Kristofferson, you just keep on singing flat and gargle some more gravel.  I look forward to seeing you again!

A Song Is Born

     Our family has traveled up here to Lancaster to visit family and friends for the holidays.  Is practice and writing on hold?  Not likely.  I couldn't find my Korg metronome that I usually travel with, but I still manage.  I have just tailored my practice to not focus or rely on the metronome.  Make sure your practice schedules are flexible!

     So what do I do with no metronome seeing how I said its imperative to practice with one?  Well that's just one aspect of my practice.  Theory plays another huge part.  One of the best books I ever purchased was Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry.  A little knowledge in theory would help before you buy this book.  Knowing about scales and their construction...major and minor mainly.

     So what's with me harping on this book and how do I use it? 

     Each day in my practice, I pick a chord out of the book and play it.  Strum it, smack it, arppegiate it, finger pick it...just identify its qualities and what makes it unique.  I then go through and do the same with the chord in every instance on the fretboard.  Just like you can play an A5 power chord on the 6th string or 5th string.  Then I go through and play it in every inversion  everywhere I can on the fretboard.   This can take a chord that might sound dissonant in one instance and sound wonderful in another.  If you play a chord that sounds dissonant, you can also identify that dissonant note and play the chord as normal, but throw the dissonant note an octave up.  Usually that space opens up the chord and removes the dissonance...think of piano.

     So today, my chord of choice was Asus.  What does that mean?  A normal Barre chord is usually spelled out in scale degrees as 1,5,1,3,5.  If you replace the 3rd with a 4th it becomes a suspended chord.  So an A barred chord in 5th position, starting on the 6th string is spelled A,E,A,C#,E,A or 1,5,1,3,5,1.  Let's take out that C# on the 3rd string at the 6th fret and replace it with a D on the 7th fret.  Now we got an Asus.  Simple right?  Well I found one in Chord Chemistry that looked interesting.  I will have to describe it as I can't figure out how to draw chord diagrams on here.  5th and 4th string 12th fret, 3rd string 9th fret and 2nd string 10th fret.  Spelled I, IV, V, I or A, D, E, A.  You can also throw on the 1st string 9th fret C# which was your 3rd and it sounds pretty good.  Again, this is where that separation comes into play, you now have a C# and a D in the same chord.  No interval is more dissonant than minor second (half step).  But because they have have this octave seperation , it works.

       So as soon as I started playing around with this chord, I noticed as most guitar players would, that two of the notes reside on the 12th fret.  The twelfth fret is the same as the open string an octave higher and also is a harmonic sweet spot.  You can gently touch the string, not pushing it at all, and pluck it and move your hand away and it should keep ringing that 12th fret note as if you had fretted the twelfth fret note.  I love using harmonics as they ring for a long time, or are supposed to, and they can add such a unique dimension  to melodies.  I spent about 10 minutes with this chord and its flavors and new song has been born!!  

Scales and Inversions

      This is just a little primer for upcoming posts so that those who are unfamiliar with music theory can still follow along and maybe learn a little along the way.  It's always a wonderful feeling when something finally clicks.  So today, we'll take a look at major scales and various inversions. 

   The basic building block of scales are whole steps and half steps.  On the guitar, a whole step is going up two frets and a half step is going up one fret.

    The major scales consists of 8 notes and will start and end on the same note, also called the I (one),  the tonic or root.  The formula is whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step.  What ever note you start on, you can just apply the formula and get major scale.  So lets start on A, 6th string, 5th fret.  Go up a whole step to the 7th fret B.  Then go up a whole step to the 4th fret C# on the 5th string, a half step to 5th fret D, whole step to 7th fret E. Then go a whole step to the 4th fret F# on the 4th string, a whole step the 6th G#, then a half fret to the 7th fret A.  You just played and A Major scale.  What ever note you start on on the 6th string, down to 1st fret F, you can use the same shape you just played to play a major scale.  All A based chords are built off of those 7 notes (I know you just played 8 notes, but the first and last were the same note, just an octave apart.

      So what are these inversions all this hip jazz guys talk about.  When you play an A Barre chord in 5th position on the 6th string, its known as being in root position, that is, the A is the lowest note.  If you put the third scale degree as the lowest note, in this case C#, you now have a first inversion.  If you put the the 5th scale degree, in this case E, as the lowest note, you have a second inversion.  As you can see, this is kinda like math.  Everything builds off the scale, if you don't understand the scale and if you don't know where the notes are on the fretboard, your going to feel like your searching for a black cat in a dark closet. 

      There's a lot more to inversions than what I wrote here, but I just want to give you the basic concept and another idea to play with.

Who Is Me

      Now that I have created a blog about my musical endeavors, I supposed I must give a background about myself...at least in the extent of my music background.   I started playing clarinet in the 3rd grade through the 8th grade and did reasonably well with it.  In 9th grade I started playing guitar, introduced to said instrument by my friend Paul Castillo who played.  He showed me a handful of chords and I was off and running.  Nirvana was the music du jour for myself at the time and bands like it.  So you can imagine the complexity and dedication that practice took (sarcasm). 

      After a year or so, I happened upon Metallica's Ride the Lightning, as well as, being introduced to bands like Megadeth and Pantera.  Well now, here was some music I could get into.  I bought the TAB book for Ride the Lightning and stared at it and paged through it for a few days before attempting to play anything.  There was just so much on the page.  For Whom the Bell Tolls seems simple enough...nope.  That was the easiest song on that album.

      Now the practicing started coming into play, sorta.  I didn't really know what or how to practice.   I would devour the Guitar World lessons and feel like there was really nothing there.  Until a guitar player by the name of John Petrucci started doing a column called Wild Stringdom.  It was around 96 I believe and I still have the vast majority of his lessons from Guitar World.  What I learned from him made sense, but I would have never thought about it. 

      See I had all this experience in music playing the clarinet in band, but in my mind, that was classical stuff, this is rock...they're two independent forces.  WRONG.  The three biggest things I learned from those lessons were:  Warm Up, Use a Metronome (more on this in the future), and have some sort of structure to your practice.  So simple, but the three biggest keys to my developing as a musician.

       The other big factor that happened in my musical endeavors was in 10th grade, I had the opportunity to take Music Theory as an elective.   I was a metal head by now...thats the only real music there was to me.  This class was full of "band geeks" and such, but one thing caught me.  In the preface of the Ride the Lightning Tab book, they talked about how Metallica harmonized their solo's in 3rds, 4ths or 5ths and sometimes 6ths.  I had no idea what or how you would even go about doing that.  I learned it in the second week of music theory class.  Thats right, scales and modes!  Since that class, I have sought to devour every music theory resource I can get my hands on.  Am I a music theory wiz?  By no means!  But I'm no slouch either.  I can still wring out a lead to random chord progression fairly decently tho. 

      So where has all this led me...

      In the past few years, I have gotten into composing music as well, writing orchestra pieces and such, or just composing textures for backing tracks to lay some guitar lead down on.  I have started teaching myself piano (I took a piano course in high school, but the old adage applies, use it or lose it! ).  and I have sought to diligently practice with a metronome and structure and keep changing things up to keep it fresh.  I focus a lot on theory in my practice and maybe in the future I'll dissect one of my practice sessions for your amusement. 

       What makes me tick musically?  Who influences me?  I like people that push the limits of human ability and their instruments.  Or just do something unique with them.  and I like people that know what they're doing with their instrument not just banging away aimlessly till it makes a neat sound.  I also like and/or get inspired by man made.  Smacking various house hold objects with a paper towel tube, banging a fork on things.  I have an idea in my head to make a complete composition using nothing but man made sounds.  Who knows...

       Musically, I would have to list my influences as, in no particular order...Frank Zappa, Waylon Jennings, Dream Theater/John Petrucci/Jordan Rudess/Liquid Tension Experiment, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Chopin, The Bombastic Meatbats, Idan Raichel, Kris Kristofferson, Mike Keneally and the list goes on...people who are really good and/or forged new paths in the Music Machine.

       I shall cut my introduction here.  I will fill in more about me as time goes on and the need for various information arises...