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...
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