…but I’m still practicing, and making progress. Unfortunately the book I was using appears to be WRONG about how to play the song…

…so I will have to find the right tabs for it. But… like I said, I am making progress, although slowly.

Cheers,
Stephen

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I practiced for about 10-15 minutes on “About A Girl” today. If that’s all I practice each day I’ll be satisfied. I hope to pick it up again tonight though, my wrist started to hurt so I quit.

All the chords seemed pretty easy today though. I can’t switch from one chord to the other easy, but I can play them all fine. It didn’t used to be that way.

In any case, I obviously will be working on switching from one to the next. When I can do that, I’ll try to get the strumming down.

I’ll probably watch “About A Girl” on my “Nirvana Unplugged” DVD tonight.

Cheers,
Stephen

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So procrastination has kept me from tackling “About A Girl.”

So I took two steps to change that. One, I started practicing “About A Girl.” (My first practice was to find out where all the chords are and play them a bit.)

And two, to leave my Nirvana song book out in the open, turned to the “About A Girl” page. This will remind me to practice in the future.

Sometimes when the cars hidden in the corner, it’s easy to forget.

Cheers,
Stephen

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Future Pop

Cheers,
Stephen

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I took a 3 week vacation from practicing guitar. I left my home and stayed at my parents house for a week, then went to the western carribean for a week, then went back to my parents house for a week.

I could have practiced on my dad’s guitars, but I chose not too. Not sure why.

It felt a little strange getting back in to the swing of things when I finally picked up my guitar here at home. I think I’m progressing too slowly again, so I have a plan for next week.

However, I have been getting superbad at “Guitar Hero.” Only took me a few days to start passing songs on Expert like nobody’s business. Which makes me think…

Can You Really Learn To Play Guitar From “Guitar Hero”

Cheers,
Stephen

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http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/music-lessons.html

Cheers,
Stephen

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This guy already did what I’m trying to do. I’ll have to research him more for tips.

http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/61785/how-to-become-a-rock-star

Cheers,
Stephen

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It was way fun. Once again, it has inspired me to continue my pursuit of becoming a rock star. I’ll post pictures soon.

Cheers,
Stephen

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Why is this song called Sliver? I don’t know. But I like the video and love the song.

Cheers,
Stephen

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“I don’t feel the least bit guilty for commericially exloiting a completely exhausted Rock youth Culture because, at this point in rock history, Punk Rock (while still sacred to some) is, to me, dead and gone. We just wanted to pay tribute to something that helped us to feel as though we had crawled out of the dung heap of conformity. To pay tribute like an Elvis or Jimi Hendrix impersonator in the tradition of a bar band. I’ll be the first to admit that we’re the 90’s version of Cheap Trick or the Knack but the last to admit that it hasn’t been rewarding.”

From Kurt’s missing liner notes from Incesticide

Cheers,
Stephen

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Ok, really I shouldn’t be writing a post about mastering anything on the guitar. I just started practicing chords last month for the first time.

But I think the strategy I use is a good one that will save you time, so I thought I’d share it. But judge accordingly.

Repetition is important for building muscle memory. But it’s important that you’re repeating the correct muscle movements. In the beginning I would place my fingers on the strings and just start strumming and switch to the next chord. My focus was apparently on getting my fingers “close” to the correct locations so I could master changing from one chord to the next.

The problem is, I was practicing playing the chords slightly incorrect. When I strummed each string one note at a time, I could hear twangs and buzzes that I didn’t hear as well when I strummed all together. This meant I had spent quite a bit of time playing the chord wrong, and the penalty was gaining incorrect muscle memory.

That’s why I learn new chords one string at a time and very slowly. Listen to this rendition of G,E,C,D played one note at a time. I make a couple of mistakes that immediately alert me to fix my positioning. This helped me get better a lot faster…

Right now I’m trying to master power chords, which are supposed to be easy. Well they haven’t been for me. Here is this technique being used to learn the first 3 power chords from “About A Girl.”

By slowing down the chord when I practice, I think this will help me to actually master the chord much faster.

Cheers,
Stephen

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This is the song I’m learning to play. This is also the first version of the song I heard, although it is also on their first CD “Bleach.”

Remember that I first started listening to Nirvana via the Unplugged album… via the magical exchange of the unplugged tape from a beautiful red head. Did I mention I now have a fascination for red heads?

Here’s the song…

Cheers,
Stephen

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Remember Fine Art Of Down Picking

Cheers,
Stephen

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Lately I’ve been making iMixes. I’ve come up with a good strategy for creating bad ass mixes that I thought I’d share with you

You can’t just pile a bunch of songs you like in to a playlist and call it good. There’s gotta be some method to the madness. Here’s my step by step method for creating a stellar iMix.

1. First I pick one song that I want to base the mix around. For “Recovering From A Fall” it was “Sit Still” by Brightwood. For “Walking Blocks” it was Tyler Fortier’s song of the same name. And “Jessica Is Legend” was based on “Heaven” by John Legend. This song will most likely determine the mood of the mix, unless things change as you go.

2. The next step is to pick a couple more songs you’re sure will fit that mood. We’re talking 2 or 3 songs here because there are some more things to consider as you add more songs. I usually shoot for about 10-12 songs in the mix. As the spots fill up, the more careful you need to be about adding songs to the mix.

(And as I create the list I usually have the songs already selected playing on repeat, this way if a song is just slightly off and doesn’t fit the mix you’ll have ample opportunity to spot it and take it out. But it also can give you ideas to help you select the rest of the songs.)

3. I like to think of the playlist sort of like a story line. I’m talking purely on emotion here, not the lyrics or anything. Let’s take a look at a story line…

I like to create peaks and valleys with the mood or tempo of the songs I pick. So it might start off strong with a good tempo song, then get a little faster or harder, but then back off and get mellow. The change usually shouldn’t be sudden… unless it just feels right.

A good example of switching abruptly is from “Screaming Infidelities” to “Wild Night” in my “Walking Blocks” mix. That’s an abrupt transition, but it felt right to me. Most of the time I try to gently go up and down. The movement provides variety and keeps things interesting.

So as I’m looking for songs, I’m not only trying to match the overall mood but I’m also looking to fill in these peaks and valleys by finding songs with the appropriate tempo/mood/rock-i-ness and so forth.

4. Use iTunes to help you find songs. When you highlight a song in iTunes, it will give you recommendations based off the purchasing habits of others who liked that song. This can be a great way to find songs you never would have thought of or haven’t heard of, but are likely to appreciate. You can do this all day and just jump from recommended song to recommended song. But you should be looking for songs you like that also fit the mood and tempo.

5. Pandora.com. This site is amazing. And they’re great at helping you find the last few songs in the list. They allow you to make a “radio station” based on specific songs.

So by entering the songs you already have on your list in to the same radio station, they’ll start playing songs for you that should naturally fit in to your list. They’re essentially doing the work for you. And since they’re database is so large, you’re likely to discover songs you never knew about. It’s great.

6. Choose an outlier. I think an outlier can do wonders for a list. I had Jimi Hendrix in the middle of “Recovering From A Fall.” He’s definitely not in the same genre as the rest of the list, but it worked great. In fact, in all 3 lists I’ve created so far there’s always one outlier to keep things fresh.

It also helps to introduce people to new music. If they are really in to the main genre of the mix, it might help the listener branch out in to other great forms of expression.

7. It should be easy for you to find 10-12 songs based on the advice above. Once you have them, you need to make sure they’re in the best order and not just haphazard. I already mentioned using peaks and valleys to keep it interesting. But there’s more…

To make sure they really flow together I listen to the last 15-20 seconds of a song and the first 15-20 seconds of the song that follows to make sure they flow well in to each other. I think this is extremely important or else your list will be bumpy and feel out of whack.

Also, I like to listen to playlists on repeat, so I try to make sure that the last song in the list flows well in to the first song of the list as well.

Cheers,
Stephen

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This was by far the hardest iMix I’ve made so far. That’s because I don’t listen to this genre of music. I asked my best friend’s best friend (whom I’ve never met) what kind of music she liked. She responded with John Legend.

I knew I respected John Legend, but I’d never listened to him. She pointed me towards “Heaven” and I decided that song warranted a playlist.

I really liked that song… but much of the genre still doesn’t inspire me that much. So the difficulty was finding similar songs that belonged in the playlist, that I thought she would like, AND that I liked. No easy task.

There are some strategies you can put in to place that take advantage of technology to help you find the songs… but still, it took me quite a while to put together.

In any case, now that I’m finished I love it. I think it works great. Check it.

Cheers,
Stephen

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http://www.lewrockwell.com/chartier/chartier95.html

Cheers,
Stephen

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Check out this simple low budget video from Dominic Castillo & The Rock Savants. I really dig it, which gives me hope for my first video.

This band is from Portland, OR, which is about 15 minutes from where I grew up. They requested to be my friend on Myspace today. I’m not sure why, maybe they were just trying to promote the band to whomever. In any case, I could tell from the first few notes that I would like their music.

I just bought one of their albums but haven’t listened to it. I’ll get back to you on that, but here’s the video:

Cheers,
Stephen

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Here’s an OK article on how to become a pop star. I would say it’s great, except for it seems to be geared towards someone who wants to sign with a major label. Granted, that’s what most people try to do, but I think that’s the wrong way to do it.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-to-become-a-popstar.html

Cheers,
Stephen

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I’ve been working on mastering these chords. I haven’t mastered them, but it sounds much better than last time!

Here’s what my own strumming rendition of G, Em, C and D7th sounds like now:

And here’s what it sounded like in my last update:

I’m happy with the improvement, even though there’s plenty of room to get better. However I’m going to follow VintageP’s advice and move on to something else.

Actually, I’m moving back to “About A Girl.” My motivation is to learn how to sing and play at the same time, and I think this song will make it easy to practice that.

Cheers,
Stephen

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Lately I’ve been trying to convert audio files on a pretty regular basis. That just goes with the territory of this blog. But it has proven difficult to find a quality piece of software to handle all my needs…

…until now.

Check this website out: http://www.zamzar.com/

Cheers,
Stephen

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