Guitar Journal Blog
Monday, January 10, 2005
Happy New Year 2005
Now while it might seem like i've lost the regularity in blogging, thats only true for this site. My Tech Blog at the DotNetJunkies site has been very regularly updated and I've crossed the 50 post mark with quite a bit of feedback too.
But the other reason why this site hasnt been updated is that I havent actually accomplished anything on the guitar worth talking about in the past few months. I got the MetalMethod DVDs and the Steve Vai and Hawk lessons but never made any progress on them beyond giving them the first run through. The Metal Method DVD for the Steve Vai I was quite faulty but work was so hectic I didnt get round to sending it back for a replacement.
Anyways, now I've got a new guitar custom made in Chennai and its a real beaut. I'll see if I can add the picture to my Gear page on the main site (dont think I can actually do any image loading here). Its very smooth and I'm quite chuffed with it.
Well, I do have quite a few plans for this year and so just maybe this site will grow a lot. Heres hoping.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Music Post Hiatus
Well, its been a little while since I last posted anything here. The main reason is that all the activity has been happening on my tech blog and that has been growing quite a bit with lots of feedback (feedback is enabled by default on that site) and some interesting discussions with people involved in the .NET world.
Anyway, there have been some good developments for me personally. One is that I have worked out the solo for I AM SO THANKFUL by Vineyard. It took only a few minutes actually. Now its not too trivial a solo, but i have made pretty good strides in my ability to pick out tunes and lead lines so it didnt take very long this time. Last night I also worked out the solo to NOW AND FOREVER by Richard Marx. I had learnt the song through the Guitar Pro tab a long long time ago, but forgot all about it and yesterday I just played it working by ear alone. At the end it came back to mind and I was able to put some bits from what I remembered learning the first time and it seemed to all flow quite decently. Did make me very chuffed to be able to do this.
I also ordered a ton of stuff from Metal Method including the complete Guitar course, the Tommy Angelo videos on Steve Vai and Van Halen and Doug Mark's very own Hawk Cd and the lessons for the same. I'm very excited with the purchase and am going to be sitting down to work hard on these for the next few months. I really want to take my playing to the next level and God willing, these materials will be very helpful. Will keep you all posted on my progress.
Friday, July 16, 2004
SATCH ARRIVES
Would you believe it ? nearly 6 weeks after I ordered the Satch DVD, it finally reached me! LickLibrary appear to have underestimated the size of the DVD and it ended up being a 2-disc set. I nearly gave up on getting it at all. Of course, I checked it out immediately and watched a bit of SATCH BOOGIE.
Not much progress on learning new things except the familiar chord progression to Sultans Of Swing. I've kinda re-discovered Dire Straits now and the video for Sultans is really nice.
Work has been absolutely manic and there has been no time to sit and play anything.
Had an ol friend (and one of my guitar gurus and inspirations) from back home in India come over to UK for a conference and he stayed with us just before flying back to Oz-land where he lives now. It was good to catch up and jam a little. In fact I even got to show off a few chops on For the Love of God and Always with Me etc to him. Considering that 6 years ago I just used to sit in awe and watch these chaps playing lead, the fact that I could demo some to one of 'em is really encouraging.
Cliffs Of Dover, here I come !! (maybe only to jump off :-) )
Friday, June 11, 2004
SATCH Note For Note
Its finally been released. LickLibrary have published the Joe Satriani Note for Note DVD and I have ordered it. It still hasnt arrived though because its taken longer to dispatch than they expected and of course, they have been flooded with orders for it. But they said it should reach me in another week.
I saw one of the lessons on the Video Vault. Danny Gill, one of Satch's pupils teaches ALWAYS WITH ME, ALWAYS WITH YOU. He really is quite amazing. Satch must have some really brilliant pupils if this guy is anything to go by. [Heck, he used to teach Vai and Hammett!!]
To start off he teaches a complex chord shape of B with an added 4th which is the first chord of the arpeggiated intro. Now Mutley and I (sic!!) play it in a much simpler way, but this seems to have a better sound, although I have seen Satch use the simple one while the rhythm guitarist plays this complicated beast in the backing section. There was also a different G#m chord to what we are used to, but the one he shows is actually easier to play.
Anyway, I wont drift off now.The lesson was top class and he explained every single bend and every lick over and over again. Since I was watchin rather late at night I have to go back and view it again, but its going to be on the DVD so that should be fine.
The DVD also contains the following songs
1)Extremist - only recently begun to appreciate this one
2)Satch Boogie - awesome blues monster
3)Midnight - completely two hand tapping of chords, lines, everything
4) Always with me - as discussed above
5) Crush Of Love - nice wah wah pedal throughout
6)Surfin with the alien - some rather funky special effects in this one. Only heard it recently.
This should be a real treat to watch. I was kinda hoping they would include SUMMER SONG, but im sure they had a headache trying to decide what to include and what to leave out. Hey, maybe there will be a volume 2 of this. That would really be awesome.
Now if only they would teach some songs of Steve Vai in this way!!!
Long live dreams!!!
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
The Joys and sorrows of Amplification
Now I finally have an big amplifier, courtesy one of my fellow guitarists in the worship team. Apparently it has been lying in her garage for a long long time and she doesnt use it anymore so its now in church and I've started using it. its a Sound City amplifier. I'm not sure how many watts though but its really powerful.
When i first tried it out on a high impedance setting, i was nearly blown away and that too at volume level 1.At low impedance, the volume level of 1.5 is enough to match all the other instruments going through the PA.I shudder to think what level 10 would do to a room or the ears of the people listening.
But its a nice experience to play with an amp.
On Sunday, Chris insisted on placing a mike in front of it and giving an output through the PA so i ended up sounding really loud. I was rather nervous because any wrong notes would be clear for all to hear, but i think I managed even an improvised lead for WE WANT TO SEE JESUS LIFTED HIGH without too much problems.
The only small annoyance is that I now have to readjust my GFX-4 patches to cater to the amp. The SMOOTH setting which is usually very good for worship songs, somehow sounded rather loud and the high E string rang out extra loud so i had to try to avoid it while picking through a couple of songs. Must be some frequency parameter setting. The simple distortion setting too, has no bite at all, rather a dull thump. I need lots of time to work through all the settings again, perhaps on a Thursday practice session before the rest of the band turns up.
Still, i think its a good start.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Guitar Setup
The problem with guitar videos from the greats is that you feel hopelessly inadequate after watching them.In a similar way, after playing a professionally made guitar, your own feels rather hopeless.Im currently thinking along those lines after playing the PRS at the London Guitar Show which is featured in my previous blog entry. Not that I'm going to run out and buy one. I couldnt even afford one in my dreams, but I'm beginning to wonder if the setup is all correct on mine. It does feel as if the strings are slightly different in their actions and they dont seem uniformly close to the fretboard. But i remember taking it to Harrow Music sometime ago for them to sort out the washer for the output socket and the chap there seemed to think the guitar itself was fine. Then again, I didnt tell him to check the action and setup etc so maybe he was thinking that I had it setup for myself and didnt have any complaints on that score.
Oh well, maybe its just a case of sour grapes and lack of talent on my part.!!!
The London Guitar Show
I went for this Guitar Show on Saturday the 8th. It was totally awesome. It was held at Wembley in the Exhibition Halls. Since it is the first time I'm going for something like this, I was quite taken aback by the scale of the program. Tons of stands with musical equipment, displays of guitars from all the leading manufacturers. I even played a PRS costing 2000 pounds. Wow!! That guitar is constructed so beautifully. Great action, great feel. A total contrast to my current electric.
Anyway, I bought some DVDs on Fingerpicking and Acoustic Soloing and also got a video named Blues and Beyond by Geoff Whitehorn. Its quite good. His playing is great, but he doesnt really teach them note for note. He just demoes a couple of techniques for some of the songs. But it was still great to watch.
I'm still waiting for the Satch tutorial DVD from Lick Library though. That is sure to be a masterpiece. Im certain they would have had a struggle choosing the songs to put there. Apparently theres going to be 6. Im fairly certain they will have Always with me and Summer Song (or maybe THE EXTREMIST, although I dont like that track as much as the others). They'll probably also put in Satch Boogie. With luck maybe Crushing Day. Should be interesting to see how many I've got right.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
SLOWING DOWN
I guess it couldnt last. After a pretty strong solid couple of months learning new things, I've had a phenomenally boring month. I havent been able to even touch the guitar to learn anything. Of course, I played a couple of weeks at church, but I didnt get to experiment and do anything new. I did see the Fretboard Roadmaps DVD and the new G3 Live in Denver ones and i must remember to write some reviews of them, but not done much else. The G3 video was very inspiring and I just loved the Fretboard Roadmaps. Mind you, i've only seen half an hour of it till now!!
Actually at a bit of a cross roads in terms of what to concentrate on. Thinking of giving up METAL and focussing primarily on finger picking and country style to make my playing and music a little more accessible to the people around me. It takes a ton of practice to play any of these styles , including metal, competently, but the intermediate stages of the slower ones are still 'musical' (ie) if you play metal in an amateur style, it will sound horrible, but you can actually get a lot of mileage out of being an average country western or finger style player. Another way of looking at it is that the milestones on the way are much shorter. Im never going to be in a band, thats for sure. So why not play music thats more accessible to folks especially since my playing is concentrated in a church setting? Thats my currrent line of reasoning.
Well, that doesnt mean I'm going to drop my current learning projects of rock songs, but it might get shuffled a bit. GREENSLEEVES fingerstyle, for instance, might be a better option that SWEET CHILD OF MINE!! However, im not likely to be THAT drastic for the present. Still need to get the ol fingers moving.
