Last week, I had to say say “goodbye” to a friend. In early 2012, I was on a business trip, which connected through Phoenix. When I got to Phoenix, I was horrified to discover that I had forgotten my headphones. The thought of a week of business travel without tunes was too much go bear. Of course, one of those airport vendors had my back, for a price. I bought a Klipsch headset for...
As I continue on my journey to record and capture some of the music in my head, I have come to a realization. Alas, my preponderance of playing solo, and without others, I lack something of the ability to “fit“. This will take some ‘splaining… When listening to an orchestra, you hear the whole piece together, where all parts fit. From the woodwinds, to the strings, to the...
I have played guitar a long time. Like 33 + years (I hate to think how long it has been, really). While I don’t play out much (or at all) anymore, I did get to a certain level of proficiency. Sitting on the couch, noodling, or jamming in my man-cave, it sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself. Alas, I never had any recording gear, having not prioritized that, but I recently rectified that...
Enough with the complaining about hosting, while I am sure I will again blog about the sad state of affairs in that realm, today I want to talk about something fun. I have been a guitar player since 1983 or so. I got a late start, in my last year of high school, so I wasn’t a child prodigy or anything, but I had long wanted to play, and guitar was the cool thing. Many stepping stones...
Today is a sad day, but also a hopeful day. It is time to say goodbye to an old friend, my Fender Telecaster guitar. It is going to a good place, it will be under the tree for a friend’s high school aged son, who wants to learn to play guitar. Still, it is not without some reflection of my past, that is now going away. It isn’t particularly rare, or exciting. It started life as a new...
In the last installment, I had raved wildly about Apple’s then new ‘Music’ service. Same price as Spotify, filled some holes that Spotify had in their library, and since they have my entire collection in their cloud, they have the inside track on offering suggestions that I will enjoy. Add to that the fact that Spotify’s curated playlists had been somewhat stale and I was...
As a day of rest, I took the hotel shuttle to Shinjuku station, and did some wandering, you know, so I wouldn’t miss the human interaction. Shinjuku station is the busiest train station in the world, handling about 4 million people a day during the week. It started well, as the shuttle bus makes quick work of the short distance. I walked around, grabbing some water, and seeing some used...
All my life (ok, most of my life at least) I have played guitar, wishing that I could crest a plateau that has evaded me. Alternate picking, one of the foundations of shredding on guitar, has been a skill I struggled with. Of course I tried often. A lot of exercises. Training videos by Al di Meola, Paul Gilbert, Rusty Cooley all bought, watched and attempted. All failed. Life intervened, I got a...
Apple Music has won my latest battle for my ears. As is often the case, Apple isn’t first to market (or even second), but when they do get to market, they have the best service, most polished interface, and it “just works“. After only 3 weeks of my 3 month trial, it is time to dump Spotify. Dear Spotify, I know this may be hard to take, but it is time to move on from your...
Sometimes you just can’t catch a break. This one involves music. Over the weekend, I fired up the guitar and did some warm ups. Then I tried what I had tried 1000 times before. Alternate picking. The 999 times before it sucked. I couldn’t get my right hand and left hand synchronized, and I was over-thinking the right hand motions, screwing it all up. Last weekend? It clicked. It...