A quick lick – and a rig du jour update from Ho Chi Minh City

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Greetings from the former/current Saigon. (Technically Ho Chi Minh City but many of the locals call it Saigon).  I had hoped to post a couple of blog updates up before I left, but instead was running around checking things for the trip. Now a jet lagged – iced coffee and soon to be bahn mi –  fueled post:

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1 lick or 2?

So first – here is a lick that works off of the swept pentatonic idea (alternating 3 and 1 note per string ideas) that I explored in the last online lesson (you can find a pdf of that lesson here).  While the online lessons have focused a lot on pentatonics – I wanted to add the tritone to make “the blues scale” and show how this approach could be adapted.  Here is the idea ascending:

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It’s very scalar – but I added  a couple of points of interest:

1. the little descending turn around allows you to play the basic ascending idea starting on both up and down strokes.

2.  I started on the tritone (if played over E minor) or the b3 (if played over G major) instead of the root.  If you’re playing this over G – think Bluegrass metal ; )

3.  The motion is more diagonally oriented than the strict pentatonic example but is the same basic approach.  I start the lick with my first finger and then shift positions for the D on the 12th fret of the D string and the D on the HighE.

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Here is an mp3: Lick1

As variation – I took the same concept and applied it in a more positional approach.  Be careful with this stretch!  If it hurts stop immediately!!!

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Here is an mp3: Lick 2

And finally here are the 2 licks played back to back:  backtoback 1

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Laptop Rig

So I bit the bullet and got an apogee duet.  WOW!  It really has made a stunning difference in resolution and I suspect will help a lot with future mixes I’m working on. With that in mind I wanted to share with the rig I used for the mp3s above.

Here was the basic amp setting I used in Pod Farm 2.0.  This was based on a customtone forum patch called Electric Gypsy.  I just swapped in a tube screamer and bypassed the cab (using the Recabinet impulse responses instead).  One of the big revelations that I found in pod farm is that I could put preamps AFTER the power amp.  Adding that in to the signal chain opened it up a lot.

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I blogged about using impulse responses over the cabs before.  The lie 6 cabs sound good – but to my ears the IR’s add a whole other area of depth.  Here are the IR’s I used – these were from the Modern 1960 4×12 set.  The screen shot is from LA convolver.

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Finally – a screenshot of how it all lays out in AULab.  I just hit the record button in au lab and edited out the noise before and after the take in fission.

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FNH Guitar –> Apogee Duet–>AULAB–>PSP Vintage Warmer–>Pod Farm 2.0–>La Convolver (w. Recabinet IRs)–>Sooperlooper

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I’m still tweaking things – but I think that soundwise everything is improving a lot from where it was even a month ago.  Once I get an A/B set with the floorboard – I think that the laptop is going to be the rig du jour.

One last note – the macbook has is using 4 gigs of ram and was updated with a 7200 rpm Seagte internal drive. (500 gig from OWC).  My computer accepts a 4gig chip in 1 slot – so I may go up to 6 gigs – but the faster internal drive made a big performance difference in the machine. I’d say you’d really need to have that if you’re going to try to go this route.

* Note – I’ve recently posted more on this topic here which may be of interest to you.

“Common Sense is not so common” or Why the internet is probably wrong

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When I was in middle school reading Tom Sawyer, I never thought that I’d be quoting Mark Twain almost daily later in life like I am today.

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I’m sure similar sentiments have been posted on this blog – but I think it’s important to understand that the internet is typically an access point to data rather than information and that common sense (yours and other people’s) will be the best defense in differentiating between the two.

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Data is not in and of itself, information.  It is not fact.  We observe data and then create information from that data. Allow me to present a partial definition from businessdictionary.com. (Full disclosure: I chose this definition because it was closest to my own line of thinking.)

“(Information:) In general, raw data that (1) has been verified to be accurate and timely, (2) is specific and organized for a purpose, (3) is presented within a context that gives it meaning and relevance, and which (4)leads to increase in understanding and decrease in uncertainty. The value of information lies solely in its ability to affect a behavior,decision, or outcome. A piece of information is considered valueless if, after receiving it, things remain unchanged.”

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Here’s an example.  If I go insane and say that the universe is a 1/2 eaten sandwich that God has left on a plate somewhere, I can post that online.  And essentially that’s data.  It’s data marking that this idea is one person’s opinion and the onus is then on the reader to corroborate that data as fact.

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Jacques Ellul wrote a book called Propaganda which was heavily influential to me.  One of the points Ellul raises is that intellectuals are frequently the most susceptible to propaganda as they were 1. people who believed that their intellect would allow them to filter out propaganda and 2.the people who consumed the majority of their information from 3rd parties (books, media, etc) rather than 1st hand experience.

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The second point is particularly salient as the problem with the internet is that it is literally a data dump. You could devote a full time job just to try to verify one point on the net – and there are billions of them.

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Relating this to guitar, I can’t tell you the number of times I shudder at people sharing, “information” that’s just wrong.  2+2=5 wrong.  Things like “The third mode of A Major starts with a D flat.”  No it doesn’t, because D flat is not part of the key signature – C# is (Along with F# and G#) and while enhamonically C# and Db are the same – if you’re missing the role of C# as the third in A Major – you’re missing the point entirely.  Flamenco instruction videos that talk about how “Flamenco is easy” and “it’s just one pattern over and over again” and then they go on to play a Gypsy Kings style comp that has nothing to do with Flamenco incorrectly!

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The point of these specific examples is: if this is your only source of information – you’re going to get it wrong.

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The first line of defense in differentiating between data and information is common sense.  And there’s actually a fair amount of it in general.  I’m probably not going to get a lot of serious traffic on the universe as 1/2 eaten ham sandwich web site – because that’s obviously ludicrous (or is it?)  But the second line of defense is just as important, and that is in the form of a teacher.  Not even necessarily a dedicated guitar teacher – it could be any kind of mentor with expertise in that area.

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If I read a recording tip on the internet that sounded intriguing but crazy, there are several engineer friends of mine I could call to ask if it was feasible.  If you see some performing a technique on the net that seems completely contrary to the way you play – it’s good to find some mentors – maybe a teacher – maybe pro players to see if they’ve got it wrong or if you do.

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The internet offers a lot of tremendous data and some really solid information.  It’s an exciting time and an unprecedented moment in human history.   But realize that just as prospectors have to sift a lot of sand to find gold – you should be prepared to approach anything you find on the net with a healthy amount of skepticism.

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I’ll end this with one other Mark Twain quote that is as good a philosophy as any I’ve read,

“Sing like no one’s listening, love like you’ve never been hurt, dance like nobody’s watching, and live like its heaven on earth.”

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Thanks for reading!

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Towards A Personal Improvisational Aesthetic

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The following is a paper I submitted for Susie Allen’s Aesthetics and Ontology of Free Improvisation class at CalArts.

The paper discusses the aesthetics behind my improvisational process and was written as an improvisation (i.e. in a 25  minute writing session with no edits) .  This writing style was done in the spirit of the class – but I hope that it addresses some real points regarding improvisation and not just my undying love for the Sledgehammer riffs of Black Sabbath 😉

While highly personal (it is my own aesthetic I’m discussing) – I’ve posted it as it brings up some questions on the nature of improvisation.

When I went to Berklee, there was a very dogmatic definition of “improvisation” in play that typically involved playing well rehearsed licks over well worn changes.  This has as little to do with improvisation (in my way of thinking) as me being spontaneous at a party and deciding to tell the story about the time I was on the number 1 bus with the wasted hooker on the way to Central Square I’ve told a dozen times before…

Derek Bailey’s Improvisation book, is a good beginning toward a real discussion of this topic – but it really only scratches the surface.  A difficult topic, along with aesthetics and one that certainly isn’t deeply represented here.  Nevertheless, you may find a point or two of interest below….

Note: – Unlike the paper I submitted to Susie, I did edit this post for spelling mistakes.

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Towards A Personal Improvisational Aesthetic

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“This paper is being written as an improvisation.  I have a central idea that I am working on, namely the aesthetic of what I do, and then will base a series of observations around that.  With any luck this will lead to a logical conclusion.

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My aesthetic comes from a variety of sources, I am fond of saying that Arika Kurosawa’s RAN was probably more influential to my musical development than any composition.  This is of course an oversimplification.  Growing up in a white middle class home in a small town in upstate New York…An early love of horror and science fiction films…early Saturday Night Live episodes and classic comedy, the works of Charles Schultz, of Borges, Marquez and the other magical realists.  The stylism of Yukio Mishima.  Punk rock and Bartok.  Ornette and Black Sabbath.  The Beatles and the Swans.  Eiko Ishiyoka.  Ingmar Bergman.  Woody Allen.  Son House.  Charlie Patton.  David Cronenberg.  This list alone would take up four or five pages.  The point is that my aesthetic is formed by not only all of the things I have experienced, but in fact, from all of the things around me.

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While my aesthetic has a variety of things in its origin, it is fueled by a resonance with passion.  It is what unites the Balkan folk tune with Patsy Cline.  I seek passion in performance.  I seek actions that come from a real place.  That are transmitted somehow in a real way – a way that resonates with my own emotions.

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I seek the articulation of the scream, of the sob.  I seek the frame work for tears and joy.  Occasionally I seek the image in the blade of the knife.  I seek the commonality of the intimate connection.

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My own “art” involves sonics – and while I am frequently fond of dismissing it as, “all the same to a deaf person” – my music – my sound is part of the core of my being.  And with it comes baggage.  Baggage is not always a good thing in sonics.  Neitzsche’s abyss gazing back into thee.  Familiar things that go everywhere YOU go.   That start to define you.  People look at baggage to see where you have been.  They look at your baggage to make judgments about you through your travels…your experiences, “Oh you’ve never been to Lisbon darling – oh you really must go sometime”.  Baggage is a difficult thing because your baggage usually carries things that are yours.  This is important, there is a little of you in all of your baggage and that is why it is so difficult to get rid of.

I understand the importance of repertoire, but repertoire is ultimately not of terrible interest to me.  Repertoire to me equates to repetition.  Our culture thrives on repetition.  If you do something successful, the thinking is you should immediately do it again.  Society seems to tell people that you should vary responses only if there is a guarantee of succeeding at an even greater level and that you should never vary responses if there is even the faint stink of failure.

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Repetition can be an anathema to improvisation.  It is acceptable to me in some elements of improvisation.  For example, a person improvises an idea and repeats it – setting a stage for motif or a tonal idea.  This is acceptable to me.  The concept of repertoire as I learned it, the old music of a number of dead old men – all performed with an archivist’s attention to detail, is not really in line with my thinking.

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I like improvising.  I like creating new repertoire.  I like knowing that this moment is unique.  That it will never happen this way again.

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Still I can’t leave well enough alone.  I have the consistent idea to document these improvisations.  To edit out the warts and polish them like a stone.  The world belongs to the editors. The editors determine history and the people who determine history determine the basis for context.

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This is a problem with improvising a paper.  Ideas ramble and there is no way to reel them in.  This paper, however, is a true improvisation.  It has been started with a goal in mind and is moving towards a conclusion.  My marketing experiments with improvisation, trying to clean up recordings to make them more viable for other consumers is not going to have an effect on this paper.  This paper is a stream of thought that will not be altered.

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And this process is necessary.  It is necessary because the only way to get to the heart of this issue is to do so without self-editing.  To write this down as if I can split the singular voice in my mind into a conversation. That these words – these chemical reactions in my brain that generate these disgusting, silly guttural hang-ups are now reduced even further into lines on a page…into dots on a computer screen is humorous to me.  Because somehow these lines work their way back through the reader’s complex neural network and allows those ideas to be interpreted by the reader in a very similar way.

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This is the point of improvisation.  Improvisation idealistically creates a communal idea.  It creates core material from something unique and allows for a direct transmission to the audience.  This is the ideal.  Improvisation is a language. When people are listening – improvisation takes metaphoric words and phrases and transforms them into a dialog. The beauty of improvisation is that where words will generally have a similar meaning (i.e. when I write the word chair there is a platonic idea of a chair that is generated in the reader’s mind’s eye.)  But in improvisation, the audience is an active participant in facilitating a dialog that can never be interpreted by the audience in the same way that it is for the improvisers.  It is a translucent image rather than a transparent one and it is in this distortion that there is beauty, there is horror and there is the essence of what it is to be human.

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Improvisation as a practice is the focus of an idea through an imposed restriction.  This restriction could either be self imposed or be imposed upon the improviser through other means. Improvisation as it relates to common experience can be seen in the example of the car that stops running in the middle of a trip.  A person experienced in auto repair may attempt to pop the hood of the car to see if they can ascertain how to repair the vehicle.  Or they may try to flag down help.  Or they may try to use a cell phone to contact a garage.  The point being that within the context of a vehicle malfunction, different actions are improvised based on the improviser’s facility with both the situation at hand and the tools at their disposal.  The same is true for an improvising artist.

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This is why improvisation and the aesthetic behind that improvisation is so important.  Because life is essentially an improvisation.  As individuals we are brought into an unknown situation and then required to come into each day not exactly knowing what will happen.  We know that there is an eventual end, but we don’t know when or how it will end.  But we continue to improvise, because it is in the active improvisation and in the aesthetic behind our improvisational choices that we create meaning.”

Rig around the Rosie or Mediations and Meditations on Gear

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Yesterday, I was trolling online for one or two things that I’d like to have to fill my insatiable gear lust and found an Atomic 1×12 amp for sale in Las Vegas for $149! A phone call and a credit card number later the amp was on its way to South Pasadena.

Now, I already had one of these amps – so a logcal question would be, “What the Hell do you need two of them for?”  Well, a couple of things,

1.  When I find things I like I try to buy a backup in case something goes wrong.  We can call this the great “Digitech Space Station lesson” – where (when they were in the death knell of production) Guitar Center was blowing them out @ $99 per and I only bought one.  Now the one I have is on its last legs and replacement ones are about $300-$400 on ebay.

2.  2 amps mean I can run my effects stereo.  Sounds small – but when looping things in stereo and there’s sound swirling around your feet…ahhhhh…there’s nothing like it.

3.  They don’t make this model anymore – and if worse comes to worse I could unload it for $250-$300 if I had to.

4.  As much as it kills me to say it – tubes project sound differently than solid state.  Before I left Boston, one of the bands I was playing in was One of Us.  The singer/guitarist/songwriter John Eye, had a Vetta – that sounded good.  It was super flexible and could do things that my amp set up never could.  But live, my rig (see the bottom of the media page for full rig information) projected completely differently.  Even when I used the pod 2.0 in front of my DeVille – it pushed the sound in a completely different way.

So, when playing with rock bands – I try to use a tube amp when possible.  For the film/video gigs I do – It’s more about convenience as there’s less sonically for me to have to compete with in terms of space.

(As a side note, John Eye is a truly great frontman.  He and I had very different views about live performance, but I always liked and respected him and dug his material.  I’ve included links above – including the Pull video which has some life footage of me with the band – but not audio 😦 .  I don’t know if any of the material I recorded with the band at that time will be on it – but if not – I’m sure the new material will be very cool.)

Getting back to gear and its endless acquisition –  I have conflicting opinions about it.

Having said all of this, will I still need to get Pod Farm Platinum eventually to go with the Pod X3 and the X3 live?  Yep.  Just a matter of time.  Will I get the Apogee Duet?  Yep – just a matter of time.

Because just like the plague inspired song quoted in the title, “Ashes – ashes we all fall down.”  – and life is too short to waste it on crappy tone.

I have missed a lot of great gear at great prices by waiting to buy it when I saw it.  If it’s a good deal, and I can make your money back on reselling it (if I have to) I jump on it now – before the next person does. Because who knows?  That extra piece of gear might get me .01% closer to the sound I’m looking for.

A long winded justification for buying an amp – but it’s important to have a realistic expectation of why you’re buying a piece of gear if not for yourself than to be able to explain it to your spouse.

I’m still unpacking – so no profound posts for a while probably.  Less fluff and more content next time around.  Thanks for dropping by.

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Definitions and Documents Or Practicing Part IV

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I was originally planning on updating this post with pictures of hand postures and address left and right hand muting techniques – but given that I have sunburned skin peeling off of 20% of my body – I’m going to hold off on photos for now.

Instead, I’d like to take a moment and actually address defining practicing as a means of understanding what is being addressed by practicing and then examine how documenting the process can assist with it.

For those of you who are just coming to this post you may want to also read the previous posts on practicing.  Here’s a link to part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Definition

By defining practicing it’s easier to understand what practicing is supposed to do.  Here is a partial definition from Meriam Webster.

“Main Entry: 1prac·tice

Variant(s): also prac·tise \ˈprak-təs\

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): prac·ticed also prac·tised; prac·tic·ing also prac·tis·ing

Etymology: Middle English practisen, from Middle French practiser, from Medieval Latin practizare,alteration of practicare, from practica practice, noun, from Late Latin practice, from Greek praktikē, from feminine of praktikos

Date: 14th century

transitive verb1 a : carry out, apply <practice what you preach> b : to do or perform often, customarily, or habitually<practice politeness> c : to be professionally engaged in <practice medicine >
2 a : to perform or work at repeatedly so as to become proficient <practice the act> b : to train by repeated exercises <practice pupils in penmanship>”

The definitions presented in the 2nd part of this definition help – but don’t really explain how to train or what practicing is supposed to achieve.  So I’m going to supply one of my own.

Practice:  The proper focused repetition of an idea through an incrementally difficult environment for the purpose of achieving a musical goal.

By tearing apart this definition some elements of practicing can be exposed that you might not have thought about before.

proper:  meaning the right way; consistently

focused:  Practice requires concentration because it requires attention to detail.

repetition:  repetition leads to familiarity (and familiarity breeds contempt so be careful here!)

incrementally difficult environment:  To practice something means that you are pushing your abilities to do something.  In music, one implication of this is to practice with a time keeping device (metronome, drum machine, drummer, recording, etc.) – but this could be any kind of parameter that actually pushes you.

for the purpose of achieving a musical goal:  Practice is goal oriented.  If you are not trying to achieve anything then you are not practicing.

With a clearer understanding of what is meant by practicing – we can go on to how to maximize the use of your practicing time.

1.  Set clear, well-defined goals (short AND long-term) and work towards those goals.

2.  Since practice requires concentration, put yourself in an environment that facilitates concentration such as a relatively quiet, well lit and well ventilated room as free of distraction as possible.

3.  While concentration is required for repetition, excessive repetition undermines concentration.  Many people use set periods of time to practice something.  This can be a good policy if it is done in moderation.  Bill Leavitt (the founder of the guitar department at Berklee)  suggested that students should practice reading for 15 minutes of every hour of practice – because 4 sessions of 15 concentrated minutes of practice get you a lot further than one hour of unfocused practice.  A timer (like an oven timer) can be a great assistance here.

For some people, concentration will be a learned activity.  If you are not used to focusing on something with intensity, then even trying to work 10 minutes on something may be problematic.

If you are having problems with this area – try starting with smaller intervals of time like 5 minutes with one short phrase and then move on to the next item on your agenda. Practicing in this manner will help you develop your capacity for focus as well.

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There are several different thoughts about achieving goals, for me personally – it’s important to get many ideas into muscle memory slowly and develop them all at the same time rather than developing only one idea fully after another. You, however,  should plan on experimenting and find what approaches work for you. 

By setting a timer and not worrying about how long you are practicing, (in whatever methodology you use) you can spend more energy on the actual performance.

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Documentation

One approach to consider is seen in how athletes train.  After all, playing guitar is a physical process that requires performance of well-trained activity.  This is very similar to a swimmer who has to be able to perform at a high level at a signal (like a whistle blowing).  One thing athletes do is WRITE IT DOWN.  Runners for example often keep a journal of performance times to see if they’re improving.  Writing things down in a journal doesn’t have to be complex or difficult.  I used to keep a notepad in my guitar case, and then write things down.  But now it’s easier to customize a practice log or journal and utilize that either in print or electronically.

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I have linked two sample documents below.  Please feel free to download and use or edit at will.

PRACTICE LOG (PDF)

Weekly Practice Log (Word)

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What needs to be written down:

Here’s a sample entry:

Week of What is being Practiced? Time Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Notes
6/8/10 A Major Pentatonic sweep (sextuplets) 10 mins 100bpm             Watch Pinky tension!!

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The goal is to write just enough to keep track of what you’re doing.  Feel free to add or drop items.  

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If you’re going to start really putting the hours into practicing, I would recommend that you give yourself enough material to do no more than an hour or two at one sitting. 

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Do multiple sittings a day if you want. (Personally – I can’t really focus very well after an hour or so consistently.  So if I can I do an hour in the afternoon and then another hour later).  

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It also depends on what I need to practice.  If it’s a difficult piece I need to pull together – I might have to do 4-5 sessions like this a day.  The point is to find what works for you and stick with it.

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I’m calling it a practice log or a journal – but really it’s a type of map –

by keeping a journal you can see where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re going.

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It’s a good idea to periodically go through some old journals to just kind of get a fix for where you’re at.

Keeping a practice journal can be a drag and a chore if you want to view it that way, but it can be hugely beneficial in seeing what it is you are actually getting done.  If you make it a part of the practice ritual it will just be something you do.

For example, the first thing an experienced player will do before they play anything on a guitar is to see if it’s in tune.  If you get used to just picking up the journal when you pick up a guitar to practice – it will become 2nd nature.

Now that you’re writing it down – here are some things to address while you’re practicing:

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Practice accurately.

You have to play slowly and accurately before you can play quickly and accurately.

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Pay attention!

Can you make out all of the notes?  Are you really nailing the rhythm?  Are there any open strings ringing or unwanted notes?  Are you practicing the same way that you’re going to play?  Is the guitar in the same position when you practice as when you play in front of an audience?

[*Special Note: Paying attention requires concentration which is why you can’t really practice while you’re watching TV.  You can play or warm up in front of a TV – you just can’t focus on the TV and the guitar at the same time.  If you can’t pay attention to something try moving on.  If you can’t move on, then stop and come back to it.  You will get much more done this way that by just mindlessly running fingering patterns*]

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Always use a metronome, recording or time keeping device when practicing.

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Isolate problem areas.

If you are learning a piece, there are often several areas that need more attention that the rest of the piece.  Isolate those areas (however small they may be) and develop them. When you have gotten more comfortable with the problematic areas –  begin to practice sections before and after the area.  Treat the problem area as a center and keep moving out from the center as necessary.

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Do it right the first time.

Paying attention allows you to make sure that you’re practicing correctly.  Practice correctly – play correctly.  Inherent in this idea is that you’re practicing at a tempo you’re comfortable enough that you can tell if you’re playing it correctly.

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Don’t go overboard.

Some people go from not practicing at all to trying to practice the entire day.  Music is built off of experience, growth and endurance – none of which comes quickly.  Moderation is a good thing.  Occasionally think of the long term, and use the marathoner’s strategy of pacing yourself.

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Persevere.

Establish a regimen and stick as close to it as you can. If you make practicing enjoyable – you’ll eventually start to look forward to it.  It’s okay to stop and take breaks from practicing as a regimen, just don’t forget to start up again.

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Don’t forget to play.

The whole point of practicing is to gain elements to utilize in playing music.  Play whenever possible, desired and/or required.  After all this is supposed to be enjoyable.

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All of this advice works off of the idea that you have specific goals in mind when practicing.  My suggestions for what to practice will be the subject of a later post.

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I hope this helps!

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If you like this post you may also like:

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PRACTICE MAKES BETTER AKA PRACTICING PART I

PROPER POSTURE IS REQUIRED FOR PROPER PERFORMANCE – PRACTICING PART II

TENSION AND THE SODA CAN OR PRACTICING PART III

DEFINITIONS AND DOCUMENTS OR PRACTICING PART IV

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PRACTICE WHAT YOU PLAY OR PRACTICING PART V

TESTING YOUR VOCABULARY OR PRACTICING PART VI

POSSESSION IS 9/10S OF THE LAW BUT PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING OR PRACTICING PART VII

Some Useful Online Practice Tools

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FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON

MELVILLE, MADNESS AND PRACTICING – OR FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON PART 2

INSPIRATION VS. INTIMIDATION

What’s wrong with playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” for a world speed record?.

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Festival Wrap Up

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Just got back from finishing up the last day at the Cha’ak’ab Paaxil Festival in Mérida.

For the concert – Carmina and I wanted to do something with Page of Madness but we were limited to 35 minutes and there was no way to really edit it without destroying the narrative – so we ended up having to use part of Decasia by Bill Morrison.  We edited it that afternoon and performed it at Ule – which was a really great space.  I was having some tech trouble before the show and we got through it with a well recieved set.

The Structured Improvisation with Film Workshop went well and had great participants. While Carmina and I have a lot of experience working with film – trying to present that in a 3 hour package and then having Carmina translate my rambling in real time was particularly challenging.  But everyone rose to the occasion and I was just knocked out by the quality of how well everyone adapted to the situation.  Special thanks to Juan Garcia for organizing the event and the College of Arts of Yucatan for hosting it.

Innumerable performance highlights but the Mandorla [Manrico Montero + Fernando Vigueras + Juanjosé Rivas] set stayed with me for days, as well as the Bhob Rainey + Manrico Montero, Bhob Rainey + Juanjosé Rivas performances and the No.Estacion.Arte [Aimée Theriot + Eli Pinto + Alfredo Bojorquez + Juan Garcia] sets.  But really all of them were memorable.  I didn’t come with any expectations (Except for Fernando who I knew from Linfa and like his playing a lot) and was just knocked out by the quality of the musicians.  How I didn’t know about Chris Cogburn or Manrico or Juanjosé before is just troubling to me.  But I plan on making up for lost time.  It was also fascinating how even though I was in Boston for years and knew about Vic Rawling and Bhob Rainey – I’d never heard them live until the festival.  The irony of that wasn’t lost on me either.

Everyone here has been awesome!

Thanks to:

Gerardo Alejos, Rejon Enrique Palma, Juan García and everyone else involved in the festival organization.
The musicians: Juanjosé Rivas, Manrico Montero, Armando Martín, Remi Álvarez, Chris Cogburn, Bhob Rainey, Vic Rawlings,  Mauricio Valdés, Milo Tamez, Elí Pinto, Aimée Theriot, Alfredo Bojórquez, Oscar García & Camilo Solís (I hope I didn’t forget anyone!!!)  You were all great and I hope we can play together in the future.
The really awesome audiences!

Special Thanks to:

mi nuevo amigo –  Fernando Vigueras (for putting up with a lot of me in a short period of time).  Getting to know him alone made the festival worthwhile.
mi mejor amiga – Carmina Escobar (for endless translating, friendship and truly great collaborations)

Tech Limbo (Neither Heaven nor Hell R.I.P. Ronnie James Dio)

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So I’m packing, moving and simultaneously trying to get some stuff ready for the Cha’ak’ab Paaxil Festival in Yucatán, México June 3-5th.  My plan is to leave the amp here and to use a combination of Line 6 gear and a guitar to play the shows.

After playing with Wael Kakish and the Middle Eastern ensemble last night, I was able to open the package I got from Sweetwater and check out my new Line 6 FBV Shortboard Mk II.

The new board is REALLY cool.  It’s solid in it’s construction and small enough to fit in my laptop bag.  After I downloaded the FBV Control software from Line 6.   I tried to set up a SooperLooper session in AU lab.  The concept was to run the AU of SooperLooper in AU Lab and use a midi patchbay to make sure the signal was going from the FBV to the Sooperlooper session.  Here are the patchbay settings.

Had some trouble initially  but once I went into FBV control and reset some of the switches everything worked.

This probably isn’t the smartest series of codes to get everything to work – but it’s working.

The only gripe that I have is that I wish that some additional parameters in SL could be controlled via midi (i.e. 1/2 or double speed or main monitor volume for fades).  It’s easy enough to lean over and hit the keyboard – but it does defeat the purpose of ordering a 15′ USB cable.  The board itself though works like a charm.

I’m in the process of working on sounds on the X3 Live for the show – and tweak PA vs. amp sounds.  One thing I’ve noticed with modeling is that there are at least 4 different scenarios for setting up sounds:

1.  Headphone patches – i.e. practicing or recording

2.  Playing through an amp at low volumes

3.  Playing through an amp at high volumes

4.  Playing through a PA.

You might think that there wasn’t a lot of variance – but the differences between these parameters are huge.  I have patches that sound mediocre at low volumes and sound really good when the volume gets goosed a bit.  Headphone patches that work well at home and fall apart live – and vice versa.

As a result of all of these constant parameters I’ve been experimenting with Impulse Responses in Logic’s Space Designer (and LA Convoluter) and getting some encouraging results.

Impulse Responses (IRs)

In a simplified definition:  Impulse Responses (IRs) are measurements of acoustic spaces that can be loaded into applications (Like Altiverb or Space Designer) to create different types of reverberations.

I read an article about beefing up Logic 8’s guitar amp pro by replacing the speaker sims with IR’s.  That article is here.  This got me looking for all kinds of IR’s.  For those of you who want to see how this works on guitar tracks – check out the recabinet site.  There’s a really cool pdf that talks about the different IRs and the mics used to capture them.  As of this writing they’re selling a download of something like 2000 IR’s for $15 bucks.

Now I’ve been testing these at home – the difference is night and day!

It’s late while I’m posting this – but let me give you 2 simple examples.  First here is a simple rock rhythm with a plexi type setting.  This is just the AU recording of the pod with a plexi setting and the 4×12 cabinets selected.

DirtyrhythmnoIR

Now here is a another take of the same pattern and settings but with a 4×12 IR added. It’s a little brighter but the response is different as well.

DirthrhythmIR

To my ears – the second is a little more natural sounding particularly on the ascending chords.  Here’s one more example with a clean tone.  It’s subtle but noticable.  First with no IR

BluevelvetnoIR

And with the same IR as above added:

BlueVelvetIR

The non traditional guitar sounds have various degrees of success, some sound better some sound worse.  But this made a HUGE difference on the headphones.  I’ll try them through speakers later.

For those of you looking for free links here are a couple of them.  I’m in the process of downloading these myself – so no guarantees for the sounds themselves.

First some very cool non-guitar specific responses here:

Then some more guitar and bass specific IRs here. But I’m digging the redcabi.net IRs so far…

I found an AU ( LAConvolver ) that supports IRs and runs in AU lab – if I keep the wet gain at 50% it works well.

The advantages of AU lab are several (including low CPU use and that you can route audio OR midi through it) but the main advantage is that when you save the session all of the parameters in all associated plug-in’s applications are saved.  In other words – when I get it set up for use with a PA – it’s done.  No more re-inventing the wheel.  This is particularly helpful when you’ve set up a series of midi commands for Sooper Looper.

Here’s the laptop setup:

FNH Guitar -> Radial Dragster ->Pod x3 Live -> (Stereo out) ->Behringer FCA 202 (I hope to sub this out with an Apogee Duet eventually) -> Macbook Pro (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz – older model) ->Aulab running LAConvolver and Sooperlooper->(Stereo out) ->Behringer.

Here’s the AuLab set up – I’ve put SL on a Bus – but I since I can mix wet and Dry in SL I could have just left it on channel 1.


Here are some sample LA Convolver settings (these are both from the 4×12 greenback IR’s in redcabi.net):

And finally 4 instances of SL.

I’m still experimenting but this is the current plan.  Now to apply all of this to mainstage to get synths and percussion in the mix….

This may not make any sense.  The goal to to fit everything into 1 bag – except for a guitar and a gig bag.  Hopefully I’ll have photos soon.

Also the title of this references the passing of Ronnie James Dio.  I enjoyed his work with Rainbow and while he and Vivian Campbell had a pretty miserable falling out – their 1st 2 cds had some great moments vocal and guitar (particularly Last in Line with perhaps the quintessential heavy metal guitar solo).  Dio was 67 on hitting the stage with Black Sabbath (ok fine – Heaven and Hell) at an age many people are bed ridden.  It reminds me of my favorite quote on retirement ever:

“All I do is play music and golf.  What do you want me to retire from?” – Willie Nelson

Rest in peace Ronnie.

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world”

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If you want to be a great guitarist you should try to develop and nurture passion for other art or music that has nothing to do with guitar and adapt or assimilate those things in your playing.

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Story Time

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Please allow me to share a story with you.  This is a true story, but the names have been removed to protect the guilty.

Once upon a time, there was a doe-eyed child trapped in a 17 year old body who left his small town of 2,000 people and went to a big city to study guitar.  The institution of learning he went to study guitar at was a very big place with several thousand musicians.  At the absolute minimum it was completely overwhelming for him as an experience.  He went to the school knowing his ass was going to get kicked – but not knowing that saying his ass would get kicked would be more like telling the parachuter mid jump when his/her chute wouldn’t open he/she might break a bone from the fall when they “bounced” (yes “bounced” is the technical term for this occurrence and yes, it happens often enough that a term needed to be developed).

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It kind of broke him.

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In addition to the culture shock of being in a city, rather than a place he described as “Deliverence with snow”, he found the school had a real focus on Jazz and anything non-Jazz was looked upon with complete derision.  He was bombarded with fellow students and faculty telling him the music he liked – the music that was a part of his soul –  was trash and he was wasting his time with it because Jazz was the only music that mattered.  So he did what anyone from a small working class town would do, he became a walking middle finger to anything Jazz because he thought that it was the only way he could defend his identity.  The moment that door was shut was the moment his undergrad experience was doomed.

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Now to be fair, the blame for this was 50-50.  He had no understanding of Jazz as a style.  

Where he grew up in upstate NY, Classic Rock radio and top 40 was the staple and those were his primary means of musical exploration.  But the problem was the curriculum was based around an academic buy-in for Jazz pedagogy, so if you knew nothing about it stylistically – there was no easy way in.  It was just simply rammed down your throat and you either swallowed or spat it out.

In his lesson – a weekly 1/2 hour slot – he and his teacher went over a series of proficiency requirements that were necessary to pass the final exam.  The student asked questions about why he needed this material and how he could utilize the material in the rock and metal music he was playing –  but he was just told these were tools he needed to play Jazz.  And given what we’ve said about his (now visceral) reaction to Jazz you can imagine how well this was received.

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His second semester he found another teacher and this teacher was more understanding about what he was trying to do and who shared a lot of his interests.  The two of them started delving into Japanese modes and other concepts and he actually got excited about what he was doing.   The student asked his new teacher if they could just keep going in this direction instead of focusing on rote memorizations of reharmonized chord-solo renditions of tunes that he didn’t need solo renditions.  The teacher said to talk with the chair of the department and get his approval.

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The chair of the department was newly appointed, had a lot of work to do and was not happy with the prospect of meeting with this student.  The student explained he had a very specific direction that he wanted to go in his playing, that this direction didn’t coincide with the narrow parameters of the proficiencies and then asked the chair if there was any way that he could be accommodated.  The chair informed him that wasn’t what they did at the school.  The purpose of the school (according to the chair) was to have students master that particular school’s style and then when the student got out he or she would have the rest of their carer to develop their own style.

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The student said that while he realized he was only a student – the logic of the argument evaded him.  Actually, in the interest of honest reporting and to exclude any pretense of articulation what he said was,

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“Look I know I don’t know anything – but that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.  There’s only 12 notes – that’s the substance.  Everything else is style.  What is the point of having 800 people all walking out of here and all sounding exactly the same?  Isn’t my style the only thing that’s going to make me different from every other guitarist out there?”

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The student was then told that was the way it was and he could either take it or leave it.  

The student thanked the chair for his time, walked over to another office and submitted a change of major form.

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Music is a language.  If you learn it as a language – immersing yourself in it, learning vocabulary, speaking it to others as often as possible – you will gain fluidity in it.

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I want to discus vocabulary for a moment and then discuss the issue of style.  One way to think of licks is as musical vocabulary.  As a musician, you learn a bunch of licks so you can communicate with other musicians.  It’s similar to going on any trip or travel.  You might not speak a foreign language – but you should at least learn how to say a few words or phrases to try to get you by.

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If you only learn licks from one source –

it will be difficult to not sound like that source.

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If I go to a show and see a guitar player I can tell you usually in a song or two who he’s listened to.  If it’s only guitar players I probably won’t make it to song #3.  Going back to the language analogy, if you grow up in New Jersey and everyone you know and speak with is from New Jersey – you’re going to have to work hard to get a Texas accent sounding authentic, much less an Irish or Spanish one.  Do you have to learn other accents?  No.  No one is forcing you to do so but it’s important to realize that…

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all of your experiences influence how you communicate with other people.

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Hence the Wittgenstein quote in the article.  For those of you who remember Orwell’s “1984” – there was the idea of newspeak,  the language that kept getting smaller each year for the purposes of eradicating thoughtcrime.  The less you experience in the world, the less you are able to express.  This is why 13 year old children writing love songs do not have the lyrical content to truly plumb the depths of the soul, even though they are often supremely confident that they do.

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If your experiences influence how you speak with other people then it stands to reason they can effect how you play with other people.  If, for example, four guys in a room have only listed to, played and learned “Smoke on the water” – they’re not going to write “Giant Steps” on their own any time soon.  They’re going to play “Smoke on the water” and if they do write something new, it will probably have a lot of similarities to “Smoke on the water”.  (Traveler’s advisory – do not party with these guys.)

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Adaptation and the hidden agenda

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This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t learn other people’s licks.  It’s vital that you do – because you have to develop vocabulary, but I highly recommend you vary your sources.  If you play guitar, try learning music played on other stringed instruments like violin, or from non-string performances like vocal lines.  My rhythm playing is rhythmically informed by things like drum rudiments, flamenco foot work and rhythmic phonetics.  My single line playing is rooted in rock, but there’s various Hindustani, Balkan, Arabic and Koto references that are specific to things I do.

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Almost every gig I’ve ever played I got because I put energy into learning things that weren’t guitaristic and adapting them.  You’ll never confuse my guitar with a Kayagum – but if I play a note with a sharp bend and crazy vibrato it doesn’t sound like a guitar lick either.  It crosses a boundary and becomes something new.  And here is the hidden agenda.

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When it becomes new, it becomes yours and things that are yours have extra value.

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In addition to this, try cultivating artistic influences from things that are not guitar related.  

The painter Francis Bacon probably influenced me at least as much as Hendrix and his works are a model for me in expressing motion and fluidity through art.  I’m passionate about books and films and I try to adapt anything worthwhile in those experiences into my playing.

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Acquiring tastes

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A funny thing happened to that student after he got out of school.  He started playing with a lot of other players who had opened their minds instead of closing them and those people hipped him to a lot of music – including Ornette Coleman and Ornette was making some of the most wonderful music he had ever heard.  The student found that when it wasn’t being force fed to him as the only viable form of musical expression that there were a lot of great artists and great music being made in the genre and years later (with a little maturity and perspective behind him) he became a fan and started adopting a number of ideas and approaches from the style into his playing.

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The important thing is to find things that you are passionate about and explore, adapt and/or assimilate them to the fullest level you can.

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The limits of your musical language are the limits of your style.

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As always thanks for reading!

-SC

Seeing the forest instead of the tree

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This is a re-post of an entry I made in response to a post on Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist blog.  The specific entry that I was responding to regarded building a career as an artist.  That post can be found here.  It gave some advice to people who wanted to be artists and included the following bolded points:

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  1. You cannot do art if you are starving.
  2. Art emanating from a black hole is a choice.
  3. Real artists will make art no matter what.
  4. You do not need to quit your day job.
  5. You are not a better artist if you can do it full time.

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The bullet points don’t really do the post justice.  I think Penelope had a lot of good reasoning behind what she posted and I’d recommend that you check it out.  As you might imagine, there was a lot of controversy in the comments following her post with some people were very supportive and some were very resistant.

This post is ultimately about focus and about working through short and long terms goals and setting priorities.

Currently, I don’t perform music as a full-time gig because the music that I want to play traditionally does not make a lot of money and music is too important to me to play in situations I don’t want to play in ONLY for money.  If the right gig came along – or the right circumstances allowed me to do what I do on guitar full-time – then I would certainly do so.  I’m sure that I can position myself into that place ultimately but, in the meantime, there are other things that I’m not willing to compromise on in regards to my music or my life (like healthcare which would be impossible to swing on a $50/night gig) in the short-term.

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By being a little selective in gigs and playing situations – I can bring a lot more to the table when I play.  By being selective in lessons, I can fully engage myself in helping someone rather than just trying to herd as many people through as possible just to make rent.


I’ve edited the post to fit the context of this blog better but have kept the majority of the content intact.

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Re: How to build a career as an artist

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“I’m not sure what the median age of the reader of this specific post is. Outside of regular readers,  I would guess that the primary readers are a). people who are out of undergrad , working a day job and are here because someone forwarded a link of encouragement or b). people who have artistic pasts (and presents) and balance that with another income. This post is more for those of you who are recently out of college and facing both massive debt and doubt – because I’ve been there myself.

This will probably be a long post, but I am putting it here because this is information that would have helped me immensely after school and perhaps it will help you.

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Kafka and Ives


In balancing art and non-artistic work, there are many historical precedents with a fomous one being Franz Kafka – who balanced his writing with working in an insurance company. (Kafka would also read bits of “The Trial” at parties and laugh uncontrollably, so you can take that and some of the biggest daddy issues ever committed to print and ask how well that’s truly balanced.  To be fair, this was more of a question of Kafka’s balance as a person and not his balance of white collar and white knuckle work.)

In music, the specific example that is often given of this balance is the American composer Charles Ives.  Ives lived in musical obscurity at the beginning of the 20th century and wrote some of the most challenging music imaginable. While little of it was played in his lifetime, Ives would go on to become one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.  Aside from his musical work, he was also the vice president of an insurance agency and continued to write and work for much of his life. Add the fact that very few people recognized the genius of his work and that much of his music was never played during his lifetime and you have a classic story of artistic struggle.  

This is typically heralded as an example of how to balance art and non-art work.  That is until you read any one of his biographies and get to the part of his life where one night he came down the stairs of his home crying and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’  For the last 20 years of his life, he never wrote another note of music.

While this (the Brazen Careerist) post has some really solid advice, the one thing that is inferred, but not said explicitly, is that art takes time. There are technical skills required to create any kind of art – and the maintenance and advancement of those skills takes concentrated and focused time. The core question at work here seems to be, ‘What are my priorities?’

I’ll insert a temporary diversion here: one thing to consider in an arts education – formal or informal – is that many artists focus on the ‘how’ of their art but not the ‘why’. The importance of this issue can not be overstated.

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If you have a solid understanding of why you do the things you do, then the question of how will be more easily resolved.


As an example of priorities, if you find that you’re spending more time at the bar with friends then you are working on your art – your priorities are telling you something. For some people, this is merely an issue of time management. But for others, their priorities are out of whack with their perception of reality.

If your concept of why you create art is clear, then a day job is nothing more than a vehicle for income while you work on your art and the challenge is in utilizing the elements of the day job that work for you.

I will use a personal example. A while back, I was several years out of my undergrad school and playing a GB (General Business – like a cover band) gig. You see, the thing about making money playing music is that most of the gigs that pay are gigs like this one. While you will run in circles with people who can’t play their way out of a paper bag, you will also find extraordinary musicians with major credentials playing at the same crappy bar as you because – it’s a paying gig.

So in this story –  I was playing cheesy music I loathed in a strange trio (the person who got me the gig said, ‘some of their tunes are dangerously close to grooving’) in some dive restaurant in the middle of nowhere for people who didn’t care.  At this point in my life, I was completely despondent.  I was working a day job for benefits and to pay off my school loan, and doing this gig on weekends to keep my chops up and I just felt awful.  It suddenly occurred to me, ‘Wait a minute. Why do I feel this way?  The whole reason I started playing music was because it felt good, and now every time I pick up my instrument I just feel bad.  I don’t EVER want to feel this way when I play music.’

And so I quit. I figured that I would work hard, pay off my school debt and do something else with my life.

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But the things in life that are important to you stay inside of you, even in their absence.


It took a while, but I started realizing that it was the loss of my connection to my instrument that caused me such pain . I couldn’t quit music – because music had become an integral part of who I was.  I couldn’t get rid of music any more than I could get rid of my skin.

So I kept my job.  And then got one that paid better.  I played in a lot of local bands that paid nothing, but because I had a day job IT DIDN’T MATTER that it paid nothing.  I played the music, because I enjoyed the music.  In looking at the club scene in Boston and weighing my options, I decided that, for me, the best balance would be teaching music in a college environment. Teaching was something that I did well. It allowed me to give back to beginning musicians and it would give me the flexibility to pursue my music on my own terms. To do this, I needed a master’s degree. I worked hard and got a scholarship to a well regarded school on the opposite coast of where I lived.  I got my degree,  got another gig and another day job to pay bills and now am working towards that goal. Was going to grad school in my 30’s an easy thing to do? Not at all.  It was a culture shock and a calculated gamble.  But it was necessary for what I wanted to do in the long run.

Some people (on the post replies) have suggested that going to grad school is a waste of money and time.  So I can’t say, ‘don’t waste your money on grad school’.  Even though I had a scholarship and was working – I still had to take out loans to cover the difference.  My advice is if you DO go to grad school have a VERY clear idea of what it is you want to do with that degree.  Also have a very clear idea of what the expenses behind school mean to you in the short and long-term as well.

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Many of the paying opportunities that come to an artist will require doing things that you might not want to do. If you understand the WHY of what you do, those issues will be easier for you to resolve.


I’m married so also realize that my priorities are different from what they were 20 years ago. If someone came up to me at 17 and said, ‘Hey we have a rock band and we’re going on tour. We have no idea about money or food or where we’ll sleep but you will be able to play in front of people every night for the next couple of months.’ there’s no question I would have gone (this happened at 25 and I was promised some money but the result was actually the same).

But once you start working with issues like rent and bills – money becomes an issue.  Once you start waking up on strange people’s floors to the house pet eating its own vomit several inches away from your face – accommodations start to become more of an issue.

One final observation along this issue of why:

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It’s important to realize that some people are artists and some are artisans.


To me, an artisan is a person with a high technical skill set who enjoys the physical activity associated with that skill. For example, my mom is a tolle painter. She would be perfectly happy to paint the same items over and over again – because she enjoys the act of painting. As a musician friend of mine once said, “I don’t care what I play – I just want to play the guitar.”

An artist by contrast is someone who enjoys the physical activity associated with creation. To the artist, painting the same flower over and over is an anathema to their existence. The WHY of their art is based in discovery.

And it’s important to know which one of these you are.  In recognizing what you want to do – you can make decisions that support those goals.

I don’t know if this helps any of you. I have strong feelings about this because I’ve been able to do both for a while and am finally moving towards being able to synthesize the two.

If you can walk away from this post with only one piece of advice – try this one: Life is a marathon and not a 50 yard dash. There will be times that you want to give up, times that is goes easy and times of incredible difficulty – but know that if you have the long-term goals in sight – that will be what keeps you going.  If you go into a marathon with a 50 yard dash mentality you’re going to crack at the first real hardship.  As Bukowski once said, ‘Endurance is more important than the truth.’

Good luck.  Expect to be your own critic and your own cheering section.”

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Be aware when your perception is myopic and never give up.


As it says in the Hagakure, “7 times down – 8 times up”.

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I hope this helps!

-SC

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