Guitar
I picked up my first guitar at the age of 15, a year prior to moving to college. With dreams of blasting out riffs like Anastasio and Hendrix, I brought home my first acoustic 6 string guitar. What a rude awakening I experienced when I actually tried to play the damned thing! I took a couple months of guitar lessons, picking up five or six chords and one scale position. Since then, although I’ve stopped with the lessons, I’ve continued experimenting on my own. Most of the time, I just make stuff up that sounds good to me. As a creative outlet, it really does the trick. Recently, a friend suggested I start a ‘musical progress journal,’ documenting the ideas I’ve been fooling around with. I hope you enjoy my journal of ideas, practice sessions and general explorations:
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Tracks composed and recorded on my old Casino: NOTE: you may need to jack up the volume or listen with headphones on some tracks; all tracks recorded with poor-”I’m a grad student”-equipment. New equipment updated after graduating. Now I have some nice gear :D | ||
| Feline Folly | 3/06/06. 1.27~m. Composed both rythmically and melodically. (as opposed to my usual stints improving the melody off the cuff) | |
| Zap Groove | 3/01/06. 0.58~m. Funky plays in locrian | |
| Fast Loud | 3/01/06. 1.38~m. playing around a little more with predictable riffs, crunch, timing, etc | |
| Rising and Falling | 2/15/06. 2.07~m. Simple enough riff playing around | |
| Sustain | 2/15/06. 1.25~m. Playing with my switches on lead…. | |
| Ain’t nothing but a Blues thang | 2/08/06. 1.44~m. Some blues in the key of A. | |
| 808 Blues | 2/05/06. 1.34~m. Just some raw tones in G, further exploring my new pedal | |
| Heaviness | 2/04/06. 1.36~m. Just got my Analogman pedal! Love it! This little piece was composed and played while I had a terrible headache | |
| Palm Springs | 1/31/06. 1.32~m. For some reason, this makes me think of Palm Springs, Ca. | |
| Lydian in E | 12/31/05. 1.48~m. Cool lydian jam in E. Again, a new years recording | |
| Bluesman | 12/31/05. 1.30. ~m Blues jam; still exploring the modes. Again, a new years recording | |
| Haunt Rock in Bm | 12/31/05. 2.08~m. Jam recorded in Seattle. Done on an Ibanez Artcore 73 | |
| Snippet of Locrian | 12/31/05. 1.27~m. The locrian just sounds cool. Here I switch from Locrian to major. I added a drum loop to this one. Again, a new years recording | |
| Pachelbel Jam | 12/21/05. 1.08~m. First recording featuring my new pickups, and new tubes for my amp as well. I’m very happy with the upgrade. This is just a little jam on Pachelbel’s Canon in D. | |
Secret Jam |
11/29/05. 2.09~m. well, it was a secret. I was going to play something along these lines for the talent show, but unfortunately, the car accident forced me to pull out of the show. Thanks to Jose for the feedback on this version! | |
| Captain Stardust | 10/12/05. 2.09~m. The legend of Captain Stardust…composed late one sleepless Cambridge night. | |
| Ramble On | 10/02/05. 2.04~m. | |
| 3 AM | 10/01/05. 1.43~m. For a few days now, I’ve had a spell of insomnia. I’m tired, but just can’t sleep. I cranked this little piece out (with headphones on) at 3AM, waiting for classes to begin bright and early at 8:30 AM. | |
| My Favorite Things (struct.) Favorites (no struct) |
09/03/05. ~3m. I’ve loved this song since I was a child. I took a jazz chord progression of it late one night, and jammed unstructured…later, I worked on getting the melody down, and redid a structured jam. | |
| Blues Monk | 08/24/05. 1m00s. Thelonius Monk liberal interpretation. | |
| Ode to A Dorian Ode to A Phrygian Ode to A Lydian Ode to A Mixolydian Ode to A Aeolian Ode to A Locrian | 08/12/05 - first Cambridge-based recordings. The Major modes finally went click, and in a sudden flash, the modes no longer seem so complex. Plus, I’ve figured out a system to map them out easily throughout the entire fretboard. After making this discovery, I decided to write an opus to the modes, which I call Ode to the A Modes. (all in the key of A) | |
| Happy Mashed Potatoes | 07/31/05. 2m03s. What can I say…I love mashed potatoes and mashed potatoes love me. | |
| General Caviar’s March | 07/29/05. 2m02s. Explorations in the russian harmonic minor fields. | |
| Spot the Wonderdog | 07/29/05. 1m00s. Up, up and away. | |
| Kafka’s Wife | 07/25/05. 1m08s. Django influenced chord progression | |
| Pool Dive | 07/24/05. 3m23s. Starts out unfocused and then finds the melody | |
| Railroad Tracks | 07/22/05. 1m30s. I quite like this rythm. This was difficult to play though and only further pointed out my need to work on timing. | |
| Summer in Texas | 07/20/05. 1m46s. Working on phrasing a bit more. | |
| The Casino First | 07/20/05. 2m47s. Recorded on a very low-end fender solid state amp. (thus you might hear a bit of noise in the background), and then recorded straight from my PCs mic. | |
| Tracks recorded with my acoustic. The following were recorded an hour after I bought my looping machine which allows one to stack up to 11 tracks. | ||
| Chipmunk Lives | 07/11/05 - 2m01s. Had this rythm line in my head for a while. Until I purchased the loop machine, although I’d always wanted to hear what a lead improv would sound on top, I couldn’t! Here’s a first try… | |
| Muddy | 07/11/05 - 27s. A baseline, rythm and lead. Short try, but I liked it. | |
| Slight Chaos | 07/11/05 - 44s. Got slightly out of hand. I think I layered about 6 tracks of guitar on this short clip. | |
| Previously recorded material - done in Beijing sometime in late 2004. | ||
| Riffraff | Late 2004 -2m36s. Recorded in my Beijing flat late at night in front of my labtop; a little tune I put together over a couple days | |
Guitars and equipment I’m interested in:
Heritage semi-hollow
Ibanez Artstars, As73s
Schecter C/SH1
Just a test comment by yours truly
Comment by Tom 02.07.06 @ 4:11 pmTom - I think you oughta pursue a new career in music. Forget B-School and get your education playing at Harvard Square and at underground T-stations. :-p I’ll be your manager once you start the band.
Comment by Jose 02.07.06 @ 4:17 pmhi guys !!!
cheers
Comment by draggy 02.25.07 @ 5:07 amLeave a comment
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