Monday 14 November 2011

What's happening November 2011

The results for the poll "When buying music..." from 72 voters were:

35 (48%) I just pirate music, arrr
30 (41%) I want a CD in my hands
7  ( 9%) Online music stores are great

This actually didn't surprise me at all - well, perhaps everyone's honesty did!  What I did take from that is not to bother putting up pay per download music...if I did ever want to take the time and effort to create really nice recordings I should put them on a CD and offer them for sale.  As for pirating music, well, is youtube not the king of music pirates?  You can listen to _and_ watch any song you can think of, "for free", maybe have to watch an advert.  I guess the artist is supported (well the record company is supported) by advert revenue, which is "better" than P2P "sharing" mp3s put straight onto an mp3 player.

Interesting times.  The old model is dead.  A new model is forming, but what will it be?

Busy time of the year, I haven't been getting to play as much as I would like.  I did a tiny bit more work on Naudos "James Bond Theme", I play it once through each time I pick up the guitar - an important practise method I reckon.  Fingerstyle is not so much about training fingers, but about training the brain.  And the brain works best when you chuck stuff at it in small repetitive bursts.  60 minutes straight of playing the same thing over and over again is not as good value as playing 10 minutes over 6 days.

In the same way, I've played through all the songs I know twice this month; I'm at a point where I need to play for two hours to fit everything in!  Some songs have fallen out of my brain; I need to refer to my tabs to freshen them up.  Such is the need if you want to keep your songs ready!

In October 2011 Dark Side of the Moon was remastered and released.  There are "packs"; you can buy just the remastered album, the "experience" version which has some extras, and the "immersion" version which has a heap of extras.  I grabbed the experience version.  The remastered studio album had a few subtle changes I noticed, but not really enough to buy it outright, but it came with a 1974 live recording of Dark Side of the Moon at Wembley Stadium.  Really interesting to hear.  Not as "nice" as the studio album (that is probably just familiarity speaking) but I love how it shows what they doing with the album shortly after it was released, and how pink floyd were heading towards the next stuff to be released in later years.  I heard sounds and phrases that would be used on everything through to The Wall, possibly beyond.  Recommended for my fellow floyd aficionados.  Keeps my passion for the DSotM project alive :)

Another quite month on the guitar front ahead, but I'm still here!

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JAW

9 comments:

  1. Hey JAW :) been a while cause my internet has been out for a while. I loved the bond video. That was precisely what i had in mind a few months ago :) To see it done on the fly is VERY informative. Thank you so much for letting us in on your personal techniques. That is something i have been waiting for (semi-patiently ;) ) for a while.
    "taking the mystery out" yes, yes. exactly. and to see you do it makes me think i can give it a shot.

    cool, I was unaware of that release. I will have to ummm... *cough* attain it soon. You know I'm always ecstatic at the slightest mention of your DSotM project

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  2. Welcome back Ryan :) I quite enjoyed doing the Bond video, I'm going to have to do some more like it. It wasn't too onerous, and I learnt a few new skills producing it. Video-recording skills that is, the guitar work was my normal style!

    I've since modified my transcription a little bit (there was one error, the last bit of the phrase should be 12-10-12, not 11-10-12, and I play it primarily with the index finger strumming rather than a a-m-i pluck. You can get it rolling nicely with your index finger, once you can get your brain to comply.)

    Arrr, yep the 1974 Wembley Stadium live DSotM recording is worth a listen. Speaking of Arrr, I found myself a copy of Any Colour You Like sheet music, interestingly called "Breathe Second Reprise". It's a very old transcription maybe early 80's, not completely useful but a great head start. There is so much synth work in it I'd spend the rest of my life trying to work out what Rick was up to. What I want to do with "Any colour you like" is to keep the Breathe theme going and expand some of the synth sounds into it. I haven't started in earnest, but I'm quite excited to do so; I need to clear up about 3-4 hours uninterrupted to break into it. I just love the Breathe theme and how it works across those three songs. There is so much in the "Breathes" I almost feel rude with my original "minimalist" Breathe transcription - I'll be need to revisit that one too, to fill it out; I made the bassline waaay too trivial, I've done Roger no justice at all ;)

    But, it's a long way off. Don't get too excited.

    JAW

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  5. Well to be honest I love your "Breathe". It's so chilled and relaxing without losing any of the funky groove it has. But, if you can make it better I'll relearn it! :) And how am I not to get excited when you make it sound like it will be quite epic! ;)

    Got it all down now. :) I must say, this being my only song so far that is learned from a video, that it was much easier! I'm still working out the softer part, i think i have the chords down. But i have the flow and meat of it down, as well as the percussion which i have had to do both ways (thumb hammer and finger flick) to keep it consistent through the song. It was hard to fit the finger flick in there without muting a note i wanted to hear.
    anyway :) got it

    I can play that all day long, it has such an awesome rock to it. Can't wait for the rest ;)

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  6. Hi Jaw

    Been a while since I visited your site, glad to see your still adding some good stuff. Thanks for the tip on DSotM - I must put it on my Christmas list. I've seen Pink Flyod a few times live, once at Wembley Stadium. Their live set was awesome, Breathe and Money great to hear live. Very very loud !!!

    Still learning stupid girl although been distracted trying to learn Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication, nice tune to play, Igor does a great cover, worth a view.

    Cheers

    Nick (UK)

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  7. Hey Nick, yeah, I'm not a prolific blog content adder, my life is already too busy! But I do like to squeeze out at least something once a month.

    I missed my only chance to see Pink Floyd in 1989 when they were here for the Momentary Lapse tour (bands generally don't come to Western Australia, there just isn't enough of us or any decent venues). I was a poor uni student at the time - I could have afforded it, but I didn't want to. Roger Waters is here next month doing his Wall tour, and even now, 20 years later, I decided I didn't want to part with $300 for a ticket! Saw a great The Wall tribute concert two years ago though; it's funny, I prefer the small venue tribute band concerts over the real thing. But I digress.

    Anything Igor touches turns to gold, just like Naudo - I've heard his Californication, it's cool. There is no doubt you have to love an arrangement before you tackle it...you just won't set aside the time otherwise. Unless it is a particularly easy arrangement; but the good ones never are :)

    I've got a video blog to do sometime, just need to free up about 2-3 hours. That's about how long it takes me. I've got a good Dark Side of the Moon inspired talk to make, looking forward to putting it out there, but by gee the festive season is a busy time of year!

    JAW

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  8. Just Arr-ed Immersion, am loving what little I've heard. Am looking forward to going home, sitting in my favorite recliner, turning the lights off and plugging my head in to a new experience of my favorite album of all time.

    Saw an awesome PF tribute band some years ago in Brisbane do DSotM and The Wall, where they actually built a wall on stage. They were amazingly flawless in their technique. Probably the same guys you saw (from NZ I think).

    The DSotM inspired video blog would make an excellent Christmas pressie for all your faithfull followers... just saying is all...
    ;)
    Marc

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  9. Ha, yeah, I will do that video; don't get too excited though it is just my start on the only song left on the album I had done nothing with to date, that I thought would be a chore, but has turned out to be brilliantly compelling. But it represents a massive amount of work transcribing synth and lead guitar. I will show what I've done so far and why I think it is brilliant (because it is the standard breathe theme but down a step - concept album) but mostly to show my "cheaty" methods I'm employing to go from an insurmountable amount of work to just a massive amount of work :)

    Yep - same pPF tribute band, probably the same show. Really enjoyed. Except the part where they smashed a guitar. Even though it was totally true to the album, there is guitar sympathy in me that says "thou shall not smash guitars."

    Speaking of...in fact, let me not speak of it, let me write a blog! :)

    JAW

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