SuperSatellite ||

I have to admit it. I cannot hide from it, so why try? I am an idiot child. There is no better analogy.  Well, I guess that depending on how you look at it, it’s not really an analogy.  But we’ll pretend it is, to be kind to my ego.  Wait…what was I talking about?

I was looking for something to watch this evening as my seventh season of Deep Space Nine has not yet finished. I figured maybe Joost had added some new stuff that might be worth watching. Aside: if you haven’t checked out Joost, do. It’s basically a free TV service with a whole mess of different channels, some honestly worthwhile (others not). National Geographic has some of their old documentaries on there, which are cool to watch, and you can totally catch up on the last season of The Hills. If I wasn’t so tired right now (why am I actually writing this now?), I’d make a follow up joke about that. I can’t, so now you’ll just have to sit and wonder if I really watched The Hills or not.

Anyway, turns out Guitar World has started their own channel there, which has a bunch of great guitarists just sitting around talking music theory and playing out riffs based on it. Listening to Joe Satrini talk about modes, and watching John Petrucci run sequences just makes me feel like an amateur. Yes, I am one, but they just really drive the point home. I enjoy playing guitar, and I like to think that some day I’ll be a real boy, but simply put, I don’t know jack about music theory.

There was a day when I used to play violin. For six months or so. When I was about 10. Believe it or not, I haven’t retained much of what I learned about music during that time (the fact that the instruments don’t really have much anything in common notwithstanding. No frets on a violin? Insanity I say!), so I just download tabs, and see what I can copy. I’ve improved a lot the past couple years, but I’m not sure how much better I can get if I can’t find more time to devote to learning some actual theory about notes, scales, modes and other terms that I can say, but not use correctly.

You know, playing guitar is like doing math. With letters. And demon calculus. I’ve mastered 2+2 just fine. These guys are talking and string theory and crap.

So, I feel like an idiot child. Maybe I’ll understand it all after a good night’s sleep. I’ll awaken with perfect clarity. But probably not. I need the Matrix.

I know kung fu.

(whoa. Wild Stallions!)

Music has become something of a focus for me lately for a number of reasons.  First, Josh and I re-established the connection between our servers, forging and rebuilding an empire of music that most radio stations would be envious of.  A nexus of musical accomplishments from all eras.  Originally my MP3 collection breached the 10,000 files mark.  A couple crashes took care of that, but so far I’m back up over 8500 and climbing rapidly.  Besides getting back old stuff I used to have from Josh, I found a nifty little site called AllofMP3.  It’s Russian (don’t worry, it’s in English), and of questionably legality, but it’s far more inexpensive than iTunes.  Look at it this way, it’s not like buying burnt CD’s out of the back of a white van in a dark alley, more like buying drugs from a pharmacist.  You assume he has all the needed licenses and such, and you don’t really check, you just buy your stuff and be glad it’s there.

Second, I just got a new acoustic modeler pedal for my guitar.  It was cheap, but it’s not half bad after I played with the settings on it for a bit.  It sounds as good as my Telocoustic, which I’ll be selling in favor of a full size acoustic.  I practice daily now, and have been keeping up with it quite effectively.  The best part, it’s showing.

Third, I learned Passion by The Nixons tonight.  Damn easy song.  It inspired me to record a cover of it though.  A recording that not only will never see the light of day, but has already been resolved to the island of lost bits on my computer.  The guitar came out all sorts of alright really, but my god I never knew I could sing so badly.  And not like “ew I can’t stand my voice” bad, but like “that guy from American Idol would piss on me, kick me, insult me, and remove my testicles and in the end I’d be better than when I started” bad.  I couldn’t hold a tune to save my life.  Fucking vocal cords and their utter uselessness.  How do people do it?  I think an angel lost it’s wings because of my attempt.  Well, I never could play and sing at the same time, now I have an excuse to never learn how.

Well, as of last night, Black Coffee has started working on recording what might be called music.  The guys came over and we hooked everything up and started fooling around.  Didn’t get real far, but that’s alright.  At least we did determine that we’ll be able to do the recording with what I have and do it with reasonably good quality as well.  Steve’s head unit is pretty good for running right into my board, quite handy.  I started working on a song too before I went to bed.  It isn’t much at the moment, just a couple riffs put together, but I think there’s room to make something out of it.  I might post part of it once I’ve fleshed it out a little more.

Steve also hooked me up on a neat webpage that was crammed full of happy, happy guitar scales.  Saw a rather interesting Hungarian scale I’m working on.  Hooray for getting better!  Now…if I would get my lazy ass up and rewire my guitar properly…

If you like music, go watch this and this.  This guy is nuts on the ukulele, it’s awesome.  Trust me on this.