Little Guitars - Van Halen

Yesterday was a good day. Had Rokafonik Philharmonik practice from 11-2, guitar lesson, discovered a great band from the UK called Elbow and bought one of their albums (THEIR NEW ALBUM COMES OUT IN MARCH!!!), played some more guitar, and went to Rocky Horror Picture Show! Always a blast.

In my guitar lesson, my teacher (A.J. Niilo) showed me a really sick song, Little Guitars by Van Halen. It's more so the intro to the song that got me pretty excited. Eddie has always had really great ideas and technique and could fuse other styles' feels to create something that would make the listener go "WHOA! What WAS that?!". I had one of those experiences while listening, but mostly watching my teacher play it. What Eddie is doing here is tremolo picking (plucking a string repeatedly very, very quickly) the high E string of the guitar, while tapping notes on the bottom E string with his left hand. So the two hands are doing something very different from each other, but it fuses together nicely. This is an old technique of playing rhythm and melody popular in Spanish flamenco music, but originating in the renaissance period. But the original players wouldn't have a pick. So in this way, Eddie made it his own.

Here is a great example of the older way of playing this technique. I wanted to find something other than the famous Malaguena melody that most people have heard. This is a fantastic and very famous flamenco player named Paco de Lucia.

This week, my challenge to myself is to be going to learn a classical piece. Probably from the renaissance period, since I adore that music and also, REN FEST IS NEAR!! YAY!                           

A Lesson on microphones.

The power supply for my new microphone comes in today! When I had bought the mic a week ago, silly silly me (and the guy who sold it to me) didn't know a power supply was necessary for the mic. Kind of thought plugging it into a computer would be enough. And surely something necessary to run a mic would come in the box? Ha! Of course not. Also had to buy an interface so I could plug the mic into my computer for some recording action. An interface is a device that's a lot like an adaptor. I can plug the interface through a USB into my computer and plug the microphone into the interface. But I can also adjust input volume, plug headphones into it, plug in a midi (like a small keyboard used for recording), and also have one more microphone input. The microphones I had been using before were my regular computer microphone and a Rock Band mic. Rock Band mic's plug right into the USB port since they're made for gaming. PERFECT! It provided me with happiness for awhile, but I could not get a very good sound quality from it. I had to adjust the mic sensitivity and bring it down low so I didn't get sound distortion from being too loud. This made my music come out much more quiet than what you might hear on the radio. The mic also picked up a lot of fuzz. Again, I went through some adjustments and was able to minimize the fuzz, but it was still there. It's one of those sounds that enters my nightmares and screws with my head. It had to go.

So I took a look at what the pros use. The most affordable was an Audio-Technica AT2020 Cardioid Condenser Microphone. A condenser mic relies on amplification through vibration. This means that you can get a clearer, more precise sound because it won't pick up fuzz, but it will pick up faint tones. This is what makes them so fantastic for radio and recording. Cardioid refers to the shape of the area it picks up sound in; cardioid being a heart shape, for anyone who suffered through pre-calc. If the mic is facing forward and three people are singing in front of it and one person snapping right behind it, it will pick up best the person directly in front of the mic. It will pick up the other two in front just fine as well, and the person snapping behind it will only be faintly picked up. There are other mics that record with shapes such as an hourglass, and/or a full circle spectrum recording all around it. Those are ideal for a group recording session.  This video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qahZ-whM6o ...showcases many kinds of microphones. The mics that are half silver and half black are used a lot in recording, called AKG414, the skinny silver ones are Shure 57's and there are also some other condenser mics that I'm not sure of the names.

The condenser mic was developed in 1916 by E.C. Wente who worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories located in BA, Michigan.


My mic -- http://www.sweetwater.com/images/closeup/750-at2020_img_lifestyle.jpg

front and back of the interface --  http://www.joegiampaoli.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/FTP_front+back.jpg

the phantom power supply -- http://cachepe.zzounds.com/media/quality,85/brand,zzounds/at8801-307cbe360e3772dff535627c46d965c6.jpg

First journal!!!

This week so far, like most of my days, has been heavily saturated in music and music related activity. Monday, I played guitar for a better part of the day, even breaking out the mandolin for a bit, and ended up writing some new music on my acoustic. Writing on an acoustic as opposed to my electric gives a totally different perspective on the vibrations that are going on beneath my fingers. On an electric, little nuances and a lot of times mistakes can be hidden quite easily by distortion, hence why I like writing on an acoustic. There's a ton more honestly through an acoustic and it's easier to add in more notes and colors because every tone, every pitch can come through completely clean and loud. An interview with David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) on his writing technique got me playing my acoustic more. Ah, David Gilmour. I should mention that he is one of my deities. Others are Warren Haynes, Slash, Jimmy Page, Jack White...list goes on. I'm a bit more polytheistic than most agnostics :P I digress. Monday night, went to Churchill's Pub for the first time and it happened to be jazz night. Stayed listening to music and hanging out with people until 2:30 am. GREAT night. Tuesday, dragged myself out of bed, went to my BC classes and rocked out with Soundgarden on the drive to make me at least a little conscious. Then came to Cypress and heard all about Wise, sadly missing my music history class, but getting to see the ever-wonderful Coach Love and meeting Ms. Stoklosa was lovely. Then, tuesday night, a friend of mine picked me up and we went to this Portland-esque coffee shop in Ft. Lauderdale. Great hang out spot for those interested in a tasty tea and coffee menu. Undergrounds Coffeehaus. Check it out. After getting home, we watched 'It Might Get Loud' starring Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds), Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather), and The Edge (U2). For music lovers, one hell of a documentary. Explores the three guitar masters' journey through music and how they all approach playing. It was so cool to me to see how people can play so differently and how people can be inspired by others to create all of this beautiful music. Be still, my heart! Great film. This entry is already way longer than I thought it would be. I'm going to the studio and lay down my guitar track for Prelude/Angry Young Man (Billy Joel) for the classic rock cover band I'm in, Rokafonik Philharmonik. Also get to play my teacher's Guild 12 string. SQUEE!!