Shiny and Creative

Last day of Rokafonik Philharmonik :( I'm going to miss going there every saturday and playing. The people in the band with me are all incredibly talented musicians and fun people to work with. I'll definitely be missing that. We filmed four music videos again today; Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, Telephone Line by Electric Light Orchestra, Me & Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin, and Over The Hills & Far Away by Led Zeppelin.

So Kevin and I today wrote a really interesting a complicated song. This is why it's interesting and complicated (and it'll be easier to explain this in person if you should come to my presentation on wednesday at 5:00!); the song goes from being in the 8/8 time signature, to 9/8, then to 4/4 for a brief measure, then to 6/8 in the choruses, then back to a switch between 8/8 and 9/8 in the verses. Then we do some sort of weird, noisy breakdown, similar to the bridge in Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. Just weird noises, and jungle-esque drums, then we get quiet, then BANG! And we're really really loud for 2 measures or so and then we take it back to the switching between 8/8 and 9/8. It's CRAZY! It took us awhile to figure out the drum parts to it and how to transition between the time signatures smoothly, great work on Kevin's part. Singing over that will be difficult, but it's a challenge we want to take on!

My title refers to our microphone setup. He brought with him a gorgeous Copperphone Mic and we've been singing into it a little here and there, but not really anything put together much. And we only have one actual mic stand, but both of us want to be able to sing. So, we made a makeshift mic stand for the copperphone. Here it is :) Those shelves are in my garage, and we took a plank of wood and put it on a shelf underneath a brick. Then, we took a bungee cord and hung the microphone, but we needed another bungee to pull it back ever so slightly. Works perfectly, and we're proud of our creation :)

INTENSITY!!!

My friend from boston, Kevin, landed in Fort Lauderdale today! Yay! He's staying with me until next thursday, and we're gonna be jammin'. He's a really good drummer, and as soon as we set up the drums today in the garage, music happened. It was a rainy day, and we started off playing blues, then some weird jam of a song happened, then a 9/8 song happened, and some Raconteurs and Led Zeppelin. It was intense, as the blog title says. Then later on, we watched a Live Led Zeppelin DVD that blew me away. It's incredible how the three of them could play, never miss a beat, and go off on such strange and outlandish musical journeys. Every song is a journey. They'll even sometimes begin a song, jam it for awhile, and right in the middle of that song start playing a different song, then eventually come back to the song they started with. One example is them switching between "How Many More Times" and "The Lemon Song", FLAWLESSLY. I'm amazed. I hope that one day, I'll be able to be a part of something as glorious and magical as Led Zeppelin.

I'm Feelin' Loopy

WHOOT! I successfully figured out how to hook up my microphone to my amplifier through my interface! From there, I got the idea to connect my multi-effects guitar pedal between the mic and the amp. So what came of this? I CAN PUT CRAZY SOUNDING EFFECTS ON MY VOICE! But most importantly, I CAN MAKE VOCAL LOOPS! For those of you who don't know what vocal looping is, it's where you can record (using a loop machine, or the equivalent on a multi-effects pedal) a vocal track, loop it, and keep recording vocal layers on top of it. Not too long ago, I discovered the artist, Kimbra, who is very good at doing this and did so in a cover of Nina Simone's "Plain Gold Ring". In my opinion, the queen of vocal loops is Imogen Heap. This is her playing her song "Just For Now" live. "Escape Artist" is a song by Zoe Keating in which demonstrates looping done with the cello instead of vocals. This is my very first time doing this, so it's not the greatest thing you'll ever hear, but I'm super excited about it and will be practicing so I can showcase this in my presentation :D

Veggin' Out

I NEED MOVEMENT!!!! Sunday and Monday were spent on the computer and in my pajamas the entire day looking at apartments in California. I'm totally stoked about moving there, but WOW apartment shopping is a finicky business. One place I was looking into had pipe issues earlier this month and they finally burst, spewing waste and puke all in the building. Management did nothing and many of the tenants got sick as a result. Won't be moving there. Another place is roach infested. Hell no. Another place has rats. And many are just ridiculously expensive. I've found three so far that look really good and the rates are nice. Hopefully I'll find more as well to ease me and the parents up.

So the headline has to do with a 30-day vegetarian diet that I'm starting this week. Started yesterday, but then my family all wanted to go out to sushi together tonight, and then tomorrow my aunt is making dolmades (lamb stuffed grape leaves) and I cannot resist those in the slightest bit. Lamb is my weakness. Sushi, I'm actually getting a little bored with, but lamb. Never. What made me want to do this is that my friend showed me a PETA video narrated by Paul McCartney that shows footage of what life is like for an animal in the slaughterhouses and how messed up the treatment of the animals is. It's not the eating of meat I'm against, as a species, we've been doing that for a very long time. It's the way cows, chickens, pigs, and even fish are treated in these places, bred to make them extra fat and produce more product. Then they're slaughtered while some are even still conscious! It's absolutely horrifying to watch! As a meat-eater my whole life, it's going to be a challenge, but I want to do it. Wish me luck!

Nocturne In Zzz

Zzz...right, that's a key. I'm very tired, as I got back from the Louisiana drive last night about 10:30 after waking up at 5:30 that morning. Then today, went to practice from 9-2, recording Over The Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin, and filming four music videos. We filmed videos for 'Baba O'Riley' by The Who, 'Moby Dick' by Led Zeppelin, 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd, and 'Gravity' by John Mayer. Then, I went to practice with my other band before we played a show at Relay For Life. Busy, busy day.

While I was still in Louisiana, I got some wonderful news...I WAS ACCEPTED INTO THE MUSICIAN'S INSTITUTE IN HOLLYWOOD, CA!!!! That's my choice school and I cannot wait to get there!! I'll get to study guitar and music all the time and be in the heart of the scene. Some of the alumni are John Fruciante and Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Jennifer Batten (Michael Jackson), Paul Gilbert (solo and Mr. Big), and Justin Derrico (solo and Pink), just to name a few. The school has great teachers and staff, and really nurtures creativity and the energy of the players. When I was there last summer, I really felt at home. Something else that's pretty neat about the school is that a lot of famous musicians, both alumni and not, come to teach classes and may also hold auditions there. That's actually how Pink found Justin Derrico. I'm finally going to go to bed and end my saturday night.

NOLA Round 2

The drive to Louisiana went very well. My friend and I made excellent time and got to our destination within 13 hours. We weren't awake much longer upon arrival. Since I've been here, I've watched a lot of movies surprisingly and have explored the French Quarter more. We saw Trombone Shorty on saturday night and I was WAY impressed by the band. I'd heard TS before, but had never seen them live, so I was already excited. Then, the band just took the audience for a thrill ride with the funk/NOLA jazz fusion! All the musicians onstage were incredibly talented and creative in their playing. For most of the show, my eyes were closed and I was dancing, even got to dance with a stranger who was in front of us. I'm taking pictures and video of all we're doing here, so I will have stuff to post upon getting home :D And I've finally posted my song, Waltz No. 1 on soundcloud...here's the link http://soundcloud.com/sydney-everatt/waltz-no-1 This is my romantic-y song :) Enjoy!

ROAD TRIPPIN'!!

It is five and a half hours before I am supposed to be awake and preparing to drive. I don't know if I stated this before, but it is so difficult for me to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. I'm nervous now that I'm going to forget something important even though I went through and packed all I needed to pack. Sigh. Being gone for a week does this to me, but I'm super excited. New Orleans awaits! And I found out that the French Quarter Festival is going to be going on this weekend, YAY! This week was mainly a school week for me since I was trying to get ahead in everything before I left for a week. BUT I have been playing a lot and learned the Reign of Kindo song "Soon It Shall Be" which has a total of 18 chords in it. If you consider that most popular songs are 3-5 chords, that's pretty nuts. It's a beautiful pop-jazz fusion sort of love song. I will be posting my romantic song by this weekend :D I'm going to get to bed because I don't want to fall asleep driving tomorrow. Good night!

Night Owl

It's only 8:33 and I feel like I'm going to fall over in my chair and fall asleep. I went to sleep last night at about 3:30 am, and woke up at 10:30 so I should feel rested since that's about my usual. Maybe it was the beautiful rain that came today and made me sleepy. I admit, I love the rain in all its wonder and glory, but it takes the energy right out of me. So tonight, I might do some homework, definitely play some guitar, and hit the hay maybe around 9:30. But we'll see what happens, usually when I say that I get to bed around 2.

I recorded a song last night, my romantic song that I'm calling Waltz No. 1. The song doesn't have a chorus or a real catchy line in it, it's all very metaphorical, so the name will probably stay. I'm very happy with it though, a simple recording with just two tracks; my guitar and my voice. I'm going to toy around with it some more before I put it up because I want to see if I can add anything else to it. Tried to add a violin track and that just ended horribly and I gave up. I have my guitar lesson tomorrow and I'm also teaching tomorrow. And this entry just sounds very choppy because I'm not really thinking straight. OH but Brittney and I played on the Fort Lauderdale boardwalk again just yesterday and made $22 to split between us and we only played for a little over two hours. Towards the end, I started playing a two-chord progression on my guitar and we just sang for about 20 minutes about the people walking by and about some of the people who stopped to listen. We got some good money on that song and it was way fun! And last night I went to a bonfire with three of my friends, one of them being a new friend who I'd just met named Gio. He graduated from Cypress a few years ago, but he's a great writer and he sings and plays guitar. We each took turns giving him three topics to freestyle about and he'd freestyle sing and play for about 4 minutes without even a stutter. Probably the most interesting one that he sang for us was when we gave him the topics "One-legged prostitute, a monkey, and a bungee cord". That was a twisted one, but someone who can do what he can do is extremely talented and it's certainly a gift. On that note, go listen to some Eminem. He's another very talented artist, and love him or hate him, he's one of the only rappers I can stand and he's worked way harder than many people to get where he is today.

Curse You, Whiteness!

I am burned yet again by the yellow ball of shiny in the sky. It's too shiny and hot! And it decided to burn only my right arm and right side of my face. On the good side of news, it was a brew day today in which I took home a few bottles of the beer we bottled two weeks ago AND a violin! WHOOT! My brew partner had a violin in his house that he wasn't using, but wants to get lessons for eventually. So I get to keep it for the next two months until I go away for the summer, which is very exciting for me. I was renting a violin for the past few months, but it's not as good as this one and not as FREE! Hopefully I can make more time to play with it than I've been able to before. Yesterday at band practice, we finished recording 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd, finished recording 'Telephone Line' by Electric Light Orchestra and my director just sent me what's called the scratch track for 'Over The Hills And Far Away' by Led Zeppelin. A scratch track is something used for recording purposes which includes a metronome tick in the recording and a rough guitar or piano track that outlines the song so the studio musicians can practice with the track and that's what they'd record over in the studio. The rough guitar or piano track is eventually deleted once the guitar player or piano player lays down their track. The order of recording for a rock band usually goes as follows: scratch track, drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, keyboard if there is one, strings if there are any, backup vocals, and finally lead vocals. And tonight I'm going to record my romantic song in my "room studio" with my condenser mic and my door closed. Then tomorrow, Brittney and I are headed to Fort Lauderdale again to try and get some money for playing music on the boardwalk! I'm excited, so I'm going to go rest up and pray that this sun burn at least dampens a bit before tomorrow.

Victory Dance!

Today was such an invigorating day! Brittney and I headed off to the beach this morning to go play guitar and sing on the boardwalk for money. What sparked the idea for this is my road trip to New Orleans shall commence next friday morning, and I could use some cash. My friend, Melanie, and I plan on driving out around 7 A.M. (HA HA HA HAHHAHA) next friday morning, and arriving at our friend Randall's house just outside of New Orleans between 9 and 10 P.M. that night. Then we'll stay there until the following friday where we'll probably leave sometime that morning and get home late at night. I am SO PSYCHED! My dad okayed the trip tonight after meeting Melanie and I wanted to do a little dance, which I did later in private of course :) So today, Brittney and I made a grand total of ONE DOLLAR!! AND a friend! He's a pretty neat guy who makes and sells bracelets and travels around by foot. We're gonna go back and play on monday and hopefully we'll make a little bit more. But all in all, an exciting and successful day. And also, I found two blues songs I want to learn and grab some riffs from :D

Bonnie Raitt & John Lee Hooker -- I'm In The Mood

Bonnie Raitt -- Love Me Like A Man (Live)