Bullets and Bandages

Here is an instrumental I did. It's a bit unfinished. I think I could have developed this more. Hope you enjoy it.

I'm a Sinner

Here's a tune I just finished. It's another collaboration with Greg Michael. What a crooner!

Corn Mash

Here's a recent collaboration by Greg Michael that I played a couple leads on and mixed. It's a fun blues-rock romp. Rough, but buckets of fun to do and another successful long distance collaboration with Reaper!

Safari

Another songwriter's roundtable submission for your enjoyment. The topic is 'beats'.
 Here's the criteria:

Be creative with this one. Write lyrics about rythym, show off your beatbox skills, have a nasty drum solo, or just record 90 minutes of a bass kick and cowbell.

This one was a little bit of a departure for me, but I am pretty excited about the overall results. No lyrics on this one, just music and beat. Hope you enjoy!

Irish Bouzouki: Thick as a brick

Here's an enjoyable bouzouki tune you may recognize...
Irish Bouzouki: Thick as a brick: "Wow, a Jethro Tull cover played on the Irish Bouzouki. Love this one!"

Beyond

This is a song I wrote for the NASA Space Rock contest. I hope you like it.

Thanks goes out to Greg Michael for singing lead vocals. This was a long distance collaboration that was very successful. I am looking forward to working more with him in the future.

Enjoy!

The Stand

Here's another song I wrote a while back and have reposted here linked back to the bandcamp website. Enjoy!

Party of One

The latest Old Distillery submission is a christmas stocking stuffer with a few criteria. There had to be a fictional/historical character or you can invent one...I did both. The line "colder than a..." has to be included in the lyrics and the song is supposed to be limited to 90 seconds or less. Ok, so I got two out of three! Anyway, I was going to pass this time, but I threw this together at the last minute. I hope you enjoy it.

Cursed

Here's my latest songwriter's roundtable submission for the topic of superstition. It's called Cursed and is about black cats and some of the superstitions that surround them.

Irish Bouzouki

At FenCon this year, I got my fingers on an irish bouzouki for the first time and think I may have to add one to the stable. My friend Floyd brought two to the convention and we played around for a bit and I really enjoyed it. Anyway, I found this blog and wanted to share it with everyone.

Ever wanted to be part of the space program?

NASA 's Space Rock

Here's your chance to be a part of NASA history! NASA is accepting entries of original songs, two of which will be selected to be played as wake up songs on one of the final missions of the space shuttle program. How cool is that? Submissions are due no later than January 10, 2011. The only logical course of action would be to get cracking and rock the shuttle! Good luck!

Not a song writer? You can also vote on your favorite song from their list of 40 previously played wake up songs.

SUBMIT!

(photo by Sophia)

This is my latest submission to our songwriter's roundtable group. The general topic is the French Revolution.

The title is "Liberty!" and it's about oppressed people and their right to be free from tyranny.

Enjoy!

Ooo, la-la!

I've really been having a great time with my latest guitar. It has fantastic tone! I installed a fantastic new Allen RS-2 Nickel tailpiece for it from Allen Guitars & Luthier Supplies that really opened up the sound.

Rock on!


2001 Gibson Dobro DM-33


The back...

Mandolin

Someone's mandolin found the lens at the NTGC BBQ last night. Fran took loads of pictures and I've been going over them today and picking some out to post on our group website. There's a lot of good shots. The NTGC are a friendly group all said. We had a few beers, ate some good grilling and played a lot of music. Folk, country, jazz, blues, rock, swing were all represented at one time or another and the night was capped with the classic Happy Trails. It's always a great time on Jam nights and this was a double dose since David and Sandy opened their home and campfire to our group and were excellent hosts. They also have a 'hobby farm'. This added a nice rural touch to the night with the goat and the chickens shuffling around. Oh, and the duck pond was kind cool too. Well, we've set the bar for next year. A special thank you goes out to Judy for making all the arrangements. I hope David and Sandy invite us back!

It's A Sin To Tell A Lie

Smokin' swing!

North Texas Guitar Club

For those of you who don't know, I am a member of the North Texas Guitar Club, which is a member group of the Collin County Music Cooperative. NTGC is organized and maintained by Dave Lewis. To quote the website, Dave's vision for the group:

The club's members consist of a wide variety of players; ranging from
absolute beginners to seasoned professionals, acoustic to electric, and many
different musical styles from Jazz, Rock, Blues, Fingerstyle, Classical, Country
and beyond. The intention of the club is to provide the following:

Help guitarists meet other guitarists.

Make it possible for advanced guitarists to mentor beginners.

Allow guitarists to share resources, such as books, tabs, software, CDs, etc.

Share experience with various makes of guitars, amps, and effects.

Provide an opportunity to jam with other guitarists.

There are no dues to join the club, only a willingness to interact with
other guitarists.

NTGC currently meets 2-3 nights a week. There are plenty of opportunities to meet up and jam. It's a lot of strumming, with lead breaks thrown in for whoever wants to noodle a bit. Song choices vary and are selected in a 'round the circle' order. Be prepared to have extra copies or better yet, post your songs to the message board early. It's much appreciated. NTGC offers a chance for growth, education and am outlet for your guitar bug. It's a nurturing environment with a lot of friendly and helpful folks. Be careful, you might actually learn something.

midi

I had never been much of a midi fan until recently. As a musician with recording software, and just enough knowledge to get it running, I have found midi to be useful indeed. I like to use it as a quick mock up part to be looped and used as a practice tool. Of course, you can take it steps further and write entire pieces, assigning virtual instruments and synth parts to and if you know what you're doing, can come up with a pretty cool result. You can find just about any composition imaginable as a midi file someone has encoded. And to think, I always thought midi was that cheesy, honking generic sound that played when the dancing hamster came frolicking across your screen. And I was right! Well, it was that and a whole lot more...
Midi files go beyond simple pitch and duration and can store multiple parameters like volume, modulation, attack, decay and more. As a midi-newbie, I am still learning most of this, but the software makes it easy. And the industry has a fairly universal standard, so most of the sounds are the same or similar from one instrument to the next. Or at least they can emulate the same 'general midi' parameters and get close.
There's a lot of musicians using midi these days. Probably more than you might think. It has really taken it's place in technology as the common tongue of digital discourse between man, computer and other devices.

Chord Changes

Well, I've decided that I want to spend some time working on my jazz chops and learning a bit more about improvisation in general. I've started to review some different material and am going over standard II-V-I changes and appropriate scale changes. We're keeping it simple right now, just using modes based from the major scale for the I chord of whatever key you're in. I think you can apply the same mentality to the pentatonic major scale (more later on that). For example, my understanding is that the II chord is always a minor 7th chord, the V is always a dominant 7th and the I is always a major 7th. The Dm7 chord uses a D dorian scale (from the key of C) and gives us a minor 3rd interval (F) and a minor 7th interval (C). The G7 chord using a G mixolyidan scale (from the key of C) and gives us a major 3rd interval (B) and a minor 7th interval (F). And finally, the Cmaj7 chord using a C ionian scale (a.k.a. major scale, from the key of C) and gives us a major 3rd interval (E) and a major 7th interval (B).
I think the thing to remember about chord changes is not so much what key the song is written in, but what are the chord changes. Where are you coming from and changing to. I'm sure there's more to it than that and I will be learning that bit later. But for now, my V7 chord will be using mixolydian, etc... It should be good practice.

• Minor 7th chords are II chords


• Dominant 7th chords are V chords


• Major 7th chords are I chords

Changes

My, how things have changed in the last 12 months! I've been away from this blog for longer and thought I'd revisit. The economy has tanked and is struggling to regain it's footing while a huge portion of the population gets to pay for the misdeeds of a far smaller group of 'privlaged few'. Loss of jobs, investments, savings, retirement plans, homes, etc wrack our nation. Some people think we got what we deserved...I think get what we are able to get while others got away with a lot more. At least the markets are coming back at a healthy clip. But, there are alway bears and bulls, so keep your fingers crossed.
Unfortunately for me, multifamily residential development was one of the harder hit markets and it just happened to be my bread and butter (well, architecture at least). All the funds dried up and then the jobs. I was 'laid off' in March of 2009. Trying to find a relevant job is extremely difficult. Trying to get an interview for any open position even more difficult. 'They say' it's time to brand yourself and reinvent yourself. It's hard to give up on where you've been and what you've achieved.
On the other hand, I've had a lot of spare time for refocusing on music and guitar. I've joined a local guitar club that meets up weekly to socialize and play music for a few hours. I've met some nice folks there. Who knows? 'They say' that networking is the key. It's not what you know, but who you know. And who or what they know...
Anyway, I plod on.

Local 151 - Oktoberfest 2007 - Blackwood Swing