Recording: Session 1

I don't think I've ever spent an hour and a half playing one song before. But thanks to Miguel, that's just what I did today.

Ok, ok, so it sounds a little harsh and a little bitter when I put it like that. No, it was a lot of fun. I really love practicing with different people. Maybe that sounds a little weird, but I feel like it gives you a new perspective on them, like you understand them at a different level. You start to understand what parts of themselves they're comfortable with, and which parts they're not. You learn their strengths and weaknesses, how harsh they are on themselves, and you get to know each other a little better.

I guess in that sense the best example that I can give is that when you've been practicing for so long with someone, some things just don't need to be said. You learn to read each other on a different level, and you can predict the other person's reactions. On the most rudimentary level, this means that after practicing a certain song with someone for so long, you don't need to tell them how many intro measures you're going to play. They just know when to come in.

Then after you've been practicing for a while, you learn where the other person is likely to have trouble. As a guitarist, this means cue-ing your singer in. Sometimes, it means you help them along with the pacing of a certain verse-- and if the singer doesn't need to be coached along, sometimes it means that you end up with some really cool harmonizing when all the recording is said and done.

On top of that, you get a little more comfortable with each other. Both of you have things you need to work on, and eventually you're not afraid of showing the other person that you're not perfect-- because you realize that they're not judging you. You feel comfortable pointing out the things you need to work on, and the things that they need to work on. And you're cool with helping them learn it. And then on top of that, it makes you really happy when the other person gets something that they've been working on.

Like when we were recording, and Miguel hit the high notes in the song. That made me really happy. He probably didn't notice the smile on my face for the rest of the song, but I really enjoyed it. I don't think he realizes what an amazing voice he has.

So by this point, you're probably wondering where this lovely recording is. Well, it doesn't exactly exist yet. This was the first time that we practiced together, and we spent almost the entire time on just one song. We played for an hour and a half and recorded maybe twice. By the end of all of this, the pick slipped from my hand, and my chord fingers were really starting to wear out. By the last recording, I had to stop and say I couldn't finish. Like I said, I've never done just one song for that long before. Since you're using the same fingers (all 4 of them in this case) plus the same muscles in your hand, it's tiring. So, we're back to the mic tomorrow to have another go at it.

And that's not to say that today wasn't productive-- it was very productive. It was a lot of fun. I actually can't wait for tomorrow.

On another note, Miguel, Rose, and I are just now looking at a set for Open Mic Night next Thursday. If we aren't able to pull it together by then, I'm happy to perform with Miguel or try to memorize a monologue by then. But this set list is going to take a lot of work on everyone's parts. Rose has to learn the lyrics and learn to harmonize with Miguel. I'm learning a song from scratch, and Miguel is basically putting together a violin solo by ear.

If not next week though, we'll try to record it for you right here.

Oh, and if I haven't mentioned this, I'd really love to record with Béa as well, if not this school year than definitely during the summer.

-Kal

For What It's Worth...*

...here is all the knowledge and experience I have with finger picking.

The two ways you can begin picking are 1) with just your thumb, or 2) with all your fingers. Usually it's just about what feels comfortable, and sometimes beginners feel more comfortable relying on just their thumb. I know I do. But when he saw me finger picking, Senpai suggested that you try to pick with all your fingers, by assigning each finger to a string. Even if you don't feel comfortable picking with your ring finger or pinky (watch the video to see just how uncomfortable I am with this), practice with your first three fingers and work up to that point. You'll be able to pluck a lot faster once you get the hang of it.

Next thing is that you can pick with your bare fingers, which is fine, or you can get these really cool picks that slide onto your fingers and make the sounds a lot more crisp. It's like the difference between strumming with your fingernails and strumming with a pick. The sound is just a lot less murky with the plastic. As you'll see in the video, I only have the pick that slides onto my thumb, but they make ones for your fingers too. And as you'll see from the video, I haven't used that pick in a while and I'm sort of messy with it. In fact, I abandoned it all together until I picked a song on just one string.

Lastly, there are three techniques that come into play with picking: hammer-ons (placing your finger on a fret after you've plucked the string), pull-offs (the opposite of hammer-on), and sliding (smooth transition, sliding your finger from one fret to a higher or lower one).



Tabs used:

Time- Hootie and the Blowfish
Dsus4
-------------------------3----------------------------3--
---------3------------3----3---------3------------3------
------2------------2--------------2------------2---------
--0--------0-h-2---------------0-------0-h-2-------------
----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------


Sunny Came Home- Shawn Colvin
e------------------------------------------------|
b------------------------------------------------|
g------------------------------------------------|
d--------0-2-0------------------0-2-0-2-4--|
a—2/4---------4-2-0-0---2/4---------------|
E------------------------------------------------|

e---------------------------------------------------|
b---------------------------------------------------|
g---------------------------------------------------|
d--------0-2-2/0--------------------0-2-0------|
a—2/4------------4-2-0-0---2/4---------4-2-|
E---------------------------------------------------|


The Tain- The Decemberists
E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0--3--7/10--11--12-----------------------|

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0-3--7/10--11--12-------------------------|
     Here upon this pillow

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0--3--7/10--11--12------------------------|
    Made of reed and willow.           You're

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6---3-0-3---5--7--0---12-11-12-----------------|
    a fickle little twister, are you sweet on your sister? Your

E|--0--3--7--6/7/6--3--0--------------------------------|
    fallow won't leave you alone.

-Kal

The Frustrations of Sudden Temperature Changes

No, weather changes isn't really that much of a hazard, but it's still something to pay attention to. And yes, there is a difference between the hazards and the frustrations, however subtle. Hazards usually involve some sort of bodily harm, while the frustrations are the little bumps you might encounter along the way.

Anyway.

It's gotten really warm and a little humid out these past few days, so my guitars have been slipping out of tune more easily. People mostly use that phrase "slipping" out of tune for cold weather-- because materials shrink in the cold, tuning pegs will become lose, and it's quite hard to keep the instrument from going flat. Now that it's spring though, the warming is causing the wood and all of my tuning pegs to expand, tightening the strings. The past few days when I've gone to play, my strings have been sharp instead of flat. The changes can be mild, and sometimes not noticeable for someone who doesn't have perfect pitch, but you should be careful to check your strings before you play when the weather starts changing rapidly.

-Kal

The Hazards of a New Electric

There's actually a few to list. Principally, as with any new guitar, or really any new string instrument, you'll have to re-tune a zillion times the first few times you play. I've been practicing for over an hour total between the acoustic and the electric. When I picked up the acoustic, it was set to go. I had to tune the electric when I picked it up later, and I've had to re-tune about 3 or 4 times since. It's probably a good idea to check the strings every 2 to 3 songs if your instrument is new, to make sure you're getting the right sound. And if it's really out of tune, don't be worried; just be careful. My high e was tuned all the way down to a B, and I had to tune it a full 3 notes up, which took a good 4 full cranks on the tuning peg. Just go slow and you'll be fine.

The second hazard for me at least, since I'm used to the roughness of the acoustic strings, is that I feel like I can play the electric for a whole lot longer. My fingers don't hurt from the strings, and my wrists don't hurt from the bar chords. Now, this might seem like a plus at first. No pain means I can keep on playing, right? Well, as I put down the guitar to write this post, I glanced down at my hands, and my fingers are of course torn up more than usual. The strings actually tend to be farther away from the fretboard on an acoustic, so they take more energy to hold down. It's very easy on the electric, and requires a whole lot less effort (though as Will can tell you, it's still not "easy" by any stretch, if you're not used to it). The strings though, wear on your fingers just the same. So, I've probably gone through a few layers of skin by now, and I'll probably regret it by tomorrow. But for being able to play, and finally being able to practice hammer-ons, it's totally worth it.

-Kal

Like an artist with no artform...*

I know I've posted before on why I'm doing this, but I feel the need to express it again, maybe because I didn't do so adequately the first time. This might seem a little weird to try and say in words, but there's just this feeling in my chest now, and the overwhelming need to communicate it to someone. It feels almost like a moment of enlightenment, and like I want someone else to be able to feel that. It's like watching a sunset and not having anyone to share it with, or like singing your feelings to an empty room. The point is, I think that's why I'm doing this. I've been through so many "artforms"-- there's dance and gymnastics, writing, poetry, theres drawing and sculpting, and there's music. All these ways of expressing yourself, in the hopes that maybe, maybe someone will understand what you meant when you painted it or wrote it or performed it. Like the song says, "if I get it all down on paper it's no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to". Maybe it seems elementary, but I started this because it became a way of expressing myself when words escaped me. Before I was a guitarist I was a writer, and before I was a writer, I was an artist. Maybe this is just another phase, but if it's a way of getting me to the next wave, then I'll go with it. Right now, this is my way of reaching other people, of finding that connection we all so crave. Right now, the guitar is my release when no other exists. Right now, my guitar expresses everything that I can't.

-Kal

Messing With the Electric

Alright, crash course for anyone just picking up an electric guitar (like me!):

First thing that's actually really awesome, is that all the tuning pegs are on the same side. No more snapping that G-string! Turn the tuning pegs Away from you to tighten the strings, and toward you to loosen them. As you can also see, there are two metal platforms that hold down the highest four strings (DGBe). This becomes important when re-stringing your guitar-- all you have to do is make sure the strings feed under the hooks.








Next thing: there are so many ways to mess with the tone on an electric guitar, especially between the dials on the guitar and the amp. If you watch the video below, you'll get a quick tutorial plus you'll be able to hear the changes that each dial causes (and if I sound like I'm pretty new to this...........I am):



Other than that, here's a brief and probably more organized tutorial of what all the dials do:

First of all, the changes in tone are possible because of these three pickups. The top one is sensitive to lower tones; the middle one, to middle tones; and the last one, to higher tones. The principle way of controlling these is with this switch and these tone dials:



















The switch has five settings: all the way to the top is the top pickup, or the lowest tones. Next is the top and middle pickup. The middle setting turns on the middle pickup. The fourth position turns on the middle and bottom pickup. Last setting turns on just the last pickup, which means you'll get more of the higher notes.

The next way of controlling tone is with the two dials: the top dial controls the top pickup, and the bottom dial controls the bottom pickup. Basically, if you for example, turn the top pickup all the way up and the bottom pickup off, you'll get a very twangy sound. If you use just the top pickup, youll get a very full, bassy sound. To change the tone on the middle pickup, you have to play with both dials.

The last thing you can do to change the tone with the pickups has to do with where you play: if you strum closer to the top pickup, you'll get a much fuller sound, where strumming over the last pickup will give you a very twangy sound.

As if that weren't complicated enough, there's also the dials on the amp. This one has three channels, all of which have volume dials, in addition to the master volume. Then there are the tone dials, low dnd high. Low gets the bassy notes, and high gets the higher notes. I've been told that for playing live, it's best to turn the high knob up most of the way, and the low knob a little bit less so.


Yes, this does seem quite overwhelming at first. And by at first I mean that I'm still overwhelmed by it. It's very difficult to get the right sound for certain songs, especially when you're not familiar with this kind of equipment-- or this kind of control. Usually when I'm playing I'll set the pickup switch to either the second or fourth setting, I'll put the tone dials about halfway, and I strum between the first two pickups. Mostly, you just have to play with it to figure out what everything does, and what sounds good for which songs.

The key here though, which I can't stress enough, is BALANCE. Some people love to pump up the bass, and I can tell you primarily as a listener that it is not appealing when you can't hear the singer or the high notes of the song. That said though, it sounds very unattractive as well when you turn the bass all the way down, so that all you get is a low hum in the background while the high strings are buzzing against the frets. Sometimes it's cool to play around at the extremes of high tones or low tones so you get a sense for what everything does. But please, for the love of God, balance the tones when you're actually playing.

That is all.

-Kal

But Honestly: A Special Song for a Special Someone

This is one of those songs I've been practicing since I got the acoustic-- I mean it sounds like a pretty acoustic song, like it should be played unplugged. But something about it just never sounded quite right when I was playing. The notes weren't clear or crisp enough; everything just sounded very muddled and monotone. Especially on the higher frets, where the strings start to pull away from the fretboard on the acoustic, it gets harder to hold the notes. This song also goes up to the 14th fret, which is about the highest I can hit on the acoustic.

So, here's a quick practice session to demonstrate how much easier it is on the electric. (To see the tab, view the video in YouTube and check the description).



Of course I'm a newbie at this part, so I spent a lot of time fiddling with the balance and the volume (and my mic is still not that great), but if you can get the EQ just right, the notes sound so perfectly crisp. I can hit the highest fret (21st) with no problem, and my fingers slide so easily down the strings (very important for this song). Actually, for someone who's used to rough strings, it's a little hard to judge where my fingers are on the fretboard if I'm not paying attention.

Quick disclaimer, the strings are probably not entirely in tune since I did them by ear again.

And of course, I do have to mention that this video is for a certain someone by the name of Will, who is the reason I've been working at this song since I started playing. I remember when I first got Carmine I was so excited, and I really wanted to do somethign special for him-- but of course, our taste in music had a very narrow margin of overlap, and there weren't a whole lot of acoustic songs I could play for him. This I suppose, was our compromise, since Everlong and Best of You were way above my skill level at the time. Now at least, I can start paying him back, on this appropriately special day.

Now, I know you Foo Fighters fans reading this are ranting in your heads about how I changed the tab to make it easier and I didn't play the song all the way through  I didn't even get to the solo. Patience, patience, I just started on the electric yesterday, and I've barely started to practice picking yet. Next on my list is definitely the picking and slide intros I was never able to do on the acoustic.

Anyway, next chance I get, I'll try to do a post on the basics of an electric guitar, which will probably be a lot of me fiddling with the EQ. Till then!

-Kal

Why am I lamenting my lack of tuner when I'm on break with no guitar?

BECAUSE I'M NOT LACKING A GUITAR AND I HAVE AWESOME FRIENDS, THAT'S WHY.

Yup. Ok, lemme start from the beginning. Really, the place that it started was when Senpai texted me asking if I'd mind getting my birthday present early. For reference, my birthday is in May, and I'd be home from school on my birthday. But, he said it was pretty cool and he wanted me to have it early, regardless of how ridiculously early spring break was. So I'm like, ok cool, I'll let you know when I'm home.

So, I flew in last night, and we got to hang out today. I had actually gone downtown to see some old teachers, but thats beside the point. He had said to meet him at his house after he was done working and picking up my present. I get to the door, and he's got a guitar case on his back, which isn't too unusual for him. We head upstairs, and we're just chilling for a bit, till he runs downstairs and grabs an old amp. I've seen this thing before in the corner of his room, it looks kind of old and worn but it sounds good as new (not that I'm an expert on amps or anything, but it sounds awesome). He asks me sorta casually, so are you walking home later? And I'm like yeah, it's not that far, why? Response?: Well, I'll have to walk up with you cause you're not gonna be able to carry this thing home.

Um. Excuse me?

And he just watches my face as I realize that this is my present. But oh no, he's not done. He had told me earlier that it was in two parts, black and white, and you can't use one without the other. So I'm thinking, holy shit. And he's not done. So he stands up, grabs this thin guitar case off the chair, and says, you know this case is yours too. I mean it's a pretty nice case...and I guess whatever's inside is gonna have to be yours too.







Wait wait wait. Back up. The amp is one thing. A freaking electric guitar? (Ok, I didn't say "freaking". I was way too excited for that). You have to remember-- this is the guy that gave me Carmine when he was gonna chuck that acoustic. I owe him basically everything I've learned since that summer. I owe him for the direction that a good portion of my life has taken. An electric guitar?? Holy shit. No way. No, not just an electric guitar. A Fender Stratocaster. Holy shit. This is the guitar I was going to save up for two full years for. Black and white, like a perfect equinox. She's absolutely beautiful. The strings are so smooth, the plastic is on the pick guard like it's never been played. Twenty-one frets and I can hit the 13th and 14th so easily, and my fingers glide across down the neck like baby oil.



I was absolutely speechless for probably a full 20 minutes. Felt like my brain had exploded and plastered itself across the floor of his bedroom. When I finally got a hold of myself, he handed me a pick, plugged in, and had me play through a song while he fiddled with the dials and switches to show me what everything did.

Speaking of all the dials, I'll have to get on some new lessons about the electric guitar. There's so much you can do with the sound, the EQ, the tone, literally everything. You can do hammer-ons and pull-offs, slide between frets and bend the strings.

See, it's funny beause apparently this entire time he's just been reading my blog and laughing to himself. Reading my fantasizing rants about hammer-ons and how beautiful they sound, and thinking to himself, she can't even do that properly on an acoustic, this is gonna be great!

And meanwhile, I've been talking to all my friends at school about how much I miss playing his guitar when I'm not home (same style by the way, but a really beautiful off-white. His guitar is actually essentially a character in a story I'm writing on the side).

Well, the next thing up is names. One for the guitar, one for the amp. I'm thinking something that captures the essence of the equinox (like I said, my first thought when I saw her), day and night, light and dark, something like that. Maybe "Sombra" for shadow or "Luz" for light or "Luna" for the moon. I'll have to think on it.

Then after that I'll probably record a quick demo song to test out the sound (and try not to blow out my mic), and I'll get to the lessons as best I can. It'll be a learning experience for us both, since I really have no experience with the electric.

Oh yeah, and when I finally got home I realized I had no capo and no tuner, so I had to tune by ear. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Or experience in this case, I suppose.

I still feel like I'm floating through a dream right now. The acoustic was one thing. My mind is still spattered across my floor, I think. I'll let you know when I've shoved my brains back into my head enough to crank out a song.

-Kal

The Hero's Journey

Funny, that I should have called my ongoing guitar experience "the journey", when just a few weeks after starting this blog we read an excerpt from Campbell's "Hero With A Thousand Faces", detailing the steps of "the hero's journey" (which by the way, was the basis for The Matrix). And really, I don't want to be overdrammatic here; I don't know really how much of my experience fits the steps or the idea of a "hero's" journey. But in a way, I suppose it reflects what I'm trying to do. "The hero's journey always begins with a call"-- maybe you've already experienced something like this in your life. Something doesn't feel quite right, or something simply compells you to do something that's completely out of your normal character. For me, this came at a time in my life when I had abandoned everything out of the ordinary. I had given up, since I was little, on ballet, gymnastics, ice skating, violin, tae kwon do, and sculpture. Then all of the sudden, I realized that I was stagnating. I wasn't writing, I wasn't reading, and I really wasn't doing anything outside of school. I had always admired guitarists and songwriters, so I decided it was time for me to try. I started researching, found a Yamaha on Amazon for 200 bucks, and I was ready to fork it over just so I could get a taste of that world.

That's when Senpai came along with his so-called "piece of shit" guitar, which is now my adored Carmine.

So, the first step was abandoning my fear of failure, and just going right for it. When I had some trouble with the chords (my biggest obstacle), my "guide" came along to help me, and he's still here to help me. And yes, as Campbell describes, the trials grow increasingly more difficult if you stick with it. (Right now, my latest trial is that I'm on spring break and lacking my guitar, so my calluses are going to be gone by the time I get back to school). But I stick with it because there's so much I want to learn. Bar chords and finger picking and singing while I play, hammer ons and pull offs and palm mutes.

Of course, Campbell's rendition of the hero's story involves an epiphany, a sort of final boss confrontation, and then a final escape from the "woods" back into "reality". The hero brings something back to the world that the world is missing, and must figure out a way to deliver it. Somehow, I don't think my story is as dramatic; certainly no "final" confrontation here. Perhaps I could equate it to the calluses on my fingers or the pain in my wrist from trying bar chords that my fingers can't quite reach, but that's hardly a life or death confrontation.

I am trying to bring a piece of what I've learned back into the world, though. If I can share my experience with someone, and perhaps spark that person out of stagnation, into their very own hero's journey, then I've done my job. And if I can do that while still maintaining on my own journey, then I've done my job well.

-Kal

Perplexing: An Update

Well, I filed down the one callus on my index finger yesterday, and it seems to be doing fine today. It feels about the same as the others now that the callus isn't as thick. This is one thing that I really love about guitar: constantly learning things, both about playing and about yourself (physically and mentally speaking).

My thoughts about what happened: for myself, I think that part of the pain may have come from my clipped nails. I hadn't trimmed down the corners after I cut them, so the sharp edge of my nail may have started to dig into the skin. As far as the callus, my assumption is that there was so much dead skin accumulated at my fingertip that it was compressing the healthy skin under it. That would explain the sensitivity to pressure. I also found when I got in the shower yesterday that it was more sensitive to heat than the rest. I assume that more blood was being pumped to the area, since that's a natural response to damaged tissue. And of course, the inflammation (swelling and blood rush) would contribute to the pain.

Now, I know I've said in the past not to pick at calluses because they're actually good for protecting your fingers. I still stand by that: actually peeling away the dead skin can pull at healthy skin, making it even more painful, and sometimes causes bleeding. It's sort of like peeling down your cuticles. If they start to hurt abnormally though, (and I don't mean an hour after playing, that's normal), feel free to try filing them down. You'll know when they get really thick because the sensation in those fingers will be much less than in normally callused skin. You'll get to know your body, and you'll figure out for yourself what feels like abnormal pain. As a general guide, I'd say that surface sensitivity (like localized pain from rubbing the skin or sometimes from pressing very hard), as well as heat sensitivity, is normal. If pressing very lightly  on the area (as I said yesterday, about the pressure of typing on the keyboard) makes it hurt, that's probably more of an abnormal pain. If you start to get this sensation of the skin stretching or pulling across the tips of your fingers, that would be a good clue to file down those calluses.

For filing, a simple cardboard nail file will suffice. I'd go after whichever area is the thickest, but try not to file the edges too much, so as not to shrink the physical area of the callus. Leveling them off is a better way of thinking about it. In addition, don't file all the way through the callus; the skin underneath will be very sensitive. And lastly, try to stay away from the healthy skin. Filing that will make your fingers very unhappy.

As always, I hope my mistakes will help you in your journey.

-Kal

Perplexing

So, I woke up this morning with an incredibly sore index finger. Of course my fingers are usually sore from playing the guitar (especially my chord fingers), but this is unusual. It feels almost like a bruise, or like it's swollen, which is not when callused guitar fingers usually feel like. They burn, they itch, they might hurt when you press right on the calluses themselves-- but this feels like I slammed my finger into a door. It doesn't look all that different (not swollen or anything), except that it maybe looks a little more red where it hurts, though that could easily be me making things up. The other weird thing is that the pain is asymmetrical, more towards my pinky than my thumb. I suppose it could be from playing too much (sometimes really thick calluses will start to hurt), but the pain radiates down the nail on one side, all the way to the cuticle. I'm probably going to try filing down the callus a little bit later, but I don't think I'll be able to play the guitar for a bit. The thing hurts when I press on the callus, or anywhere on the one side of my nail, plus when I press down on my nail from the top. I can even feel it as I'm typing now. I'm actually really confused about this; I'm usually pretty good at at least divining a source. I really don't think that guitar was the source of this, but then again, stranger things have happened. I suppose all I can do for now is wait, and maybe try my file later.
 
-Kal

The Hazards of Cold Fingers

So, I just came back from town, new supplies in hand, eager to play-- but man, is it cold out. You ever feel like you start to move more slowly when it's cold out? Well, it's especially true with your hands. Your fingers feel stiff after coming inside, right? Most everyone knows the feeling. Well, I'd advise being smarter than me, and giving your hands some time to warm up before you start playing. Rub them together, sit on them, get the blood flowing-- cold fingers do not make for a happy guitarist. Your calluses will probably hurt more when you start playing, plus you'll probably be a bit slower at switching between chords, and strumming in general.

And on that quick note about playing, I feel the need to bring up again one of the frustrations of being a guitarist: dropping the pick. I've actually licked the contact parts of my fingers before playing in the past, to get a better grip. But often I'll losen my grip on the pick when I'm trying to play more quietly, and it will subsequently slip from my hands. If I'm lucky, it lands at my feet. If the world is feeling cruel, I hear it clatter into the guitar. Well, you can read about the last time that happened to me here, but today I happened to stumble upon the most ingeniuos solution:

 

I hope what you can see from this picture is the textured oval region near the top-- it's actually this rubbery grip inlaid to the top of the pick. I just happened to walk into my local guitar shop today, and found this sitting on the shelf. I tried it as soon as I got back to my dorm, and it feels great. I haven't found it slipping while playing yet, and the tip is actually narrower than my others, so the sound I get out of it is really crisp. And while I was there, I ended up picking up another 0.58mm pick, just in case I drop mine into the guitar again.

Hopefully now that I have another "just in case" pick, that won't happen. But knowing me, I'll drop the new grippy one instead.

-Kal

The Hazards of Not Knowing Your Limits

When I start playing, I really get into it. In the past I've tried to limit myself to an hour of practice at a time, but there are just so many songs that I love to play, and so many that I need to practice. For our next set, I really want to play My Immortal by Evanescence, and Kiss Me, by Sixpence None The Richer. This would involve Miguel, my viola friend, getting the amp up here for his electric violin, and then Rose singing. And I really need to practice for these. The chords that are giving me the most grief right now are F#m (244222) and Dm (xx0231). I've been going at this for a while, and I still need the practice, since my hands are still not quite strong enough for the bar chords. Anyway, I played earlier today, and I guess I've been going at it off and on for about 2 hours now. This is the result:



Now, the calluses and all are normal. But after playing for a while, they tend to turn white and start to peel. If you're like me, you'll get really tempted to pick at them. DON'T DO IT. It's a painful process, and it'll hurt more the next time you play. If you leave them be, they'll usually flatten out on their own.

So, if you're smart, you'll find your limit, and practice for only that amount of time. If you're like me, you'll be really determined to learn something that you definitely won't get in one night, or you'll just really get into it and play for hours on end, without realizing how time is passing. And if you're like me, you'll only stop playing when it hurts to touh the strings, and when your hands visibly start to slow down and lose strength and energy. Word of caution (and I know I've said this before, but I've dropped bowls of burning hot liquid this way): your fingers may be very sensitive to heat at this point. Just be aware of it.

And, a quick final tip: cleaning the strings regularly will actually make it easier on your fingers. Just wrap a microfiber cloth, like the one used to clean glasses, around each string individually, and run it up and down the string. You'll be surprised at how much gunk comes off, especially near the top frets where you play the most.

Happy practicing!

-Kal

Well That Was Anticlimactic

So, not a whole lot happened yesterday. We went shopping (no incident there), and even walked to the train station. I didn't have my phone and I didn't need my phone. I felt no need to be texting anyone or checking my email while I was walking, even though that's something I'll do out of habit. The biggest thing for me was the instinctively checking to make sure my phone was in my pocket-- which obviously it wasn't. Basically, I'm just really paranoid about losing it. The times I was wishing I had it were to listen to music, and to jot down a note. We were sitting on the bus when a song came on and I thought, "wow, this would be great for Open Mic Night"-- only I couldn't figure out the song, nor could I write it down, since I didn't have my phone.

So other than that, no big issue. And really, I didn't even play my guitar or read all that much yesterday. The time I did grab my guitar out was in the evening, past quiet hours, with a couple friends in the lounge. We were decorating a poster, and Dave was talking about how he hadn't played in a while, so I went to grab Carmine (my guitar, for those of you who don't know). We had a pretty cool discussion about different playing styles, and I discovered that he's way more into finger picking than me. He started playing the melodies for Sweet Home Alabama, and a bunch of other songs: Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, everything that I had started to learn on the violin in middle school. It was actually pretty interesting; he said that finger picking was way easier for him than strumming, which was a pretty big revelation for me. He said for him, it's easier to keep track of two hands, rather than two fingers. So, if he can keep his fingers in the same position, and pluck the strings in a certain order, that's what works for him. With me, it's totally the opposite-- my plucking hand is much harder for me to keep track of, but I'm fine (now) at changing chords. Maybe it has something to do with the way I started off: I worked really hard at changing chords in the beginning.

So, I guess the point is that different people have different preferences. For me, picking will take a lot more brain power to learn. For Dave, the chords are too much to keep track of at once. My brain focuses on the chord hand, his on the strumming/picking hand. In the end though, the best part was exchanging ideas. He showed me a really easy picking song (Time, Hootie and the Blowfish), which I can also use to practice hammering on (placing your finger on the string after you've plucked it). I told him that the way I started practicing chords was keeping two finger planted, so you only had two more to keep track of.

Basically, it's all about experimenting, and finding out what works for you.

-Kal

An Experiment

The day after we discussed the "tethered" life in my English class, I was running late for my Calc class, and forgot my cell phone on the dorm. Of course it struck me as coincidentally good timing, and I was rolling my eyes at myself. But as I thought about it, I realized it wasn't really all that important. I wouldn't need to be contacting anyone between class and work-- any of that could wait until I got back to the dorm. Sometimes I listen to music on my phone, but that's not crucial either. The only thing I was missing was a timepiece-- but even that was nice, not glancing at the time every five minutes.

So, I decided to try something for myself. Tomorrow, from when I wake up to when I go to bed, my phone will be tucked in the back of my desk drawer, and my computer will be disconnected from the internet (I would say that I'd put that away too, but all my tabs are on iTunes).

What will this mean? As a guitarist, it will mean no interruptions while I'm playing, which will be lovely. It will mean making my shopping trip without the ability to look up the bus schedule and without the ability to call a cab, or anyone for that matter. It will mean having to speak to my friends face to face to stay informed about plans. It will mean going to Saturday night's party without the ability to call or text anyone, to see where they are or otherwise. It will mean being able to focus on what's in front of me. It will mean not being able to check my email for a full 24 hours.

For one, it will force me to do any online homework before tomorrow. It will mean being able to read without my phone buzzing after three paragraphs. As a music-phile, it will mean having to create my own music.

Why? Well, to be honest, I'm really just curious. But when we talked about being alone, while not ever really being alone, I realized all the times I've been interrupted while playing, and it really does just kill the song when your phone goes off in the middle. Even if you don't answer right away, there's still that blip in the song, and your mind is really no longer in it. It's hovering over your phone, wondering what someone could possibly be saying. And in another sense, I'll be able to record without fear of being interrupted, so expect a new video post after this is done.

I'm also hoping that it'll give me a better appreciation of...well, everything. A better appreciation for my alone-time, the time I get with my guitar and my books. A better appreciation of the friends who are in front of me. More confidence in my ability to really rely on myself. And also a better appreciation for our ability to communicate across such distances. For a full day I won't be able to contact anyone back home, about the little things or the big things. It will test my memory, my nerve, and my ability to focus.

And of course now, I'm just itching to get to my guitar, for that sweet moment when I can close my door and know that no one, no one will break the sound of the strings except for me myself.

-Kal

Performances Sneak Up On You

Last night was Open Mic Night-- the first Thursday of every month. Rose and I realized on Sunday that we hadn't practiced anything. You get caught up in school work, you don't pick up the guitar for a few days, and then just one more day, and one more day, because there's always one more thing you could get done instead. And then it's the week of. Well, I'm not going to tell you that we pulled one out of the hat and managed a set list in four days, because we didn't. But I still went, and there were some amazing musicians. Some I had seen before, some entirely new, but it always strikes me just how brilliant some of these people are. It's always incredibly humbling, seeing people writing their own music, hearing people live that sound better than studio artists today.

It also made me question myself a little. I'm a guitarist, sure, but nothing like them. As a guitarist, walking around campus makes you wonder what's so special about yourself-- on this campus especially, it seems like every third person you meet plays the guitar. Either that, or they're way more experienced with another instrument than you've ever been with any form of music. At home if you were a guitarist, you stuck out. It was your thing, the thing you owned and the thing you loved. So what after all does make it special?

Well, it's just that. It is the thing I love. Of course I envy those guitarists who write their own music, and then can get up and perform it. It's amazing and beautiful-- and it reminds me of why I love playing. I don't strive to be better for the sake of being better. I want to learn how to play well, how to finger pick and how to sing because music it seems, can so often express what words alone can't. There's a poetry to them and the way their written, but there's an emotion to the music too, the different instruments used and the tone of the lyrics. Everyone talks so much about how talking to someone face to face is so much more real than textual communication, simply because you can see the person's expressions, hear the intonation of their voice, and cue into their gestures. Well, has anyone ever told you about this amazing song, and then sent you...the lyrics? Next time someone tells you about a song, look up the lyrics first. Don't listen, just read. It's not the same, is it? You're missing a whole element of what the piece is trying to say. Maybe the general point gets across, but music is like talking face to face.

For me though, music takes it a step further. There are so many instruments overlaid, like layers of emotion, and so many ups and downs throughout the course of the song. It's like a song bottles up* in just a few minutes what an hour-long conversation might try to say. It's like the purest form of communicating exactly what you're trying to say. It takes away yet another layer, tears down yet another barrier between people.

That's why I love playing. Why I want to be able to sing and pick and strum-- it feels like the most pure and true way of expressing exactly what I'm trying to say. I'm sure you have those few songs that, beyond being your favorite songs, they make you pause when they come on. You feel something tugging in your chest, in that hollow just below your heart, like something wanting to escape, something that can't be expressed in words-- and the music is that outlet. I play for the lyrics, I play for the music, and I play for the emotional release. In a world where everything can said rather than shown, music is my way of pushing through that barrier of text.

-Kal