Rocking Out 2008: Say It Ain't So

Here is us practicing up on "Say It Ain't So." Weezer stuff is just so much fun! I loved that Brian nailed the feedback at the end of the song.

Notice the Cameo appearance by my good friend Jeremy Beauchamp!

Rocking Out 2008

The last full-band performance I've had in a long time (and it had been a while before this one) was in the Fall of 2006. Brian & Christy Dolinger were in town. We hooked up with Matt Sammons, Andrew Fletcher, and James Brown (Christy's brother) and threw together a show in like two days to play a Ju Go Ju function. It was a dress up function, so we went as the "Black-Eyed P's." You'll see what I mean by that later. For those of you who didn't know me in college, I was in a band called "Soma" with Brian Dolinger. He and Christy are dear, dear friends of ours. I never thought we'd get to reunite for a show, and this was such an exciting thing for me.

But from here to the end of 2008, I'm going to try and live up to what my profile claims about my guitar skillz.

So every other Monday, I'm going to bring you a song clip from either our practice together, or our show.

Today, I encourage you to enjoy some Pachabel Jam. This is what we used to warm up.

I've Got Rhythm (Final Version)

Though I hope to continue to improve at this song, this is me playing the whole thing. You may remember some previous posts where I've documented my progress learning this song. I think you'll be able to see some definite improvements.

This is the most difficult piece I've ever learned. It makes it more difficult that it's not a rock song where distortion and effects can cover your blunders. This one is completely clean, played here on my Fender Telecaster. Hope you enjoy it. I don't have time to play as much as I used to, but I think I've been able to continue playing pretty well.

Playing for the Day School

This morning, I got to perform for the day school. It's music day, and they had asked me to bring a guitar and to sing some songs with/for them. Of course, I had to go all out and bring along my electric guitar, amp, and effects pedals, too. They were amazed and amused by the "wah wah" pedal, by the word "humbucker", and by the delay (echo) pedal. When I used the chorus pedal, one boy said it sounded like the monsters under his bed. We sang Yellow Submarine, On Top of Spaghetti, the Hokey Pokey, and I Like To Eat Apples and Bananas. I also played a tid bit of Led Zeppelin's Rain Song and Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan to let them hear some of the sounds that guitars can make.

Many of them raised their hands to tell me, "My dad has a guitar" or "My dad doesn't have a guitar." One boy's father works at Gibson, so I knew he would be familiar with guitars. When I got out the electric, his mouth and eyes were wide open. It was comfortable territory for him, I guess.

I hope they'll bring me back next year. These little ones are so much fun.

I've Got Rhythm #3

Here is my third video installment of my attempts at learning Pete Huttlinger's "I've Got Rhythm" arrangement. It's the most difficult piece I've ever learned. The chords are complex and they change at a ruthless pace. At the same time, it's really rewarding to set goals and to see yourself make progress towards them. My ultimate goal is to be able to perform this somewhere. Again, I'm not trying to show it perfected yet, because there is still one last section of the song I haven't learned, but I think you can see a large difference between this post and my previous posts. I have 3 papers due during April, so it may be the Summer before I can dedicate much more time to learning the next section and smoothing it all out, but I've gotten enough of it down now where I'm confident I can complete it.

Body Chemistry: Rusty Guitars and Magneto Boy

It's amazing to me how everyone is unique. Everyone has their own DNA and their own characteristics. On the down side, some people have bizarre problems that develop from their uniqueness. This can be manifested in allergies or reactions. But sometimes it's more a matter of how things react to people.

Here are two examples:

1. The rusty guitar player. When I worked at Donelson Music Center in high school, there was a particular guy who used to come in to shop for guitars. Everyone likes to pick them up and fiddle around with them. (Some people like to plug in and play really loud, really bad versions of "Walk This Way" for 3 hours straight that make me start to hate guitars, but that's another story...)

This guy had some kind of really weird body chemistry. We noticed it because some of our guitars started suddenly appearing with really rusty strings on them. I took personal responsibility for keeping the guitars in good shape, so this disturbed me. Many of the ones rusting I had recently restrung. We started noticing the common factor was that whatever guitar this guy played, by the next days the strings were completely green and rusted. We felt really bad about it, because he was a cool guy, but the next time he came in, we had to ask him to stop touching our instruments.

2. Magneto boy. I don't know if this is as much of a body chemistry thing, but somehow, this kid messes up every computer he touches unless the teacher uses something to ground the static coming from his body. Who knows where he is picking it up, or if it is somehow coming from himself. He's messed up about 12 computers and an X-Box. Now if only he could focus that energy to control metal... :-)

Engadget had this post about the kid, and I found it really interesting.

I've Got More Rhythm Than Before

Here is my second installment, documenting my progress in learning Pete Huttlinger's arrangement of "I've Got Rhythm". Just as with my first post, I did this with no warm up. (I'm here at my office waiting on some guys to help me load chairs for a banquet we're setting up)

I'm trying to get rhythm

One of my elders is a guitar enthusiast. He got Carolina and I to go with him to see Pete Huttlinger (a national finger-style guitar champion). I was mesmerized by him. Steve (my elder) was kind enough to share a DVD and some guitar tabs with me from Pete. After church last night I spent 2 hours learning just this small first part of the song. It's given me something to work toward, because I've wanted for a long time to learn better finger-style guitar, but didn't who to learn it from. Some of Pete's other songs I hope to learn as well--partially because they're easier, but his arrangement of "I Got Rhythm" was by far my favorite. It is an absolute beast of a song; extremely complicated and extremely fast.

Along with this, as I've been reconnecting with old friends on Facebook, many of them are curious why I haven't been broadcasting more of my guitar stuff on Youtube. (Eventually I may get the old videos back out and import them) I thought it would be fun to record myself playing this with only 1 day of practice (and no warm up...just recorded it at the office during my lunch break). I hope to make later posts where I play more of it, and play it better. I'm currently only playing it at about 60% of the speed at which Pete plays it.