Take This Down!

I'm watching Memento for the 2nd time. It's good cause the first time I watched it I still had so many unanswered questions, and I even misinterpreted the ending. Things are much clearer the second time around (ditto for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang).

I wonder why Guy Pearce is so inconsistent, he kicks ass in Memento, but in The Time Machine he kept switching accents and didn't seem to be focused in his portrayal.

For some reason I've been experimenting with Jazz chords. They add so much depth to pieces, and although I don't listen to much jazz, I like to mix things up a bit.

They're also nice for chromatic step ideas as well as muted unpitched chords (which can also contain some chunky strummed single note leads)!

Dear God I hate the watershed on tv. After a certain time on television, they show more adult material in the ad breaks, regardless of what the show is rated. One time I was watching a nice movie and my mother was downstairs ironing some clothes when this ad came on with all this moaning and screaming, and I couldn't change the channel cause it'd make it look like I was up to something suspicious, so I just toughed it out and left it on. In hindsight it was quite stupid! My friend also brought up the point that one of the girls in the ad looks like a representative for our version of local parliament. I'm hoping I never run into her or else I'll never be able to look her in the eye without thinking about the ad!

Guitar is interesting. It's a very punishing instrument. Even after several years of hardcore practice, you can still make a mistake on something simple. No matter how well you know it, if you lose focus for half a second and it's all over in a hail of fluffed notes. With my warmups I can play everything with a reasonable amount of dexterity, and some days I just destroy everything without breaking a sweat, and other times even the simplest parts I screw up so much, that I spend even 5 mins re-doing them till they're right! I don't know why I'm a glutton for punishment but I keep coming back to the instrument.

I used to fear for Australian music, but after seeing some of the ads and hearing the songs of Kisschasy, I have to admit that maybe things will be ok! They have some of the most gorgeous hooks I've ever heard as well as some great vocal harmonies on their choruses.

Yes I will be moving interstate soon, and I've been looking at places to live. There are some really REALLY nice places, and close to work too, but the annoying thing is that close to 55% of my weekly salary (if not MORE) will go to my rent. This does not bode well for my savings, or doing anything nice in a bigger city. One of my friends will hopefully move there mid year and I can get a bigger place for less rent.

Been playing M2TW like a psycho lately. Mostly jaunts from 1-5:30am trying to get it finished as quickly as possible (again). Then I can move on to MTW. An annoying thing however is that I bought the game from interstate from a franchise store and I lost the receipt. Anyway, the casing was tight and it cracked my gameplay CD to the point where my DVD drive can't even read it anymore. As such, I had to crack the game and now I just play it off my hard drive (don't worry, it's legal, since I actually own the game). But when I move and eventually get a new comp and all, I'll want to transfer it across, and since I can't exchange the game in my city, I'm using Torrents to download the whole game so I can make an image of those on to DVD. Woo I can also get my high speed DVD burner from my old comp on to the new one, it'll be spectacular!

One of my friends introduced me to DoTa on WC3 a little while ago. When I first started I got thrashed by everyone. But now as I'm starting to get the hang of things, it's really addictive fun! No game is ever the same, even if you play with the same people, it's really interesting and a difficult game to master.

Several years ago when I was new to guitar, the other used to deride me for my inability to play standing up. I tried very hard to rectify the situation and only ever played standing up and now I'm quite adept (this is because when sitting down and standing up for guitar players places their fretting arm in a different position than usual, it's like trying to trace a picture while looking into a mirror sometimes). Yesterday I was playing sitting down and I was downright awful, I'm hoping it's just down to the phenomenon I mentioned earlier in this post.

So what's my warmup? I use the Steve Vai 10 Hour warmup, with some chromatic exercises and some stretches. Some alternate picking and string skipping, followed by more chromatics and some spider finger transitions (these feature a lot on John Petrucci's Rock Discipline video). After that comes my scalar exercises. Here's the breakdown:

Minor Pentatonic: Usual rock scale, probably the most heard scale in modern music. I liken it to a hoe - nasty, but gets the job done with minimal fuss.

Blues Minor Pentatonic: The added flat fifth here adds a whole new dimension to a straight minor pentatonic solo and makes things sound bluesy (duh) but also a bit more naughty when you use decent phrasing.

Major Pentatonic - Basically the same as can be said for Minor Pentatonic.

Harmonic Minor - Gorgeous classical/eastern/flamenco opportunities abound with this scale. Also good for coming up with different chordal structures for a piece that may have seemed ridiculous at first. Played fast it's spectacular, played slow it sounds soulful. Also great for songs based solely around riffs.

Major scale - Enough said, to use this effective, it's best to use a lot of string skips and legato in order to get the most. You could even Johnny Marr it up and play it in thirds to make it sound sparkly.

Natural Minor - Brilliant for slow pieces, as the extra notes add a lot of emotion to a piece, and when used in conjunction with bends, the world is your oyster.

Whole Tone Scale - Utterly confusing when you first learn it, but as you get used to the finger position changes, it's easy to play at speed. This is best suited for diminished chords, but since I don't use a lot of them, I haven't really used this scale.

Locrian Mode - I'm crap with modal theory, so let me just say thank god for Rush. Listening to their tracks and understanding how to tastefully utilise the foreboding tritone (from the root note), you can come up with ideas that scare other musicians while still containing melodic relevance.

Dorian Mode - Interesting note choices just running through this, I haven't properly used this as I haven't come up with an appropriate backing.

Mixolydian Mode - I've been using this a HELL of a lot more lately. Spectacular for 7th backings, cause landing on that 7th note in the mode as the corresponding chord hits, you're in heaven. Use it and you'll see!

Minor Pentatonic with Major 6th - Pure and utter JAZZ. The double stops available in this overcome the limitations of other double stops in the minor pentatonic which may sometimes go out of melody. This is underrated and should be used more I say!

Anyway, it's late, and I want to play so have a nice day folks. Stay safe!