logic studio ate my jazz post

Posted by on March 3, 2009 No comments

i should be posting about the second set of lessons in the awesome jazz guitar book i mentioned below but i’m not. tonight i was distracted by logic studio and the coolness that it brings to the table. i upgraded (after teaching the dudes at the apple store about how the pricing works…sigh) and have been having a little too much fun messing around with it. the deal is, quite simply put, that the difference between logic express and studio is vast.

if all i got out of it was the space designer plugin interface, i would be quite content. in fact, that’s why the upgrade was planned. the presets and less than adequate access to specific parameters left me feeling like there was too much missing when defining the sound of acoustic instruments. my studio is a very dead, very small spare bedroom that lacks anything that resembles character. the living room/dining room of the house has hard floors and sounds great but there’s that whole “little boy and dog running all over the place” hurdle to clear. so i need to have a little something extra. space designer brings the love.

also of note, the sculpture synth. it does some funky modeling and produces some really lush pads. i’m a huge fan of camel audio’s cameleon 5000 soft synth and sculpture gives it a real run for its money. most of my studio time tonight was burned just moving sliders and messing around with weird pads. it’s really exciting to have access to this.

i still haven’t touched main stage or wave burner or soundtrack pro. wave burner will likely be that app that i can’t live without, but we’ll see.

also of note is the presence of all of apple’s jam packs in the logic studio suite. there are some that i could live without and a pile that really do provide that certain something. a point of departure or an enhancement. a lot of the loops to my mind are the equivalent of dumping some onion soup mix into a meatloaf because although you know you could measure out each and every spice you really have other, more important things you could be doing. yeah, the apple loops are like that.

i’m very pleased with the upgrade. this week’s sketch will probably be some more silly electronica with wild, overdone pads and drum loops processed through whatever i can dig up. this is seriously fun stuff.

and next week it’s back to the jazz studies! seriously! come back thursday for tunes.

keeping pace

Posted by on February 26, 2009 No comments

i will freely admit that i’m not particularly pleased with this week’s offering. but this isn’t about the inner critic getting his swipes in. this is about getting it done. this tune has very little resemblance to what i started with. let’s just say that there was a lot more banjo and a lot less electric guitar. when you swap those two, something very different will emerge.

all irritations aside, i think that the tune has legs. it just needs a little (lot) of work. dig it below.

something to know about hollow body guitars: they are a great place to store linky doos. i’ve been playing the guitar for many, many years and had no idea that they could serve this purpose. the things our children teach us!

linky doo guitar

linky doo guitar

also of some import, i got more of the bracing done on my building project. it’s really coming along. i need to make a trip to ye olde woodworking shoppe this weekend to get some supplies but i’d say i’m closer to finishing this project than i was a week ago. um. yep!

more bracing...

more bracing...

try to enjoy this week’s tune and if you don’t dig it…well…yeah. it happens.

sketch-26-2009

Creative Commons License
sketch 26 feb 2009 by j.c. wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.othertime.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://othertime.com.

jazz studies 1

Posted by on February 24, 2009 1 comment

i started picking my way through jody fisher’s beginning jazz guitar. it is a very impressive introduction to jazz guitar and, more importantly, fretboard harmony.

the layout of the book is brilliant. each lesson has a segment on chords and a segment on scales. one could progress through the book in any number of ways to achieve personal goals. this is something that should be done more in guitar instructional books. i have said forever that anyone can learn to play enough guitar to be happy. it’s a very simple and democratic instrument. in short, even a true novice can sound good enough to fulfill the creative urge. but most books don’t account for someone who simply wants to play what they want to play. i think this is a good answer to that.

so what did i do this week? i worked through the first section of etudes. simple triads and scales. the scales? easy as can be (for me). the triads? there was a reason that i totally ignored the later studies of fernando sor. my fingers don’t like it. but after only a few sessions with the very simple exercise, i noted immediate benefits. my left hand is more limber and i’m thinking all over the fretboard again. this is exactly what i was looking for when i picked up this book.

i should add that many books on jazz or rock guitar will show a million different ways to play a chord without ever discussing the theory that lies just beneath the surface. that approach makes it difficult for the beginner to put the theory with the practice later. by stepping through the major, minor, augmented and diminished chords in their most basic forms, the author lays a thorough foundation for later study.

so far, i would rate this experiment a success. and after having blown through the book once very quickly (who could resist?) i feel really good about spending some real time with it. put on the white belt. returning to the humblest of pursuits will reward the patient.

also of note, i am still gluing up the braces on my soundboard. this takes a lot of time. again, i don’t have a huge pile of clamps so it’s “glue a few…wait until the next day…glue a few…wait…” i should have the last bits glued down tomorrow night. hopefully, i will have pictures for thursday’s post.

playing with razors

Posted by on February 22, 2009 No comments

there is no more useful tool than a razor blade. someday, if anyone ever cares, i will be known as the crazy guy in texas who builds guitars with razor blades. i haven’t been slacking off on my guitar building project as much as one might think. my biggest challenge right now is that things are in the stage where once they get rolling, they need to get done. that is to say, once the braces are glued to the top and back, the body needs to be assembled with due haste.

this is all speaking from the vast experience of never having constructed a guitar.

a week or so ago, i traced out the bracing pattern on the soundboard. then the x-braces were carved. well, some of them were carved. today i invested about 3 hours in carving them up, making sure that the tonebars and assorted braces will fit once they are glued up. then the x-braces were glued.

now, i’m not norm. my house is not made of clamps. that means that the bracing needs to be glued up over time. not idea, but it’ll get done. with the x-braces down tonight, i can put down the tone bars tomorrow night and by tuesday, i will be able to fit the bridge plate. this is all good stuff.

something that i’m learning (note that i haven’t learned it yet) is that enjoying a project like this is more about relishing the process than it is anticipating the product. and the process is beautiful. there are few things as meditative as woodworking. carving, sanding, slowly removing material. there’s time to focus in there. the mind needn’t be absolutely engaged in the process. it can wander and in the time that exists between thinking tasks a lot can be processed. maybe we were happier people when we had to do things for ourselves rather than simply running to the store and picking up a new chair or a frozen dinner. i’m not saying everyone should run out and build a guitar, but i know a lot of people who might be happier if the did something that produced a physical outcome with their time as opposed to anesthetizing themselves with instant entertainment.

anyway, today’s progress in pictures.

carved x-braces

carved x-braces

clamped up x-braces

clamped up x-braces

discipline

Posted by on February 19, 2009 No comments

it feels really good at the end of the day to have something to show for your work. the downer is that you really have to put the time in. even if it’s an hour a night. take me back 10 or 15 years and i’d laugh at the idea that an hour can make a difference, but it does. it makes all of the difference.

what makes that hour work for me is that i think about it all day. when there is no guitar around and no access to musical expression i find that i think about it more and more. this means that when i do hit the studio my mind is focused even if my hands aren’t quite there. music is mostly a mental game and realizing that can go a long way toward improving one’s output. it really works for me. the results of this week’s sessions is at the bottom of the post.

something that i did for myself this week was pick up two books on beginning and intermediate jazz guitar. both of them are by jody fisher. SG is confused as to why i’m messing around with them. “you went to your fanci conservatory. you already know that stuff, right?” yeah, but that isn’t really the point of the exercise.

the author of “zen guitar” mentions that we must each “put on the white belt.” that is to say, assume the role of the novice and open ourselves to learning. i want to start with something brutally simple and see what i have missed or forgotten. studying my instrument is a passion and i want to feed it. what better way than to focus on the beginning?

i’ll let you know how it goes. maybe i’ll make that my tuesday post…a jazz guitar progress update. i’m starting to sound like my buddy rande. ok. it’s a done deal. tuesdays i will update my progress and thursdays will remain sketch days.

stay focused.

here’s the latest sketch. drop me a line and let me know what you think if you get a second.

sketch-18-feb-2009

Creative Commons License
sketch 18-feb-2009 by j.c. wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.othertime.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://othertime.com.