Creative Arts Research Skills

This year has been a completely different kind of course, for me. Every other year, I've had to sit up until 2 in the morning writing essays and paragraphing and everything else you can think of. But this year was a lot more relaxed and free.

I much prefer blogging to writing essays. My blog is a place where I can go and post all things musical, and it's really useful. I can store things on here that I think would be useful later on. The fact we can also record ourselves playing and upload it for people to see is good too. I've never really thought about uploading a video anywhere, but blogs have changed that. I also found myself falling into a routine, where I would type things and save them as a draft. This is so they were not public, but I could go and read what I was thinking two weeks ago or something. The course has shown me I learn things and organize things in my own way. For example, most people wouldn't prefer to sit and write things that are on their minds down, but I find it easy to do and I potentially have a  blog post on me. Having the blog has helped develop that because it's a designated place for me to ramble. Also, learning new techniques on guitar and videoing myself doing them has improved my playing vastly. The fact I can sit there and watch my technique gives me the opportunity to see where I'm slacking and give me areas to tune up. For example, I wrote a post earlier this year about my picking technique. I hadn't even noticed that until it was brought up and I saw myself doing it on a video, and I've now changed it and I've progressed since.

Instead of getting an assignment brief and being told to go and write an essay, we would have a lecture about a certain subject and then write a blog post on it. I found this so much better than writing essays, because I could be informal and just ramble on. I found it good practice to sit with my blog open during the lecture and type notes and later edit them to a post. If it were an essay, I would have to wade though pages upon pages of notes and find what I needed. The blog got rid of that, because it was all there and I just had to expand on ideas I wrote down. As said before, I prefer to write as if I'm talking to someone, so quite informal. With my blog, I see it as I'm talking to the people who read it. An essay just seems like I'm typing to no one, and it gives me no context to write in.

On the other hand, I can see where essays kind of have the upper hand. While blogging may be informal and place to ramble, it can get extremely messy. If I need to find something relevant, I have to find related blog posts and scour through to find what I'm looking for. In an essay, it's all there in one huge chunk of writing. The worst you would have to do it really quick scan it to find what you need. Looking at it from an tutors view, it's the same kind of thing. If you need to mark a student on something, it would be a lot easier to have it all there in front of you than stored in bits around a blog.

For next year, I think I'm going to stick with what I already do, but just do it better. I'll sit in a lecture and write down the key talking points in a draft blog post, write some notes beneath and then shape them into a post that night. Talking about blogging is all well and fine, however getting work in on time for me is something I must focus on. For next year, I'm going to work on this and hopefully improve my organization skills. It would be better I guess to once I've finished a blog post, while I'm still on a roll, I should do any work assigned to me that night too and not leave it or leave it half way finished. I'd like to see the freedom continue next year, because it is a really nice feeling not to have the pressure of outstanding essays over your head. The blog covers essays in short little posts, and it works so well. I would very much like to write an instrumental album too, and record it and release it all myself. It would be an awesome achievement. I'm hoping to record myself a lot more too once I finally have my home PC and studio sorted.

New Practice Regime

I've recently had a complete rethink of my practice regime, and decided I need more structure. So I researched some other guitarists practice regimes, such as John Petrucci and Steve Vai, and came up with this. I'm going to write 2 or 3 sheets and cycle them each week.

On my first time running through this, I'm going to see what works and what doesn't. That way I can filter out the non-useful things and make it perfect.

Until I have a refined version, I've made this an hour long. Once I have more definite things I need to practice, I'm going to extend it.

3 Note Per String Sextuplet Exercize - Video Two

After my last video, I've been practicing this. I only managed to get it 5bpm faster, but it does feel a lot more natural than it did on the first video.

At the end I try it out of my comfort zone at 85bpm, which isn't much faster but it's still enough to throw me. I'm going to keep going at this pace, and once I get it to 100bpm, I'll upload a new video!

Fingerpicking Practice

Seeing as I was put on the acoustic band for Moulin Rouge, I decided it would be a good time to start practicing to fingerpick. I've never been able to do it properly, but I put some practice time aside to focus on it, and learned Ode To Joy.

It's nowhere near fluent yet, but it should be up to a standard in no time!

3 Note Per String Sextuplets Exercise - Video One

Here's a video of me playing the sextuplet exercise I transcribed a few days ago. This is when I really started to incorporate it into my practice regime. As well as this being a good thing to practice anyway, I mainly use it to focus on my picking technique.

I set the metronome to 75bpm, which isn't too fast and isn't too slow. It also seems the right kind of tempo to be able to clearly distinguish between the sextuplets and the 16ths.

Some of you may be able to hear that I seem to have it cleaner when descending. I think this is because of how I'm used to picking. I used to economy pick when ascending, but alternate when descending. I'm not too used to alternate picking while going up the scale, so that's my main area of focus.

I'm going to work on this and hopefully have it up to a better standard in the next few days. I'll try and get it faster too!

Practice Exercise

This is an exercise I've been using to get my alternate picking up to speed. Using a metronome is extremely useful, and it helps get your ears used to the difference of sextuplets and sixteenths.

You can also vary it, by maybe going up the A major scale in sixteenths, then down the B Dorian in sextuplets. You could also string skip to add even more saucy flavour.

The fun part is whacking on a metronome and seeing how fast you can get it!

Picking Technique

For a while now, I've been practicing my 3 note per string modes to get them up to a decent speed so I feel comfortable using them to improvise. I've managed to get them to a certain level, but I noticed I was hitting a barrier of some kind. After a very eye opening technique lesson from Phi, I found out what this barrier was.

Almost every guitarist is taught to Alternative Pick. This is when you keep your pick going in a constant up/down/up/down motion. It's probably one of the most important things you learn, because it unlocks being able to play note denominations easier. For example, if you were to use nothing but down picks to play 16th notes at a high BPM, you would struggle. Although, punk guitarists are known for only playing down picks, but I'm guessing it took a lot of practice to get down picks that fast. Being able to alternative pick will save stress on your hand and wrist, because it seems to flow better.

During my technique lesson, I was asked to play an A Ionian in sextuplets, slide up to the high E and descend the B Dorian in 16ths. I had no trouble descending, but the fast major runs were throwing me. I struggled keeping up, because of the aforementioned 'barrier'. Phi told me to slow down and really think about my picking, which is when we discovered I wasn't alternative picking, I was Economy Picking.

Economy picking is a weird technique. If you were to play an A Ionian in 3 note per string form, the normal way to pick it would be:




A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A

V ^  V   ^  V  ^     V   ^

What I was doing is this:

 A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A
 V ^   V  V  ^  V  V    ^

(V= Down, ^= Up) 

This means that when I was changing string, I would start the picking system again. This gave me trouble to keep in time, as with alternative picking you can tell that a down pick would be a beat, and an up pick would be the 'And'. Economy picking doesn't follow this system, making it difficult.

I'm currently working on rewiring my brain to make alternative picking my standard technique. It's weird, because I'm so used to my way that it seems alien. It's going to take a lot of focus.

Perfectionism

Recently, I've been recording a lot of things. I'm currently in the middle of recording an EP with my band, and I also record videos for this blog. One thing that has really thrown me is the fact that I have to get it perfect, or I hate it.

In a few of my videos, I make mistakes. I know that once that happens I should carry on like it was nothing, but I can't. I have no definite answer why, but I have a few ideas. One of them is that as I was growing up listening to my favourite bands, there are never mistakes on the tracks. I think this is mentally conditioned me to think that if I make a mistake, it's not right (which is completely untrue).

Another idea is a kind of ripple. I don't know about anyone else, but when I make a mistake in a high pressure situation, my brain goes into overdrive and I keep thinking 'You made a mistake', 'You went wrong', 'You played an F#, you f***ing idiot!'. This then continues making me loose focus on what I'm playing, thus leading to many more mistakes. It's an on going thing.

While recording the EP, I've taken at least 15 attempts at a 16 bar solo. After playing for almost 14 years, you'd think this would be a piece of cake. I thought it would be easy, to go into a studio, record a few licks, then listen to the playback and it sound like Metallica. I was wrong. It's incredibly difficult for me. Everyone else was saying each take was fine, but there was always a bit of unwanted string noise, or a bend wasn't perfect. This really bugs me, meaning I'd delete the take and go again. 

I've been taught a really good way to get over this. A college tutor told me to do 3 takes, and then choose the best one. I think this is a great idea, because that way you have set a limit and you have a kind of deadline. I tried working to this discipline, but again, each take had something wrong with it, and it bugged me.

This is different in a live situation though. I remember our bands second gig. We played a small festival type party for someone's birthday. We we're up on stage, and there was about 200 drunk teenagers watching. It came to one part in a song where everything cut out apart from me and the vocals. What happened next, I blame on Jack Daniels. My fingers stopped working right when I needed them the most. Nothing but me hitting every wrong note ever played in a succession, and the vocalist. The notes were that wrong, our vocalist actually stopped and started laughing. But it was okay, because I was laughing too. I just made a joke out of it, fell onto my knees and started playing some country licks for a laugh. Even the audience we're laughing, but I didn't care. A mix between whiskey and laughter created a bubble around me. Then, we finished the set, got off stage, and got our party on.I think the reason I could laugh it off was because it was live. I knew there was no going back, I knew there was no second take, so I just went with it.

 Why I can't do this in a studio situation I will never know, but I'm going to work it into my practice regime to film myself playing every time and get used to being recorded and allowing a certain number of errors. After some time, I'm sure I'll learn to disregard any mistakes.

Echo Song Video

Here is the video of me performing Paul Gilbert's 'Echo Song'. I've known this track for a while, and I was asked at college to choose a track to play. I figured this would be the best one to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDxR-Q4dTJ4&feature=youtu.be

Lazarus Sheet Music

This is the sheet music for Lazarus. As you can see, I've had to annotate this as it's insane to sight read.

Practice Regime

If you want to get 'good' at your instrument, you're only going to get there with practice. There's good and bad things to practice. As long as you have a decent plan on what you want, you'll be able to structure your practice time effectively to get results.

I tend not to have a plan when I practice. I just go in blind and do the standard exercizes. It's worked for me so far, but now I've noticed that my fingers have only memorized the patters, and learning new shapes would be a better thing to do. I also only play with a click occasionally, which I should do more often.

I think the best plan of action for me would to choose a technique and focus on it for a certain amount of time. Once I have it to a standard, I could then move on to another and so on and so forth. I would like to video a short video when I begin to practice it, then one at the end of the time to see if I have progressed. 

Tears In The Rain Sheet Music

This is what I've been working on for a while. I've been asked to record a video of me playing it, so that will follow shortly.

Tears In The Rain Video

This is me playing Tears In The Rain by Joe Satriani. I was given the sheet music and given some time to play it, and here it is.

I enjoyed playing this piece, as it's not really in my style. It's quite slow and soft. I also added some chorus to it to give it a spacey feel, as playing it with no effects left it quite plain.

I made a few mistakes in this, but I'm hoping to record a better take later this week. I'm going to write a post after I've uploaded some more videos about me being a musical perfectionist.

Here's the link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT9YxB82xA0&feature=youtu.be

Music Philosophy

Nowadays, most people have a favourite band, or song. This is a common thing. But, while someone might love a certain song, another person may hate it. This begs the question, what makes a song 'good'?

The real answer is, no one knows. People spend their lives trying to make a perfect track to please everyone, but this will never happen, because people have different views. No matter how much effort you put into a track, how perfect or tight it is, it will never be enough for some people. And yet, us musicians still try.

It all comes down to aestheics. Because I'm in a ska band, it's expected of me to write happy, jolly songs that people can dance to. An aesthetic of ska. It's about how appealing you are to the audience, whether or not you're 'good' enough to grace their ears with your music.

If you're lucky, you will be good enough, and they'll come to your shows and buy your CD. But with so many people liking so many different things, what are the chances?