Of course, I had to say it!

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you guitar geeks out there!!!

I hope you have prepared a good, lovely tune for your wife/girlfriend to impress her this evening, after she supported you in so many long hours rehearsing/repeating the same senseless licks over and over again!!!

Later edit: I think I won’t post anything else for today, I have decided to forget about my computer until tomorrow morning. At least for one night! It’s Valentine’s day, right?

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Until today I didn’t know about Jet Lag Gemini but I have seen an article in the local newspaper about them and I got curious.

The reason is that the bass and the guitar players are Romanians, they are brothers, and sons of a quite famous Romanian writer(for some political reasons also), Paul Gheorghiu, who is now established in USA from 1990 I think.

I didn’t know this part(with the rock-and-roll brothers) but I must admit I love to find out such news, they make me feel proud I am Romanian. Our government promotion strategy to the “outside world” for the last 18-19 years was to complain, show what we don’t have and show dark “realities” of Romania, “realities” that exist worldwide in a more extreme way, without making a big fuss about them. But we do. It’s our country branding strategy. We are stupid.

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I was writing a post about moods in playing the guitar but suddenly a question hit me: what is more difficult to do from the point of view of transmitting emotions?

1) (To transmit emotions to the public) playing some predefined notes in a classical piece of music?

2) Or (to transmit emotions to the public in) solo improvisations?

To argument a bit my problem, I have started stating that improvising is way harder than playing predefined notes(as in classical guitar) because you need to find those particular notes, licks that touch audience’s soul. When you play classical music, well, somebody has already told you which are the notes!!

But then I have thought about how difficult it must be for a classical guitar player to not be able to break the constraints of the imposed form of music he/she is playing and still create his own style and transmit emotions….

I think that classical musicians need to be way more creative in finding nuances, subtle variations to the music EVERY OTHER classical musician play in order to transmit. That somehow turned upside down my belief that mine is bigger than yours…whatever that means…

Your call?

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I was reading some blogs today and I just realized that out of those few blogs about guitars that I read everyday, 3 speak about pedals: GuitarToyBox, IGBlog and PickStroke. Or they just read each other too and they’ve got inspired by one’s post?

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In the beginning, when YouTube got popular, I couldn’t understand what is it all about. WTF is that? Why do people use this site? To just post their stupid videos about how they kick their cat? We all live in a world crowded with stupid people or what?!!

Then, after a while I figured it! I have understood how it can work FOR ME. I don’t watch idiots kicking their cats or drinking Cola while eating Mentos but I do watch videos and listen music that I can not find that easy otherwise. After realizing the potential as a worldwide music source, I have started to love YouTube and visit it everyday for listening one artist or an other.

Then I have found Pandora. Man, Pandora (www.pandora.com) kicked ass!! It was the smartest thing I could think of: “artificial intelligence” radio, profile learning skills and stuff, man, I have started a radio channel for power metal and in only one day I discovered about 2-3 bands that I didn’t know about! This was great!

Now, Pandora is closed for me, you know, I live outside USA and that makes me not a great listener or user of Pandora’s music (this is the reason for which I didn’t add a link back :-p ). Whatever, Pandora, I understand the reasons, don’t bother!

“We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.”

Now I have found Songza (Songza.com - the music search engine and internet jukebox) and seems to kick ass too, I wonder for how long? Seems to be a bit dizzy when it comes to recommending songs, I can’t understand what Kapabel & Inf has got to do with Steelheart. It may be “recommended” like in sponsored. Whatever…

An other nice thing, it is integrated with YouTube, I clicked on Watch video and guess what I have found!!! Steelheart, Can’t stop me loving you!!! One of my favorite songs (hair metal rules!)

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Did you ever happen that while soloing to reach a point where to feel a bit lost, asking yourself OK, now what?!! I don’t speak about stopping the solo, just that I found myself when jamming in situations that needed to be resolved in a fraction of a second and I had no damn clue about where to go next. What do you do then?!

I remember speaking to a friend of mine (and band colleague back then) about this, about 10 years ago. I came up with speed as my solution!! When you don’t know what to do, you fall into one of those speedy licks, that’s a solution all the time! Well, my band colleague, who was kind of a local legend among rock fans in my city and way more experienced than me, said that the solution (for him) is not the speed but pentatonic scales (and man, he was a shredder, and still is, but a classy one!).

Really?! Well, it took me a while to fall on to the same conclusion he found, that the pentatonic scale is a winner scale in (almost) all the situations no matter what you play. The fact is that I have found myself over time in hard/heavy soloing as in blues (doh!) or pop-rock solos and all the time a good old note extension in a pentatonic scale was just what the doctor ordered.

I have payed some thinking on why is that and I I got to the conclusion that this happens because of the specific melodic feeling of the pentatonic scale, plus the fact that it has a relatively low number of notes so it kind of falls right on all kind of chord progressions, plus that the scale is so friendly and easy to improvise in.

How about it, am I right or what? What’s your “escape”? Is it the speed? Arpeggios? Or just good old pentatonic scale?

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Note: This post is targeted to those young guitar players intimidated by the apparent complexity of playing the guitar.

As with everything in your life, playing the guitar is not an easy thing. I know that in the beginning, most of us look up to various guitar heroes, admiring them, maybe cherish them, even idolizing them. We all say that man, this guitar player is better than I will ever be!!!

Well, there is a big chance that you are right since that guy is probably a professional guitar player that works his guitar a lot each and every day, not being forced to go to work from 9 to 5 to earn a living so he has all the energy just to practice and learn.

But during my life as a person trying to learn one thing or an other, I have understood that as difficult as a particular action or process may seem, in order to master it, the most important thing you can do is to start learning it! I have a saying, I don’t even know if this is a real saying or I just made it up: even the longest path starts with a first step!

So, in order to master playing the guitar, first start learning it, even if it seems you have such a long way in front of you! After a while you will find yourself way in front of other guys that will look up to you saying wow, this guy plays the guitar pretty good! They will start asking YOU for help and tips on how to play the guitar, you will find that THEY will look up to YOU!

And all you did was actually to start and keep on playing the guitar! Remember that in order to become better and better you just need to play and study!

Of course, we can not deny that there are some gifted people that are somehow born for playing the guitar, who seem to have a great learning curve, long and agile fingers, great ear and great composition sense, those ones probably become icons that the whole world looks up and respect. This should never discourage you! This should motivate and inspire you, should give you reasons to study more and play more!

Also, you should keep in mind that playing the guitar is more than shredding and fast arpeggios. Guitar playing is feeling, tone, personal touch, style. All these can be discovered in the simplest songs.

Think of Eric Clapton and his nick name, “Slow hand”. I bet he didn’t get his name for being a shredder. Instead, he is one of the most giving guitar players in matter of feeling and personal touch. He puts his soul in each melody and this gives his playing a particular something that no shredder can achieve.

Think about this and make your first step, playing the guitar is not that hard as it sounds! All you need is start learning it, play from the heart and trust yourself, the rest will follow!

Now go on and play that guitar!

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While visiting a forum today, I have seen this question as a thread there: who’s better, Metallica or ACDC!

Well, I remembered when we were kids and asked ourselves who’d win, Van Damme or Schwarzenegger. Stupid kids!

How could Metallica and ACDC compare? The inner value of music is so complex that you can not put two bands aside and say that one is better than the other one. It is not about Metallica and ACDC, any two bands could have been there, the story remains.

What would you compare? The speed of the guitar player or the drummer? How high the lead singer screams? The value of the compositions? How about the sound they have? Or the image, or the money?!

Why not the feeling that they start on those who listen? How about the joy in the hearts of all those teenagers all around the world who grew old keeping the joy in their hearts? How about the feeling of flying above every living thing when you hear your favorite ballad while holding your girl at a concert?

How about it?

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Reading Dr J’s blog this morning, I have found and interesting article about bloopers in famous songs and really it made my day! Of course, as the article says (and how right the author is), the mistakes were probably left there for giving a note of realism to the song.

I think that this is indeed, a good way to do this. Usually artists are seen as stars, people out of reach, perfect people, but they are just humans. Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Sting, they are all people.

I remember that while in high school I loved Nirvana unplugged concert. Do you know what really attached me to that recording? May sound stupid, but it was that mistake that Cobain makes on The man who sold the world, when while soloing he misses a note, sounds flat and…they let it there on the album.

I loved that part, it was so true, uncovered, real! I remember that while playing this song we were even playing that mistake and used to laugh about it. That was the “human touch” of that album. OK, beside the fact that acoustic albums were the hip things of the time, music back to people, less complicated music, etc.

The fact is that mistakes happen. I know I had some also. Like for example, after recording a fast-drummed punk-like song, while home listening the song, something was bothering me without knowing exactly what it was. So I played the song on and on and I discovered that among all those fast drum hits it was one that was off-timing. My colleagues made fun of me, come on, let it go, there is no such thing. It was, and back in the studio for an other session, we expanded the drum track (midi drums) and indeed, we have found a drum hit not being where should have been. Fixed!

Also, for a pop-rock song, we had some chorus background voices entering on the 4th verse of the song. Split vocals, that is. By mistake, the mixing engineer moved one part of the split vocals on the 3rd verse so instead of having split vocals on the 4th verse, we ended up with a voice singing on the 3rd verse and an other one on the 4th verse. Well, I can only say we let it like this cause it really gave a more “human” feeling to the song.

Things like this happen and if you have ever recorded anything, than I guess you have your share of “bloopers” too.

Now, for the funny part, one that really makes me laugh is (or at least I consider it to be a “blooper”) of a very famous band in Romania, Iris, band that I really love and respect.

They used to play heavy/hard for 15 years gaining an undisputed fame here, switching to a bit more commercial music (still rock), these days. They have now 30 years in music business and going strong.

So, they recorded this song, cover of Bad company, Feel Like Making Love. If you listen the last part of the song, the lead singer, instead of feel like making love to you says can’t you see I’m making love to you?!!!

It sounds funny to me due to the meaning of it. Don’t bother me, girl!Can’t you see I’m making love to you?!!

I have listened the original song to see if there is the same thing there, well, it isn’t. I just think the lead singer missed it when recording and let it like this.

Is it a blooper or not? What do you think?

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“I could say that this post is not about guitars since what I am going to write further is more about blogging than about playing the guitar”

This is how I intended to start this post, but after a few seconds I realized that I would be wrong in more ways than one. This post IS about blogging AS MUCH AS IS about playing the guitar and being part of a band. And I will tell you why.

As you probably know, I have started a dare with myself a few days ago, to reach 5000 unique visitors per day in the next 6 months on this blog. Due to that dare, I have started to think what would make me reach my target. I have plenty of ideas,to be honest, I only wish to have the time to put this in practice since this blog is not the only thing I do, as you probably imagine. So, beside social networking, which may be a double edge knife, crushing your server and leaving no real value behind, I asked myself what would make a blog stand out of the crowd?

1) First thing I could think of is to FIND A VOICE

As you probably imagine, it is not THAT voice everybody thinks he/she possess when singing in the bathroom. No. It is about the voice you blog with. Such a voice gives you personality, is part of your branding process, makes your readers know you better and builds a place for you in your reader’s consciousness.

You may be the angry guy over the music store, picking on every band ever appeared. Of course, you hate Metallica, you don’t like Clapton, Bon Jovi is a sissy, while the last album of Sting sucks! (Sorry, man, I really don’t think so!)

Or you may be the tech guy, giving information about everything, you may be the reviewer that just uses a colder and objective position when reviewing.

Some speak using the third person (a bit strange, IMO, but it works) some plural form of the first person. It is nothing but a way of finding your own voice in this already crowded blogging world.

2) Find your OWN POSITION

Or niche, or point of view, that specific something that identify you, just don’t follow masses. It may be cool to speak about something popular, but if everybody speaks about it you will be just a drop in an ocean. Not easy to get noticed, right? Instead, find your position, find that special something that you can give to the public and give it in the best possible way. You may want to speak about how to buy an electric guitar and offer tips to support this.

Or maybe you review electric guitars. Good one! A stronger one? Review very expensive, rare guitars. That’s even better!

Now think about it. It may be cool to play metal the way Skid Row used to do it. It may be cool to jam with your friends over some Megadeth songs. Rock on! But don’t ever try to make it big this way cause you won’t! They made it big, the song is already played! Instead, find that special something that identify you as a band and stick to it.

Did you see Bon Jovi play about politics? Well, I haven’t, if he did, I don’t know about it. He sings about loooove!!! Remember? Never say goodbye, never say godbyeyeyeeee!! Do you like Gamma Ray?! Politics! Politics and…social politics. Whatever that means! Manowar?! Brothers of true metal!! Hail, hail, hail and kill! We are not afraid to die!! (I am a big fan of Manowar, but, man, if I am going to hear this one more time I am going to hail, hail, hail and kill!!!) By the way, did you know that Joey DeMaio, the bass player and main man of Manowar worked as a pyro-tech for Black Sabbath during their “Heaven and Hell” tour? He liked that music, but do you see him playing it? No, he found his own place!

All these bands stick to their theme and rolls it over and over again because this is what keeps their audience in place. Do it when blogging and you will see the results!

3) Branding!!

Now, that’s a bit more complex. I am not marketing educated, I am engineer (yep!) by education, programmer by profession and web developer/marketer only by hobby, but if I know something about blogging is to brand yourself!

Remember? Brand yourself! Make your blog and your name a brand. And here I would count a good domain name, well designed, unique logo, a motto! (You find it, I wasn’t yet able to find one for myself!), colors that are consistent through all your site, THAT VOICE I was speaking about early, your blog theme, a CUSTOM SKIN! Yes, that is a must. Don’t try to impose yourself on the market with that default skin cause you won’t make it too far! Instead have a custom blog skin that make a big impression on your readers!

You know, it is like with women! I know she is smart, but God, couldn’t you make it a bit more beautiful to make me come closer and see how smart she really is?!! That’s true with blogging too. A custom skin will make your visitors pay more attention to your blog and get to read what you actually have to say.

Of course, this goes the same way with a band. Branding for a band includes a custom logo (I don’t know about the motto), theme of the music and lyrics, the image the band imposes to the public (think KISS, think ACDC, think Manowar), a particular way of behaving on the stage, this is also part of the brand, the sound, the musical style, etc. Think about it!

4) Start a BUZZ

That is something that goes a bit further, it is something that we all desire but not everybody succeeds in doing this. In order for your blog to make it big, you need to start a buzz, to make some waves, to have people notice you. It is in close relationship with No 1. If you go with the wind, you won’t be noticed. Instead, also as part of your voice, you may just be the NO guy! If everybody speaks in a good way about a trend, YOU start screaming and buzzing and making a big fuss about it. Somebody big will finally notice you and argue with you, probably he will point to you, others will join to kick your ass and all of a sudden you are somebody in this crowded world.

You are that particular SOMEBODY that EVERYBODY would like to beat up! But you’ve got noticed!

If you don’t believe me, think of actors that built a whole career from being the bad ass everybody hates. Think soap opera. Well, of course, I know YOU don’t watch it, you probably are the dominant male around, ok, I see, but your girlfriends, mothers, wives watch them so there is a big chance YOU know what I am speaking about. I know I do…

5) Create SOCIAL PROOF

This is like when you get in touch with famous bloggers and they start speaking about you. If they speak about you, you must be good, right? Even if you bought a review on some famous site or on some famous blog.

How is this similar with being in a band? Well, very easy! Didn’t you ask why unknown bands get together to play with big bands on the same show? How do they come to the same TV shows? Exposure in well known places, in the company of a famous somebody! You must be also somebody! I will buy your CD!!!

6) Build an audience

Well, this is one of the most important things to do and I let it as a last resort! Build an audience! When blogging, you use RSS, email, fan base. When playing, your fans are the most important assets of yours. That is why I hate bands not treating fans right. They are there because WE put them there. THEY live as a band because of US! Damn, I got a bit too passionate about it, I think! Whatever!

That is about all for the moment. It is very late in the night and I think I need some sleep, this was a long post and I find it already difficult to focus.

Also, please keep in mind I am aware of everything I have written here. However, if you will see that I missed implementing some of these things on my blog, well, remember that you should do what the preacher says, not what the preacher does…Or how you put it in English…

Now, Stumble that!

This article has got a quite big push on StumbleUpon (thanks, guys!!), so if you are here, why don’t you also give it a push on Digg?

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