New "Sunday Jam" video posted

Shane has posted a new video entitled Miscellaneous Sunday Jam on youtube.com. This is just a little guitar improv in one take, complete with errors, bleeps, and bloops. Hope you enjoy it.

String Skipping and Theme/Variations

I posted my first video on youtube.com; it's a sputtering, quasi-instructional-promotional video describing how I used string skipping and the baroque method of theme and variations to create the tune It's A Little Sickness from Transduction Euphony.

The tablature is a little tough to read on this compressed version of the video, so I'm including links here to the tablature:

Theme

Variation 1

Variation 2

Variation 3

Hope you enjoy it and get something out of it. You can check out the recorded version of It's A Little Sickness on myspace.

SD "opens" for BMR3000

BMR3000's show at the Pizza Kitchen in Knoxville:

BMR3000
November, 25 2006
at
The Pizza Kitchen
9411 S Northshore Dr
Knoxville, Tennessee 37922

The music of SONIC DEVIANT will be played before the show.

Thanks to Dave Slack for featuring my tunes as his opening act. Dave told me he played four tunes, including Feline Demise off the upcoming album, Transduction Euphony.

I wish I could have been there to see the show! For those who haven't checked out BMR3000, do it NOW!

Stick Man and Dan

I just received a terrific CD, Stick Man, from a good friend of mine, guitarist Neil Haverstick, out in Colorado. One of the many tremendous attributes setting Neil apart from the ocean of competent, fervid guitarists out there is his use of microtones. Neil doesn't typically dabble in the ubiquitous 12-tone realm that most of the rest of us are trapped in; he takes an octave and, instead of dividing it evenly into 12 steps as is the prosaic Western way, he splits it into 19 or 34 equal divisions--hence the label microtones. The resulting music can be very challenging to the banal, jaded listener unwilling to tramp unfamiliar, enigmatic sonic ground. This music can sound out of tune, even to the most highly-trained, educated musician fancying herself tolerant of new or different things.

I'm personally not so jaded in my own listening that I find his non-12-tone music offensive to the ears. Actually, I find it quite refreshing, and I find his exuberance and enthusiasm in its perpetuation and promotion inspirational. I've also read his book, The Form of No Forms, and found it a staggering instructional tool, advancing a new way of learning to understand, compose, and play music. Come to think of it, being the eclectic composer and artist he is, all of Neil's CDs are terrific listening digressions into tasteful, exceptional experimentalism. I've been a fan of his since 1993, and I first read about him when his music was reviewed in Mike Varney's Spotlight column in the December 1985 issue of Guitar Player magazine. At that point I had been playing guitar not even one year, but I remembered how cool he looked holding his ES-335 with the Yin-Yang emblem prominently adhered to the guitar's body; Neil was no posing shredder like the other chaps in Varney's column, trying to convince the magazine's readership he was the next incarnation of Yngwie Malmsteen--all the rage back in those days. It was that review that led me 7 years later to contact Neil and purchase his book, The Form of No Forms. From there we became friends, exchanging our latest projects and occasionally phoning and emailing each other. Since that 1985 review, Neil has appeared in numerous magazine reviews, has played with many prominent, renowned musicians, and has been praised by many of the same. He's among those I count as a musical influence.

Neil introduced me to another master experimentalist named Dan Stearns, who likewise has been honored by many of the same publications that wrote about Neil. I could use many of the same encomiums I listed above and apply them to Dan without inaccuracy. He's just a plain nice guy with extreme loads of talent. Dan plays a fretless guitar and invents his own forms of musical notation to address the microtonal systems he employs. Another really cool thing about Dan is his use of polyrhythms, which is another realm of modern music that can confound all but the most adventurous auditory spirits. Frank Zappa and Steve Vai, two of my other influences, are (in the case of Frank--were) huge proponents of polyrhythms, where you apportion base elements of one meter into odd tuplets ad infinitum. Dividing a quarter note from 3/4 time into 5 sixteenth notes with the last sixteenth further subdivided into 3 thirty-second notes would be a sample polyrhythmic occurrence. Clearly all but the most technically talented of us can conceive and, much less, accurately play such forms, but Dan can do this stuff blind-folded. His guitar playing sounds almost computer-like in its virtuosic, accurate rhythmic interpretation of these fast tuplets. He's got chops for days. I'm lucky; Neil and Dan are two guys I know personally who just happen to be big influences on my own music and my life. I think other guitarists would benefit by adding them both to their influences list.

So if you're interested in discovering some great, oft overlooked musical giants, visit Dan's and Neil's sites. Read about them and buy some of their music. Support them because they're the real pioneers out there. They're the Lewis and Clark of 21st Century guitar playing. These guys are doing it for the art...not to be the next pop sensation.

Vai and "Reflections"

There's nothing like the anticipation of going to see Steve Vai live in concert. I've seen him on three other occasions and actually met him on one of those. I would describe his guitar playing as infinitely accurate and his engineering chops as some of the best I've ever heard. I still don't think there is a rock guitar player living or dead who has surpassed his technical expertise, but that's just my opinion. I'll be seeing him and his band, The Breed, at the Jacksonville, Florida show. In my older days now, I'm not as turned on by guitar technique as I once was as a teenager. Ironically, I now have a lot of those chops that once eluded me when I really wanted them. Maybe that's for the best. Age and wisdom are growing a new musical beast within.

While I was in Iraq I wrote and recorded around 5 new songs on this very Powerbook. I started about 3 more that are unfinished. I'm not sure when I'll finish a complete project, but I've got some new distribution ideas. I'm no longer going to charge for my music. This may seem silly to some, but I don't earn my living via the music I write and record. To be honest, writing and recording hasn't earned me very much at all in the nearly 20 years I've pursued it. Comparitively, I've earned only a penurious, slightly larger amount by playing live music in the 15 years I've been doing it. Basically, music is a tough business to live on. I'm a clinical lab scientist during the day; in my off-duty time I'm a composer, guitarist, and studio engineer. There are a lot of great composers, guitarists, and engineers out there, and the Internet age is making it possible for all of us to discover each other. Since I have no fantasies that I'm going to suddenly become famous and earn millions through my hobby, I'd rather just share what I do with the world; my compensation will come only through the knowledge that my music is enriching someone else's life besides my own. Maybe my music, and not compensatory benefit, is how I'm to leave my mark on this planet.

So I plan to put most of my music up on CNET and make cover art and labels available on my web site for download. If someone finds they'd rather forego the time required to download and produce their own CD of my music, they can just pay a minimal amount to cover the cost of the disc and postage, and I'll make it for them and mail it right to their door. If they'd rather just use the new model and put the music only on their hard drive and iPod, that's cool too. But that's going to be my new music distribution model--shared freely with the world.

I'll only ask that downloaders not use my music for profit without my permission. Other than that...share and share alike!