Tuesday, September 16, 2008

I want to rock the house, not the boat, but...

As a musician - Rocking the house is a good thing. Occasionally, the boat gets rocked, too.
It's certainly not my wish to do that this time, however.

I've got over forty students, so many friends and colleagues, and each with a different point of view - all of which are worthy of respect and consideration.

It is with some hesitancy that I'm posting the link of a buddy's blog. James is a friend of mine, and he's super liberal. I think he's got some great points at this crossroads of America, and I really dig his blog. However, I certainly don't want to put folks' collective noses out of joint. So - I'll put the warning that he's very political, very left wing, and doesn't have any qualms about it. As universal studios would say, "the views contained in his blog aren't necessarily endorsed by Rock God Music, LLC, or it's affiliates." If you're up for it, check it out at

www.thepoliticalcaveman.blogspot.com

And if you're not, I suggest that you don't.

Now, this is a music blog, so here's some music!

The next time you need a challenge, try this: Dial up 80 beats per minute on your metronome, or www.metronomeonline.com, and play the following:

The major scale in increments of:

1 note per click
2 notes per click
3 notes per click
4 notes (yawn) per click
5 notes per click (what?!)
6 notes per click
7 notes per click

Key:

Plain text indicates run of the mill shred
Boldface text indicates knock yo' block off hard confusing stuff to get your chops Arnold level.

Subdividing the beats in such odd increments creates a unique challenge, indeed.

Don't be a girly man! Try it!

PS. Keep an eye out on ultimate-guitar.com for my latest article! It should be out fairly soon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice post m8!!
you really are a good teacher :P

Anonymous said...

Hello, I just read your timing article off of UG.com, and had a few questions. When you divide a beat, in say 3 parts, do you divide them equally? Like say this is a slow two count... 1---------2. Does it matter if its 1--*-*---*-2 where * is the note being played? Any advice would be much appreciated.


Alex (Alexrburic10@hotmail.com)