Fly Away Music Video.

The topic of this post concerns my favorite band: Los Lonely Boys. The reason I am talking about Los Lonely Boys is because they just announced on their youtube channel that they want their fans to make a music video for their new single Fly Away. If they like your music video, you get to win some sort of prize. You could get backstage passes, concert tickets, a signed guitar, etc. The thing I am most excited about is that if they like my video, I get a chance to meet them. This is going to sound very selfish of me, but if you are reading this blog post, do not enter the contest! The less competition the better. I know that is an extremely selfish thing for me to say, but ever since I discovered their music, I have often dreamed of getting on stage and jamming out with them. Their names are Henry, Jojo, and Ringo Garza (guess which one is the drummer). All three of them seem like the coolest people ever and the whole band is the most underrated group ever. What makes them even cooler to me is the fact that all three of them are brothers! Me and my brother can't stand to be in the same room with each other and these guys are playing with each other all over the country. All three of them are so talented and it pains me to see how underrated these guys are. If any of you people reading this blog care at all about good music, look them up on youtube (try looking up "Living my Life", "American Idle", "Señorita", or "Heaven") and enjoy their "Texican Rock n' Roll".

My music video is basically about me trying to balance my personal life, my social life, and my school work. The idea is that I want to "fly away" from my school work and my troubles. Near the end of the music video, I want to capture a shot of a bird flying, which will probably be a challenge.  I plan on filming a scene where I'm practicing guitar and my mom comes, yells at me, and then puts a math textbook in my hand. It's not exactly a stretch to try and act all of the scenes out. When I film at school, I can ask one of my friends to hold the camera to help me film a scene for a few seconds. But when I'm at home alone trying to film, it's a bit of a problem because my mom did not get a tripod for the flip camera she is letting me use. So I had to tape my mom's camera to a music stand and adjust it by making it rest on a bundled cloth. When I was in the Uni High bathroom getting a shot of me washing my face, I had to strap the camera to a heating pipe. Because who really wants to film me while I'm in the bathroom, regardless of what I'm doing. I'm not what you would call an experienced film maker or cameraman. However, I am a good guitarist. So my idea for making my video stick out is to actually play part of the song at the beginning. Also, I am going to play a kick-ass cover of another one of their songs. That's my way of compensating for my mediocre flip-camera skills. Plus I'm gonna have to figure out some way to put all my scenes together using iMovie or something (please recommend me to an easy to use movie editing software below). Here is the song I am making a video for along with a few clips I already filmed:

Video Game Music and Guitars

Having played several video games and watching several movies in my lifetime, I have gotten several of the songs stuck in my head. I think that music heard in movies and video games are often underrated. They are original compositions written by professional composers and musicians specifically for the movie or video game. Their names are unknown; but often, their songs are well known (I don't even know their names). Sometimes there are exceptions like when Alicia Keys and Jack White came up with a tune for the Quantum of Solace James Bond Movie or when Ludacris did a track for 2 Fast 2 Furious; but often times, these are relatively unrecognized musicians and composers that do it for the sake of the music. The paycheck doesn't hurt either, but they would make a lot more if they were truly famous.

These tunes are very well known and numerous. Here is just a list of a few of the songs:
-Super Mario Bros. theme songs
-Legend of Zelda theme songs
-Pokemon theme songs
-James Bond main theme
-Batman main theme (Adam West version)
-Star Wars theme songs
-Pirates of the Carribean theme
-Jaws theme
-Lion King theme songs
-Spider Man cartoon theme
-The Simpsons theme
-Rocky theme
-Tetris theme
I bet the average person could hum at least 10 out of 13 of these songs off the top of their heads. The reason I am bringing this all into attention is because this is all legitimate music. The best thing about these theme songs is that people often have a strong association with a scene in a movie that causes people to react a certain way. For example, the Rocky theme makes people associate with the training montage in the original movie where Rocky shows true grit and determination. This inspires a strong sense of grit and determination in people who listen. Also, the main theme to The Legend of Zelda or Pirates of the Carribean can make people feel like they're about to embark on an epic (if not cliché) adventure. Not to mention the Jaws theme, which inspires primal fear in those who listen to it.

My favorite video game song to play is a song called Big Blue from the racing game F-Zero. As the name implies, the song seems to capture some essence of the ocean. But the main thing about this song is that people can associate it with speed and adrenaline, which are all perfect for a racing game. I like this song because it's a hard-driving rock song that can be played with some soul. I will even post the tab for the song tomorrow. But for now, here is a video.

If you have a favorite video game/movie song, feel free to post it and maybe I will post some tabs for the songs.  

Change of Heart

I change my mind about going into depth of the Rolling Stones Article. I already gave enough information in one of my earlier posts. If you're curious about the list, here is the link to the article.

I HATE COMPUTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was going to create a blog post going into detail about every single guitarist mentioned in the Rolling Stones article in detail, but for some reason, my computer just felt like deleting the post. And to top it all off, Blogger likes to autosave your sh** so that now, the damn blogger website saved a blank document where there was once a copious amount of beautiful information. I apologize to all the people who I promised a nice blog going into more depth about the Rolling Stone article. Where the hell was control z when I needed it?!?! will try to recreate the blog I was going to post as soon as possible. So instead, I'm going to rant about how much I hate computers.


You see, I hate computers. I hate auto save. I hate what computers do to the music industry. It gives talentless pieces of garbage access to auto tune, synthesized notes, and synthesized sounds. Computers practically ruined hip-hop. What ever happened to turntables? Hip-hop was born from a turntable in the first place. Another stupid thing about computers is that they cause antisocial habits and activities. Remember when kids used to play outside? Neither do I. I would much rather be with my friends in real life than have to chat with them on Facebook or Gmail. And if you think I'm a hypocrite for writing all this on an internet blog, then screw you! I am just making my way through a messed up social system. If there was a better way to communicate with my friends, I would do it. Plus, I'm required to write this stupid thing for an English class. Besides, I seem to be doing a crappy job at communicating on the internet because barely anyone from outside of my school has seen my blog. I started this blog in hopes of learning something, but so far, I've just been having to tone down my material so a broader audience can understand it (which is what my real post would have been about).
I feel like I'm forced to use a computer sometimes just because of the way my generation behaves. The only thing I actually like about computers is YouTube.

Even though I am not too fond of computers, I don't feel the same way towards all electronic devices. For example, there are special sound effect "stomp boxes" that can be plugged into electric guitars that can directly alter the electric signals given off while playing, thus making the guitar sound different. I happen to own one of these things. Mine is a wah-wah pedal (like in Voodoo Chile). It takes a certain knowledge and skill to use stomp boxes right.

On a related note, here is the song that was running through my head as I was furiously typing this post. It is related because the lead guitarist in this band is very well known for his heavy use of stomp boxes and pedal.

"Top 100 Guitarists of All Time"

Several years ago, Rolling Stone released a cover story called "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Clearly, the people from Rolling Stone and I have different definitions of what defines great. There are several problems that I personally have with this list. For one thing, it is greviously foolish to create such a list when there are so many different opinions on the subject. The whole list is based on opinion, and should never have been created in the first place. In my opinion, many of the guitarists on the list don't belong there and some of the guitarists that I think are some of the best of all the time are either near the bottom of the list or not on the list at all. For examle, I know that many people believe that the list was blasphemous to rank Van Halen as 70 and to rank Jack White as 17. Personally, I am disgusted that Keith Richards was ranked so highly and Angus Young was near 100th. To me, it seems half the people on the list got on because they won some sort of popularity contest.

Here are some examples of people I think should not have made the list. For one, I don't think ANY guitarist from a punk band belongs on the list. Because punk music is traditionally fueled EXCLUSIVELY by raw adolescent energy, it requires little to no guitar skill to be in a punk band. That eliminates such guitarists as Johnny Ramone, Ron Asheton, and Greg Ginn. Also, I don't believe Joni Mitchell should have made the list. She is primarily a singer and songwriter aside from being a decent guitarist. If they put her on the list, they might as well have put Bob Dylan on the list. Also, Trey Anastasio does not belong on the list. He was a sloppy guitarist whose primary audience consisted of stoners. The Rolling Stone people were probably smoking something when they picked him.

Here are some examples of people I think should have made the list. This may be very biased since half of these people are some of my favorite guitarists; but then again, this whole post is biased. Another reason these guitarists may not have been chosen is because they had not yet become famous by the time the original article was published in 2003. But here are my choices and why (I will only go into detail with the possible Candidates). The first person I would put on the list is Cesar Rosas, the guitarist from Los Lobos. The band is from East L.A. and they play just about anything from rock and blues to country to traditional Mexican genres. Although he isn't technically the greatest guitarist ever, I think his versatility makes him a perfect candidate for the list. Another possible candidate for the list would be Mato Nanji, a blues guitarist from and Indian reservation in South Dakota. His style is extremely passionate and intese that. Just listening him play a solo is like being smacked in the face with an iron. Then, there's always the shredder virtuosos such as Steve Vai and Joe Satriani who both took Van Halen's innovative finger-tapping and combined it with  Frank Zappa style harmony and created an explosively beautiful sound. Also Joe Bonamassa, who was a guitar prodigy who started touring at age 14. He has the speed of Vai with the soul of a bluesman.

Here is a list of guitarists who could have made the list had they been famous at the time:

-Henry Garza (Los Lonely Boys)
-Johnny Hiland
-Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriella Quintero (Rodrigo y Gabriella)
-Orianthi Panagaris

Here are some other guitarists who could have just made the list:
-Slash (Guns n Roses)
-Brian Carroll (Buckethead)
-Yngwie Malmesteem
-Eric Johnson
-Ritchie Valens
-Did I leave someone out?

How to Improvise: an introduction

Since music isn't an exact science, there are several styles one can play and several rules one can break when improvising. But the main style in which most musicians improvise in is the blues-influenced pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is used in genres from country to metal (excluding most Indie and "Emo" music), and can even be heard in the backtracks of various hip-hop songs. My point is that the same scale is used in solos and riffs in a broad variety of songs, which is why I will post a tab demonstrating a pentatonic minor scale.

A Minor Pentatonic Scale (basic):

e----5------------------------------------------|
B-----------8-------5--------------------------|
G---------------------------7------5-----------|
D------------------------------------------7---|
A-----------------------------------------------|
E-----------------------------------------------|

This tab demonstrates one whole octave on the pentatonic scale, starting and ending on and A. But this alone is not enough to play even for beginner soloists. The following tab demonstrates the tab that you should practice:

A Minor Pentatonic Scale (full):

e----8------5-----------------------------------|----------------------------------------------|
B------------------8-------5-------------------|----------------------------------------------|
G---------------------------------7------5-----|----------------------------------------------|
D-----------------------------------------------|---7------5----------------------------------|
A-----------------------------------------------|-------------------7------5------------------|
E-----------------------------------------------|---------------------------------8------5-----|

Minor Pentatonic Scale (alternate view):
key: 1=index finger; 2=middle finger; 3=ring finger; 4=pinky finger

e----4------1-----------------------------------|--------------------------------------------|
B------------------4-------1-------------------|--------------------------------------------|
G---------------------------------3------1-----|--------------------------------------------|
D----------------------------------------------|---3------1---------------------------------|
A----------------------------------------------|-------------------3------1-----------------|
E----------------------------------------------|---------------------------------4------1---|

These tabs display the A minor pentatonic minor scale within two octaves. One thing to consider when playing scales on the guitar is that even if the scales change, the fingering stays the same. So if you want to play a B flat (or A sharp) Minor pentatonic minor scale, just shift your fingers up a position from A. If you want to play a B Minor pentatonic scale, shift your fingers up two positions up from A. Just make sure you use the same fingering shown in the alternative view tab above.

Below are some Youtube videos that use primarily pentatonic scales in their melodies. So you have an idea of how the pentatonic scale sounds, refer to the following videos:

These videos are just a few examples of the millions of songs that use the pentatonic scales in one form or another. These video are just here to tune your ears to the sound of that blues-influenced riffing and soloing that is all too common in music. Remember that whenever you improvise, you are expressing yourself in music that is not possible in any other way. The more you practice, the easier it will come.

My first guitar lesson

      The other day, a family I knew wanted me to give their daughter a "formal" guitar lesson. Since it was the first time anyone wanted me to teach them to play guitar, I was glad to give it a try. I thought back to my first guitar lesson years ago and I thought about what my old teacher taught me. Then, I remembered the first song I ever learned to play: Ode to Joy by Beethoven. Coincidentally, the daughter had that song in one of her books, so we started going over it. Fortunately for me, she already knew how to read music from playing piano, so the main thing we worked on was technique. From there on out, the lesson went pretty well. I constantly adjusted her left hand so that her fingers were curved and her thumb was positioned right.
      There is one thing I did that I now realize was a mistake. During that first lesson, I tried to show her how to play harmonics. I figured that it was an easy task to do because all you had to do was lightly touch the string. I thought even a beginner could do it. I started to think it was a bad idea to show her harmonics not only because she failed to play them right, but because I realized that teaching harmonics to a beginner guitarist was the last thing you wanted to do. When you deal with beginner guitarists, you want to enforce good habits for general playing, such as pressing hard with the tip of the fingers, right curviture in the wrist, and general hand strength and dexterity. Playing harmonics requires breaking all these rules, and therefore it is a more advanced technique than I previously thought.
      One thing I did that I think was unorthodox was that I gave the girl a food storage clip as part of her strength training. What I told her to do was to open the clip with one finger at a time, using the tips of her individual fingers. I got the idea when I saw an advertisement in a magazine for a fancy finger trainer. It goes without saying that my food clip idea is much cheaper.
      As much as I helped teach our family friend, I feel like I learned a lot as well. It is an interesting experience to teach something for the first time.

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) tab 1

Intro:
                                                                                                                                                              
e---------------------------------|-----------------------------------------
B--3h5------0---0------3------|-----------------------------------------
G--------------------------------|---0------0------0h2------0----------
D--------------------------------|------------------------------------2---
A--------------------------------|-----------------------------------------
E--------------------------------|-----------------------------------------                          
      
e----------------------------------------|------------x
B--3h5----------------------------5---|---5-------x
G-------------0---0------0-------------|------------x
D----------------------------------------|------------x
A----------------------------------------|------------x
E----------------------------------------|------------x                                                                                                                                         (repeat 4x)            

After 4th time:

e---7------7---7h5------3-------
B----------------------------------
G----------------------------------
D----------------------------------
A----------------------------------
E----------------------------------

Main Riff:

e--------------------------------|-----------------------------|

B-------------------------------|-----------------------------|

G--------------0h2---0-------|-----------------------------|

D--------------------------2---|---------------------0h2---|

A-------------------------------|-----------------------------|

E--0-------0-------------------|------0------3--------------|

                                                               (repeat 2x)

(work in progress)

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return): Most popular guitar cover?

Watching many bands on Youtube, I noticed that a lot of guitarists/bands like to cover Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix. As a guitarist myself, it is definitely my favorite Hendrix song. Here are a few examples:

Jimi Hendrix (the original recorded version)

Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmesteem

Zakk Wylde, Slash

John Mayer

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Buddy Guy

Mato Nanji (Indigenous)

Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Henry Garza (Los Lonely Boys)

I apologize for the quality of the Los Lonely Boys performances. But that's not the point. The point is that all of these people are major recording artists and they all have their own version of the same song. They all have different styles and backgrounds, yet they all cover this song out of all the songs they could cover. This is the  question I am trying to answer: why is this Jimi Hendrix song such a popular song to cover? Please comment below. 

Introduction the Chop Shop

If you are into music, you may be interested in this blog. If you are a guitarist, then this blog is definitely for   you. If you are a musician and you feel like your style or your sound has been isolated solely in your basement or your garage, this is the blog for you. If you feel like your musical influences don't get the recognition they deserve, you can share your opinions right here. I am just getting started, but I hope that I could start an online community of guitarists who want to learn from other guitarists. To do this, people could post tabs, videos (performances, lessons, music videos, etc.), pictures, stories, or anything else guitar-related. The genre of music doesn't matter. Just post your favorite tabs, videos, or stories on the reply section.