prof_lofi

hi everyone, hope everyone had a good new ye, i mean hogmanay. this is just a reminder about the experimental music showcase #2 on the 27th. this concert will feature field recordings from all across the u.k., and a live call in set! for more info, visit my site here: http://billthompson.org/experimentalmusicshowcase2.htm or go to the previous post here: http://www.aberdeen-music.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19471 hope you can make it down, b. www.billthompson.org

no problem it is next week right!?

'ok guys, i'm serious...give me back my other fucking glove!' (in a really whiney voice)

no' date=' i did all my studying in the states (just got to the uk 6 months ago, and aberdeen 2 months ago)... i'm not sure who in town teaches in a similar method but i'm sure with all the music stores in town there's some decent teachers. the stuff my tutor taught me was fairly different than most though..i think that it was very influenced by ted greene, mick goodrick, mike stern...even pat metheny used this method (though i don't care for his tone) my tutors studied with a guy named jack petterson who is pretty well known amoungst jazz guitarists in the states..sort of a musician's musician type)...they had me doing lots of playing up and down one string...and really trying to understand the fretboard...neither one of them were really big on chops or flashy technique...just being musical and knowing what you were doing... b. [url']www.billthompson.org

worst metal pix! have you all gone here...will leave you in tears laughing! http://ruthlessreviews.com/top10/10blackmetal.html b. www.billthompson.org

i have absolutely noooo idea what that means (lol)...sometimes it's more obvious then not that i'm not in texas anymore

neahhhh, i'm still uglier!

yeah, it's from when i used to teach choir to 12 to 14 year olds...they couldn't believe i let it get published in their yearbook...and the other teachers said it was the worst wone they've seen in over 10 years i'm actually kinda proud at how bad it actually is (lol) b. www.billthompson.org

i shouldn't do this either but... (they were SO bad i actually signed them and handed them out like a rock star)

here's a fake bad one... can anyone guess the band whose picture i doctored?

i particularly liked frosty jack's original response...i used to sell houses, so it made me laugh...

sorry ...i didn't post the original graphic...but i'm reading it as a wave form where the left to right=time as well as frequency (the pitch of the wave), and the up/down, is how loud or quiet the wave is...much more description then this and my post gets...even...more...boring...i'm afaid

hey dave, you're on in february...january we're having the field recoding (phonography concert) with submissions from all over the uk, then back to the live experimental shows after that...we didn't try to do one in december due to the holidays and busy schedules... and i think belew was actually in a beatles cover band and i know he played with zappa like so many guitar greats (steve vai and others...) now zappa...there was an orginal!

hey bryn, i have a masters in music composition, so i'm pretty much a huge nerd i had a great guitar teacher at college that structured all of his lessons sort of 'through' theory...so instead of the standard, let's learn this song/this lick approach, he made me learn three and four note chords and all their various voicings and inversions (an inversion is just the same chord but with a different note of the chord on the bottom other than the 'root', like the 3rd or 5th) up and down the neck, on every string set and diagonally...it was brutal (lol)...same for scales and arpeggios...but it was good, because when i took theory at uni, it was alot easier for me due to him. i do think that someone could learn this stuff by themselves, but it's just really tedious outside of a classroom or lesson environment...just because, well, it is it's sort of like learning computer programming...there are guys who can just work their way through a book and learn to program in 6 months by themselves...and then there's guys like me...who buy the damn $400 program and twiddle around with it until eventually a class comes around so i can pay another $400 to have someone make me learn it... and like catfood said, it's all relative...in uni, the theory you learn has more to do with the 'common practice era' i.e. what most people call 'classical' music...you can use it of course, but the whole perspective that it's taught from is through classical music, because that's where it's derived...so you have to take what you can from it and leave the rest for another day... for rock/blues/punk etc...another way is to study jazz, which for theory and from a rock musician's point of view is awesome, because those guys basically took standard 'common practice era' theory and hotwired the hell out of it! they figured out everyway to twist this and that idea/rule etc and so much of the music is just based on playing, that it's all very practical...so even if you don't want to be a jazz player, if you understand theory from a jazz perspective, it really opens up lots of options musically no matter what type of music you play. b.

i don't know bryn, i hear what you're saying and it logically makes sense..but every great guitarist/musician that i've studied has started off totally mastering someone else's style/music before becoming innovative and becoming known as the 'great' that they were... hendrix played the blues circuit as a session guitarist, clapton and page did the same, on wes montgomery's first gig he just played note for note copies of charlie christian solos he'd learned by rote, stevie ray vaughn totally mastered albert king's sound, george benson mastered grant greens licks and just played them faster, the stones learned the blues first, van hallen was a cover band before they 'made' it, coltrane learned parker, miles learned armstrong, bach learned vivaldi, beethoven learned cpe bach...in every style, there seems to be a lineage of influence where each person takes it further, or makes it their own but after they know the terrain... i think there's something about learning and mastering someone's style to get to their musical level, and then taking it even further and/or making it your own...i think, and this is just my experience with 'normal' music, that trying to be original by not learning/studying other music can really slow you down...it's kinda like solving problems that others have already done for you, or reinventing the wheel... just my experience anyway...

i am such a pitiful nerd....

looks like it could represent a stereo pulse wave file, with the phase of one of the chanels inverted and off set by half a cycle... b. www.billthompson.org

things that are good about music theory: it gives you names for things...that helps because now you can sort things out, chords, scales, progressions, forms, etc...80 % of it is vocabulary, the other 20 % is syntax. it can get you out of a rut...instead of playing by rote, you can use your knowledge to try something your fingers/ears wouldn't usually do. you can communicate with other musicians intelligently, and your music can be read/played by others. things that are bad about music theory: it can make you think there is only one correct way to write music... you can get too obsessed with 'writing by the numbers' or using really interesting theory that actually comes out sounding really contrived... it can block creativity if you always start with theory first.... what i've found: study your ass off, learn everything you can, do the exercises, and when it comes to writing music, forget that you know anything and just write...that saying about learn all the rules and then forget about them means just that...once you've mastered them, they're in you, it becomes instinctive and you should just use what has sunk in...now when you 'break a rule' you know why, you are making a decision not just playing what placates the ears....at least that's how it's been for me...(of course most people don't consider what i do to be 'music' )