Musical Adventures – Part 1(The Background)

Yes, you read that right.. Part 1. I finally have an ongoing thing to post about.

Background

Music has had a rather large influence on my life. Dad plays bass, mom dabbled a bit with the 12 string. Mainly it was dad though that pushed me into it. He played in Top 40 Cover bands for a large portion of my life. In the late 70’s and 80’s, this meant a lot of what most call “Classics” now. Some country, but I wasn’t fond of that.

I have played bass, off and on and not any “expert” for years.

In high school, Mr. Tuttle was my music teacher. He saw the raw talent, and lack of focus, and used it. Every time a school concert was coming up, he would toss me a new instrument, the sheet music, and simply state. “You have two weeks.”.

What that meant, is I had two weeks to be able to play the new instrument for the part in question, or I would have to sight read and play the bass part with no practice. That challenge gave me the ability to play a wide variety of symphonic instruments. Even in marching band, I played a little trombone, a lot of quads and bass drum, a lot of baritone, a little sousaphone, and of course.. Electric Bass. Let me tell you, marching with an amp and battery on your back, not fun.

Then, I dropped out of school for work.

I let a lot of what I learned go. I still played the bass, but it was maybe once a month. Sometimes not even that often.

Then I discovered computer generated music. Well, I already knew about it, but it never clicked how “easy” it was to get started. Not until I met Pat. The brother of a lady I was dating.

That’s when I really got into scream tracker (which I played with in the early 90’s for about a whole month), as well as Acid Pro. With Acid Pro, I actually did a couple tribal electronic type songs that people seemed to like.

Sadly, my temper got the best of me one day and I slammed my hand down on top my nice (for the time) computer. All 5 drives of my raid 5 array chirped, and I had no backups.

That put me back to being a listener more than a creator.

9 Months Ago

The music bug bit again. I started listening to blues again. I mean the full spectrum of blues. Detroit, Delta, Modern, Funk, and yes.. Even John Mayer slowly worked it’s way in. Can’t really label him, as he likes to walk all the paths.

My wife thankfully lets me dive into my hobbies, even knowing I have an habit of not sticking with it past a month. As she knows, every couple of months I will pick it up and dabble with it, and then drop it again.

This one though, has not been that way.

One thing I decided right away is I needed to learn to play the guitar. Not just bass.

I already had a guitar thanks to a slight dabble in trying with the game Rocksmith. That game actually utilizes a real guitar, and has some nice lessons. The main thing, is it’s guitar hero on crack. Yet, the required cable to play is, is garbage. Breaks really easy. I have gone though 4 of them now. Anyways, I would still recommend the game.

Back on subject.

That guitar I had though, made things rough. It’s an Epiphone Junior. My hands, are not junior. So it hurt to try and play, and since I have not been heavy on the bass recently, I didn’t have the callouses. Of course, I also tried to focus ONLY on the Rocksmith game.

I had enough. I wanted to learn, and I felt the “tools” were what held me back. So I went to the local (30 miles away) music store and picked up an Alvarez classical nylon acoustic 6 string. I did this not only on the advice of the shop, but because the nylon has a very old school delta sound. I played around with that for a bit, and got a few open chords down. Then realized, my inability to focus was starting to kick in. Rather than let that drag me away from the guitar, again, I tried to figure out why.

It was the tone.

6 Months Ago

I went out and got another acoustic. This time a Fender T-Bucket, with metal strings. This gave me one of the missing tones I was after. That opened up more styles, but also helped me move from the wide classical neck, to a slightly narrower neck. Still, wider than that damn Junior.

That was going great. In fact, that one I still play with every night when I go to bed. Yet, something was missing.

Time, I don’t remember

Things got out of hand. I bought a whole Novtion Launch setup in pieces, giving me mixing and a keyboard. Got a DAW (M-Audio M-Track Plus) and some home studio speakers. A nice microphone, and a ton of cables. Oh, and 2 more guitars.

Yet, I still can’t do chord changes fast, and bar chords hurt.

I am not giving up though… and I think that covers the background.

When I get around to it, I will do a part 2. This will go into more detail about the game. The primary instruments I am utilizing now will be covered. The big part though for people who are interested, will be the list of youtube videos that have caught my eye and helped me along the way.

Never give up. Never give in. It will hurt when you start, but it’s that pain that bleeds through the blues.

-Z

• Part 1
• Part 2
• ???