Woodshedding

It starts tonight.

A few years ago, I bought a bunch of guitar video lessons off the internet that looked like exactly the type of help I needed. (They're called "Stevie Snacks" by a guy named Andy.) There's a bunch of them, and I got the two series that I thought would help me the most. I can play guitar. That's not an issue. My issue is that I'm not good ENOUGH. I have no idea what I'm doing outside of chord changes and a few bluesy riffs I've lifted over the years. And I'm now in the arena with people who are WAY better than me, and I don't like it. I needed help with knowing WHAT to play WHEN. Example: The chords are I-ii-V-IV :| I want to know why 'box 1' or the minor pentatonic scale sounds good over the I and V chords but not the ii. And I want to know how to get the TENSION or RELIEF of other scales to lay over the IV chord. Where's that come from? These videos are good about showing how to wrap your head around that. However, like most things, I never really got into the details, and just breezed though them without REALLY digesting them.

Tonight is the first night in a goal I'm gonna call "woodshedding."

I'm going through these lessons like I should have a year ago. 2 Lessons a week. One of the "5 Blues Boxes" series and one of the "Fretboard knowledge" series. Hopefully by the end of the lessons, I'll be noticeably better.

Before I die....

I saw this on a tumblr post today, and I thought it was cool enough to share. A condemned house in New Orleans gets turned into a public bucket list.

Thoughts on a Thursday

Two posts in one month?! Books for Christmas?! What the heck is that?

I'm still not quite back on the 'writing out a full text blogpost' wagon yet, so I'll keep it to another bulleted list.

• TWLOHA is going to have a movie made on its origin story. Starring Kat Dennings (ha) from Nick and Nora. I'm sure JW will love that.
• Another perfectly dead-on comic from The Oatmeal. This one lauds the wonders of Sriracha (aka "Rooster") Sauce.
  
• Tomorrow is 3/11 Day. Be sure to stay positive and spread good vibes. And to listen to a lot of 311.
• With Charlie Sheen in the news so much this week, I found this particular Onion news article very amusing. By the way - the Onion is fake news, Nic.
  

Thoughts on a Monday...

A few things notable today:

• A new blog post. Its true, they're now rare enough to mention within itself. Like an MC Escher drawing....
• Anyone remember my old post on DARPA's "Big Dog" project? It was a robotic dog/pack mule thing that you couldn't kick over. It was pretty terrifying. Well, guess what? Now they've modified it to stop carrying human's luggage and start chasing them down and killing them. Okay maybe its not programmed to kill.... yet. But it does see you as prey, and this metal machine can run faster than you. Meet "Cheetah-bot." Coming to a park near you!
• Another humorous post from The Oatmeal. This one ranks how much Oatmeal likes the Angry Birds, based on their in-game performances.
• A triumphant return to Pablos, my favorite skywalk eatery. Also planned for this afternoon - my triumphant return to the restroom.

The day music died.

No - its not about the Big Bopper. Its worse.

The White Stripes announced their break-up this week. To me - its worse. I'm not sure I've taken a band break-up this hard before. I've had relationship breakups that didn't make me this sad.

The White Stripes just kicked ass. That's really the best way to describe it. Raw fuzz, simple chord progression and song structure, simple drums, and just insane amounts of energy to fill that space.