Student becomes Le Better

So my buddy just got back from Coachella and said he had a blast. He said he spent a lot of time playing ukulele and when we jammed today with both of us on guitars he was significantly better. He can actually jam with me and improvise (albeit at a beginners level). The fact that he can keep playing and jam for extended periods of time without running out of ideas or getting hand cramps means he's made an important milestone in his guitar playing. I want him to work on songs too. He's been doing Sum 41's With You on uke and the first little short tune I showed him how to play on guitar was the Adventure Time Theme.

Pretty cool that he can jam out now. I was doing a lot of jazz stuff based around his improv. I also did a lot of chromatic stuff based on jazz harmony changes and it sounded really good. I think he underestimates the fact that he can jam a lot better now. Now we just need the bass player (our friend) to actually play the bass sometime. 

I've been talking to a drummer and and a guitar player about doing some collaboration. I also want to work with my former band's singer on stuff. He's in New York but I was thinking I could just send him tracks and have him do the production end of everything.

The good thing is that my friend is getting better which means I might have somebody to play music with. it also shows that my teaching has had good results. There's a chance that he could surpass me one day on the guitar. I better keep up my chops! Haha.

Exciting! 

Soundcloud

So I created a Soundcloud page where I'll be posting music from now on once I work on more recordings. It will probably take me a long time to add more stuff because I want something more than just guitar tracks, I want full arrangements with drums and stuff using Ableton. But yeah I want to use this soundcloud page to post weird experimental jazz influenced guitar stuff. I'm also interested in using vocals down the line too. Right now all that's on there is two recordings I made for a European pop album that's going to be released soon.

Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763

Jam Night

On Wednesday night I went to the open jam and met up with a musician that a friend of mine referred me to. We ended up playing together onstage for three songs of a pretty long length. It ended up being a great set, probably the most exciting set of that entire night. We did two tunes with my new friend on guitar and vocals based on blues changes and then we did a sort of sloppy rendition of Stratus by Billy Cobham (also done by Jeff Beck).

The tunes with the vocals were overpowered by the loudness of our guitars. We turned down for Stratus and sounded much better with less distortion and gain. In fact, my friend's comping on Stratus was fantastic. It would've been a great rendition but the bass player didn't know the song or the changes so when it was suppose to go to different riffs he was still playing the same old one. I was a little disappointed that my set didn't sound the best because every other time I've been there I play a set where I'm the only guitarist and I always play really well. Its when other people get in there when I get a lot more critical about the sound onstage and off.

I also did a short set with another guitarist and I swear playing with this guy is like pulling teeth. His singing voice is terrible and his guitar always sounds super out of tone and has way too much gain (distortion). Because he's so loud I have to turn up just to hear myself. Then we start playing and he starts playing so fast (like its a punk song) even if the song is a more laid back classic rock or blues type of thing. It was terrible. I know now never to play with that guy. He's terrible. Haha.

Even though my set with my new guitarist friend was only okay in my mind I still think it was a success because we played together for the first time and it was fun. Even if I play with bad musicians or I'm not satisfied with the performance I always learn something at every open jam. Some things to consider is that you shouldn't expect much musicality out of a bunch of bar musicians and don't take it too seriously.

However, I'm definitely gonna jam with that new guitarist friend again. He is much more of an academic musically trained musician than I am but I think I have a lot on him in terms of improvising and phrasing.

It was a good jam night on 420!

Musical ideas to work on and pontificate

So I thought I'd jot down some more musical ideas.

I would become the drummer for the potential punk/metal band that friends wanna start. I really like drums and I was even thinking about buying a kit some months ago but ended up not doing it. I was supposed to buy a drum machine but I haven't done that yet either. Even the drum machine would be great to keep time because we have a bass and two guitars already.

Start a project with my drummer friend. This guy seems to be super into music and perhaps hes dedicated as as drummer as well. I'm not quite sure but what I do know is that he travels to a lot of shows. I have no idea as to what his musical skill level is at but I am curious. I had this great idea for a two man band just me and him where I do vocals and play guitar, something like the Black Keys or the White Stripes.

Jam with another guitarist. I know a guy that I met through a mutual friend that wants to jam with me. I'm shooting for a jam with him on Wednesday. All I know is that he sings and plays a stratocaster but he said he's down to play some jazz standards when we jam. Should be interesting. That same night I'll probably go to the open jam this week.

Open jam night attendance. I should definitely attend the open jam this week. I've been missing them the last few weeks and I want to play out, perhaps even sing a song while playing guitar. I was thinking something like George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. Or another simple easy Beatles tune like Come Together. If not I am also down to just jam out.

Contact the bass player I was working with a few weeks ago. I was actually working with a talented bass player but it seems I haven't been able to contact him for weeks after we got together and jammed a few times. It's a shame because he's probably the best bass player I've ever played with. I'll continue trying to reach him but at this point it seems like he doesn't want to work together.

Work on and write original songs with lyrics. I have been working on songs. A non-musical friend of mine wrote three songs of a pretty dark nature and sent me the lyrics and he wanted me to add music to it. I've been edited the lyrics to make the songs make more sense and have some kind of theme to it. I'll probably be done editing those songs soon and I'll try putting music to it. Then I'll record it with myself doing the vocals.

Listen to new music. I was thinking I could write more original and cool sounding music if I learn more about pop music. I want to start listening to rappers, pop singers, even country and bluegrass, and more indie rock stuff.

Record original stuff and learn Ableton more. I've taken a bit of a break away from recording because me and the producer I was working with finished one song and then I'm going to finish a short guitar solo for this other tune than I'm going to be done working with him. I was doing it all at night and I realized I'm not really at my best playing guitar and recording at night, especially because sometimes my dad is listening to other music or watching the news around that time. Trying to figure out good times to record during the afternoon but lately I'm either hanging out with friends or at work. Should be back at it soon though. I've still been practicing a lot of guitar everyday.

Play more acoustic guitar. Lately I've been getting into more acoustic guitar playing. Maybe further down the road I'll even buy an acoustic electric guitar. So much to do, so little time and money.

Playing jazz as an untrained musician

Jazz is an institutionalized art form somewhat similar to classical music these days. It didn't use to be that way. In the old days you could pick up your axe, head out to a club, and jam with musicians all night and learn everything you need to know about playing. Nowadays jazz musicians have to go to University to learn the trade. All the important jazz masters that are still alive have had important positions in universities around the country. Here I wanted to discuss what its like playing jazz as an untrained musician that dropped out of Uni.

Lets start with my brief college career. I did go to college for about 2 years. One year was all requisite basic courses and the second year I took a few music courses, but only for a short while and then I dropped out. The actual music theory courses were a nightmare for me but when it came to actually playing guitar in the jazz band I was pretty great. In fact, the teacher liked my playing a lot. Back then I had a really developed ear. I could playback anything I heard and within moments play the exact same phrases and licks. I learned a lot of licks from the other students this way but I also had my own vocabulary when it came to improvising and chord voicings.

I could've learned a lot more about jazz and music if I stayed but it just didn't work out that way. Flash forward to today and I'm learning the stuff I should've learned in college but on my own. I work much more on actual playing and learning songs more so than musical theory but I still read and work on that stuff as well. There were benefits to learning in college that I missed out on to this day. What I didn't miss was that expensive schooling fee that would've put my bank account out of commission for a long time.

The main thing that I find difficult about playing jazz and being unschooled is that its harder to find other jazz musicians. I live in the Valley, about 45 minutes from Los Angeles and not too many people out here play jazz music. In fact, most of them play pop, metal, or rap. LA is a pop town and I don't think me playing straight ahead jazz will make me a lot of money. But I still want to do it because its my dream.

I spend most of time when I'm busking playing jazz standards. I don't bother playing rock and roll because it sounds cooler on electric and I busk on an acoustic but also because I think jazz is the future for me musically. I'm still down to play in a rock or metal context but I've been training extensively on the guitar to become a jazz musician.

If I stayed in college I would've found other like-minded musicians who would probably have developed bands that could have gone on to work together in and outside of school. Learning would have been easier but it would have been more difficult to find my own voice. What does that mean? Well, it means that the teachers in schools teach all the students the same stuff even if they play and think differently. Consequently this creates more jazz musicians but they all end up sounding like university studio jazz band musicians. This is the problem with jazz today. All the new cats sound the same because they're all coming from the same universities and learning the same stuff. I like to think that because I bailed out of school I learned how to develop my own voice on the instrument faster than I would have if I stayed in school.

These are just rambling ideas but the fact of the matter is that the old jazz masters didn't learn from university and just because I can doesn't mean I should. School is a great place to meet people but that sort of disciplined study isn't for everybody. I still think about going back to school for music but in the end I already know most of what I need to know in order to play well. I know that's quite a bold statement to make but its sort of true. I do know that I need more training and more songs under my belt but I'm good enough and smart enough to cover the basics and then some, in terms of uniqueness and style.

Just some thoughts I had when I talked about the university trained jazz musicians with my pops.

Accepting my role as a guitar teacher

So I've been working with my friends day after day it seems like on teaching them guitar. I think I'm coming to terms that I'm now a guitar teacher to about 3 different people right now. I'm teaching two friends guitar on their acoustics and one other friend bass. At first I wasn't really down because I noticed nobody was practicing but now I see that they're more motivated to play everyday. I told them that they need to play everyday even if its only 15 minutes a day, that will still make you 15 minutes better than if you didn't play.

It's pretty hard teaching 3 almost complete beginners. Now that I'm taking it more seriously I'm thinking about creating lesson plans. One of them is super serious and wants to come over everyday to play. He has the most potential as a band member and collaborator but I'm interested in working with all of them because they're my super good friends. The whole band thing wasn't as serious as it is now, its taken a super long time to get to this level.

But yeah teaching is rough. In the beginning they struggle with basic things like C major chord at the nut, barre chords, and scales. I'm having my friend come over tomorrow to work on stuff and I'm thinking I should have some kind of work out plan.

For example I could show him minor pentatonic scale (in A minor, 5th position, seems easiest there), folkie chords at the nut (C major, G major, D major-Adventure Time Theme), and finger exercises. I think if he could learn and understand all that in a few hours that should give him more to practice. So far he's been working on a Red Hot Chili Peppers song that is way too difficult for him. I don't want to discourage him but at the same time I think having him work on something difficult is in a way making him practice. Maybe I'll look up some easy Beatles song or something, something that uses all folkie chords at the nut. That might give him more of an incentive to practice more, if he has an actual song to play over and over.

It's an added responsibility and at first I wasn't too down for it because I have to teach and I'm not getting paid to do it. But in the long run I'd have band members and musical collaborators. It all depends on how fast they can become good. I feel like my friend that comes over a lot is going to improve pretty quickly. He understands somewhat in that he can find notes that sound pleasing using his ear. The other guys have to work at it harder. His music tastes are more alt rock, classic rock than the other guys who are mostly only interested in metal music, core to be exact. So it makes sense that his ear is more developed.

But yeah teaching guitar is hard, exhausting. I'm suppose to be having fun jamming but instead I'm teaching these dudes the finer points of guitar playing and musical comprehension. Fun. Maybe I should consider becoming a real guitar teacher and getting paid for it? Like working for a music store or teaching in my backyard? Just an idea for now. We'll have to see if my students become anything first. Then I'll know that I'm talented as a teacher as well as a player.

I feel like all my teachers were mostly online players. Most of the guitar teachers I had were usually too strict or too focused on music theory for my tastes. I prefer to play a lot, sometimes just jamming and improvising mostly and there's a lot of teachers especially jazz teachers that will teach you a lot of jive-things that are just not important at all and instead you can just focus on playing the songs and finding your style. That's not to say that a great educated teacher is bad, in fact you should always have one if you're a serious musician but at some point you learn technique and basic fundamentals of music theory. I'm not on the same harmonic level as a classical trained musician but I can understand jazz chord progressions and stuff.

Spawning more musicians

So I've been pretty busy jamming acoustic guitars with my friends lately. I'm spawning more musicians! It doesn't get any better than that other than getting paid for playing music. This past weekend my friend and I went down to Guitar Center Sherman Oaks and he bought his first guitar. I helped him pick out this stunning Luna acoustic electric guitar that sounds really nice.

Today we were at another friends house and they were playing together. Basic acoustic guitar stuff like power chords and simple riffs. It was fun. The Luna sounds great when its plugged into an amp, we learned that today for sure. One of the coolest attributes about the Luna is the moon half moon inlays on the first couple fret markers and the artistic headstock it has. It has this sharpie look black art on the body that looks awesome. Its smooth.

One of them is already showing good signs as a guitarist. I feel like acoustic guitar is better for beginners so I told my friend he would be better off with an acoustic electric that way he could still buy an amp later and plug it in, or buy an electric later once he's got the basics down. He wanted this Schecter electric that sounded so deep and bass-y (because of super heavy strings) but in the end we decided not to go with it. I told him it was a much more metal sort of guitar that's more about playing in drop c or c sharp and chugging metal riffs on the low strings. Definitely not his forte yet.

Usually when I hang out with friends we always play guitar now. In a way I've become kind of a guitar sempai because I'm taken up a teacher role even though that wasn't necessarily what I wanted. I wanted them to work a lot more on the guitar themselves but so far the guys only really play when I'm around. We have a friend that me and my other friend bought a bass for and he had a circuit problem with the pickups and he hasn't played it much ever since despite me telling him that they can fix his sound issue for as little as twenty bucks. 

The original idea was that me and two other friends would eventually create a metal band. The other two guys were suppose to practice their instruments and eventually get to like a beginner punk/metal level of musicianship. Then I would help out with supplying riffs and/or vocals. Its a great idea but its going to take a lot longer than I originally anticipated so that's why I'm working super hard recording and collaborating with other musicians.

I have been able to get some musical works with my friends though so its not like nothings been done. My metal band project will take a while because the guys need to learn how to play better and how to play fast clean but I have other friends and one of them wrote three songs. We even recorded vocals and guitar parts for them already with this super nice microphone that I bought. His vocals aren't the best because he isn't a musician but we did get to test out the mic and the quality was good.

I'm going to give his songs a bunch of edits and possibly rewrite and draft the songs again and see if I can give them more of a indie rock punk sorta vibe. As we recorded it was an indie rock kind of sound but it needs more bite, attack to it if you will. It needs a punk edge to it because the songs are dark.

So all together I'm working with two guitar players in the learning process (one pretty far along that already knows basic chords at the nut), a bass player in training (but still has a long way to go), and a songwriter that works on lyrics. Maybe in the end I'll have the whole Valley working with me on music haha. I have been jamming with a really talented bass player that I used to work with too but it seems that a lot of the time I can't get in contact with him. I rely on texting to contact him and sometimes it doesn't work. Calling never works either.

My main goal right now is to put up some solo guitar stuff, mostly jazz standards. I found out tonight that my Reverbnation account https://www.reverbnation.com/landofigueroaandtheelectricsaxophone?profile_view_source=header_icon_nav is ranked 70 on the indie jazz chart even though all that's on there is low quality jams of things I recorded back in 2015. I'm thinking of replacing what's on there with some better quality music, mostly jazz standards. With my current setup I can record multiple guitar tracks and do a sort of guitar orchestra type of thing. I want to have something up online soon, I'll post when I have it done.

Spawn additional music makers.

Ghost in The Shell

So my friend hit me up on my day off and we ended up going to see Ghost in the Shell at the Van Nuys plant. The ticket was only $7.50 and the movie was pretty good. Here, I'd like to give you a little rundown of the movie and my thoughts on it. If you haven't seen the film stop reading here as I don't want to spoil it for you.

This movie is pretty much a condensed version of some of the anime Ghost in the Shell movies. It stars Scarlett Johannson as the Major. She's the first successful human-ai hybrid and she works for this organization called Section 9 that fights terrorists. In the movie she's fighting a terrorist who turns out to be a failed human-ai hybrid. There were tons of experiments done on other people and they were junked, left to die.

Let's make one thing clear. Scarlett is a beautiful woman, pretty stunning sometimes in certain angles but when it comes to acting in this film her performances are very lukewarm. She shows little to no emotion, just like her acting in Avengers. She has the t and a but when it comes to the acting talent she's close but no cigar. With that being said the acting in this movie could've been way better. However, I still give Scarlett points for being hot. And trying. A lot of people online (reddit and elsewhere) were upset that the Major wasn't going to be played by an Asian actress. In the end they went with Scarlett and I think that hurt the film. But hey they wanted to get the sales and Scarlett brings in the sales.

There were tons of action shots and scenes all over the movie. The most memorable action scene was at the end when this evil corporate dude is using the spider tank (from the anime) to kill the Major and the Terrorist who had supposedly turned her. It was great to see the spider tank from the anime set to a live action film set. That might have been the most authentic Ghost in the Shell thing in the entire film. Everything else was close but no cigar. It was a massive firepower weapon and it looked damn cool. Most of the other action scenes were stereotypical shooting, punching, and kicking. Nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, I thought most of the action scenes in the movie were quite boring. I kind of tuned out during some of the fights because they started and ended so fast and I was just like "okay".

The story for the film was actually not bad. The anime movies have various plot lines but they all revolve around Section 9 fighting terrorists. In this movie it asks bigger questions. Questions like what is consciousness? What is the soul? What is ai? Things like that are questions that will continue to be important in the world in which we live. A world that has been overtaken by technology and perhaps in the future by robotics.

We live in a world controlled by technology. Technology has helped us but it has also hurt us. This movie brings to mind the fact that one day people could actually be enhanced by cybernetics. There's going to be a human head transplant done in a few months. And there are already people in the world who live on artificial hearts being kept alive by machinery. In a way ai has already been brought to the forefront in our world. The bigger question is how does technology affect consciousness? I think this movie asks those kinds of questions if we want to think about it in a more metaphysical and philosophical way.

Just because the movie brings up important questions about the world we live in I found it to be a thoughtful and engaging film. On the other hand I can also see where the movie threw out everything that makes sense and just turned it into an action flick. In the end it was just okay. Sometimes anime movies turn out like this because the important features from the anime (which is made by Japanese producers and artists) are lost in translation to the American audience. I think that happened with this movie but it was still a fun movie to watch.

7/10 by my book. Good to see Ghost in the Shell get some on screen love in a movie theater.