Podcast is up and running!

This is an exciting moment for myself and this blog. I've uploaded my first podcast. I guess it's technically not a real podcast because you can't subscribe to it, but let's say you can't subscribe to it yet. In the inaugural podcast, I feature an audio sample of an original work by myself, a cover of Hendrix's "Little Wing", and I comment on both of those. After that, I comment on how the jam sessions are going. My previous post is a rough transcript of what I said.

If the embedded file doesn't work, you can listen to it here!

Rough transcript of my first podcast; soon to be uploaded!

That was a little sample of a new song I’m working on called “Broken Light”, which is clearly blues and funk-inspired. The effect I have on the guitar that you hear is a phaser, which makes the same effect as a wah pedal but it does it rhythmically and you can adjust the speed and intensity of it. I turned the speed way down here because this is a sort of calm, subdued piece, and blues in the key of G sounds great with slow rhythmic backing. To pinpoint specific guitar players that inspired it I’d have to point to my all-time favorite, Jimi Hendrix, and old-time blues players like B.B King and Muddy Waters. They are some of the best ever at adding “character” to their playing, making you really feel their emotions while they play, which is something every guitar player can always improve upon. I’m trying to emphasize that more than being able to play the most notes within a measure. As the song develops more I’ll update it and post a new recording.

As for how the jam sessions are going with me and the guys at 1474 Tremont, I think Justin and I are well on our way to getting a new song in place. The way our jamming styles work is that we pretty much play whatever comes to mind, and whoever’s taking the lead goes with it while the other tries to find complements to whatever the lead is playing. Justin started playing a nice riff down near the bottom of the neck of his Telecaster and it ended with him holding a note, so I jumped in and played a few licks of my own while that note was being sustained, and as we kept trading riffs back and forth it evolved into a nice dueling-guitar song that I would say is about 75% complete. Next jam session we will hope to have it done and possibly recorded.

We actually jammed! New song in the making

Justin and I got together yesterday for the first jam session in over two weeks. Those weeks felt like an eternity, but there was finally some free time for us to get together and play. With my amp still in limbo, I needed to use the Fender amp while Justin used the Mesa/Boogie rectifier you can see in the picture. We got a new song going while messing around a bit, and it sounds promising. The opening riffs are dueling clean guitars, which sound great if we get the right harmonies. Justin and I tend to have good ears for that kind of stuff when we play together, so I think this new song will turn out very good. Once we have a solid foundation for what we want it to sound like, I'll put together an audio sample for you all to hear.

James played drums for us for a little while yesterday as well, but with a broken snare (pretty much the most important piece of the set), he had limited resources. He could still use the snare, it just didn't sound right. I was able to get some video of him playing. I apologize once again for the lack of brightness in the video, that's just how it looks when I record using my digital camera, which is about 6 years old. Here's the video:

I thought I'd put that out there, to prove how good James really is at drums. He does a great job for what he has to work with, which isn't all that much.

Next post, which could be later today, I'm going to discuss my equipment and what I plan on doing to get new equipment in the future, for which I believe I'm overdue.

Midterms slowing us down...

This has been a slow couple of weeks for us. Only one small jam session has taken place in about 12 days, and James, Justin and Mike have all been swamped with midterm work. Almost every time I called to see if anyone wanted to jam, they all said they had either a paper to write or big test to study for. They weren't lying; they all have midterms for all their classes this week. James is majoring in finance, Mike and Justin entrepreneurship, which can make for some interesting yet challenging courses. This was certainly the time of the year where we would be slowed form jamming, and there were no surprises there. Justin has classes off today, so hopefully he'll want to get a little jam going this afternoon at least, before I go to work. I'm itching to play, because I've been very busy with the guitar when I've had free time at my apartment. Hopefully I'll have something worth posting about later today, but for now I'm in jam session limbo...