It's the Final Countdoooowwwn. . . .

The date of the move has been set and is official. "The Lead State", "The Bullion State", "The Ozark State." "Mother of the West", "The Iron Mountain State", "Pennsylvania of the West." Yes, I will be making my journeyings to grand ol' Missouri on around October 28th, 2010. We're picking up an leaving jobs, people, bands and Utah state to move near my wife's family. Contrary to the feeling of the last sentence, I harbor no ill feelings toward this decision. It has taken me a while, but with the way things are going here, I am actually getting more and more excited to move. We will be living rent-free and I will be going to school to get a teaching degree so I can destroy the world's grammar problems, one child or teenager at a time.

I will miss the band dearly, but we're going to try to sneak in a few shows before I must depart. If we bag any, I will post the dates on here. For those of you that do read my blog, never fear, for I am going to continue writing in my blog. I will be changing the name of the blog, but I will keep the link to the Image Down website on my link list, cuz the music is freekingz awezomez! I plan on writing my own music and recording all of the parts myself. Also, since I'll be going to school, I may start an acoustic thing or maybe even a cover band.

I'll only be in Missouri for about 3-4 years, depending on how long it takes for me to get my B.A. degree for teaching, then we'll be back to Utah for good(ish). Thanks for reading, readers. If you really like my story and musings, then tell your friends and stuff!

Acoustic Guitars

My, What Strings Can Do!

To the everyday person that has no prior knowledge of guitars, strings are just there to make the guitar make sound. This is true. However, what aforementioned everyday person does not know is that the strings provide part of the basis of sound and playability that comes from the guitar. Before I start, I’m going to tell you that I will not be throwing any specific brand names of strings out, due solely to the fact that this is a topic that some of the more intense musicians have started international wars over. Things get messy, references are made about a “big pond,” then Interpol gets involved... Personally, I have used different brands, and prefer different ones depending on the guitar.

String instrument strings are basically built the same way consisting of a core with a very tight winding around it. Steel is the most common material used for the core when dealing with Acoustic and Electric guitars. With Classical guitars, a special type of string called Catgut (aka Nylon) is used. Bull and sheep gut were used for the core due to the fact that less pull is required to bring the string into tune. This was needed because the neck on Classical guitars are more delicately supported. For the record, real animal innards are hardly being used anymore and cat’s guts were never used, despite the name. You can stop writing that email now, PETA.

For the winding, several different materials can be used depending on the sound you like for your guitar and playing style. Pretty much, the most common winding for acoustic guitar strings is bronze over a steel core. This includes the classical guitar strings, where the bronze is wound over the lower-sounding bass strings. Typically, the bronze will be alloyed with Phosphor to increase the life of the strings.

There's another nick name for Missouri... but don't say it. The natives don't like it.

Ch-ch-ch-changes - Turn and Face the Strange...

I am proud to announce that Image Down has finally established an official website. The link is provided in the other links above. I am very pleased with the layout and design, which was born from the graphic imaginariations of Scott the Singer. The things that man can do with technology is enough to make Bill Gates feel like Steve Jobs, or vice versa depending on who you support as your computer demi-god. As far as music goes, my wonderful parents are bringing to me a bass guitar and a keyboard so I can have the ability to write sweeter, catchy, soul-wrenching music.

In other news, my wife and I have come across the offer to live near her parents. It would be rent-free, utilities-free, and in a fairly large house. That would give us the opportunity for me to go to school, and her to hopefully bare our spawn in peace (once we get things going...baw-chicka-wah-wah). There is really only one catch: We would have to drop everything and move to St. Louis, MO. 1,500 miles from my parents and 1,300 from our current position. We would be near her family, but I would need to leave the band and quit my job. It is a painful desicion to make, as there are as many severe downfalls as there are pros. We are going to ponder much about this and I will be sure to keep you, my readers, updated.

Here's the next installment of the "Ultimate Guitar Knowledge Masterpiece" series. (Still not that Ultimate.)

Acoustic Guitars

I’m Sorry, You’re Not My Body Type
You look at acoustic guitars and they all look the same, right? No? Then you have quite the eye for detail. There are MANY different body styles when it comes to acoustic guitars. The different body styles can be hardly noticeable or they can stick out like a sore thumb. Everything from the type of wood that is used, down to the finish used on that wood. Each one will affect the sound and presence of the guitar, from the traditional Dreadnought with a matte (not shiny) finish to the subtle Backpacker. Even the melt-your-face-with-candy Acoustic Flying V!

The Dreadnought style is a widely popular style as it provides a bassier (is that a word?) tonal quality that is often desired with musicians that focus on Acoustic guitar. Meanwhile, classical guitar musicians will prefer the Classical guitar body style, which has a mellow tone but not a super amount of bass tones. The style in which the body is made in and the materials used to make the Classical guitar are such that it requires a special type of strings. The mellow tone is also an attribute provided by these types of strings used, which will segue into my next section.


The end is closer than you think, but too far off to worry. So play.

The week that was devoid of practice.

This last week, band practice didn't happen. Hopefully that should give us time to get the other aspects of the band going, however. My skill points in Guitar and Songwriting will soon be going up, as I have come across a practice amp to keep at home. I shall be skill grinding to raise my Music skill to max proficiency! (I apologize for the terms used in the last two sentences... Too much World of Warcraft for me.) With the band still pushing for gigs, our bassist getting married, moving our practice room due to aforementioned bassist getting married and living in the space of which current practice is held, and an overwhelmingly joyous amount of family visiting us in hordes, it doesn't surprise me that practices have been slightly less than a priority. Though our last practice was far from earning the title of the "greatest last practice," I have a feeling that our waiting and our efforts are not about to go unnoticed. My goal of staying home and playing guitar for work may yet be achieved someday.

Here's the first installment of the "Ultimate Guitar Knowledge Masterpiece" series. (It's not that Ultimate.)

Acoustic Guitars
Sounds and What Causes Them

The acoustic guitar is quite an exquisite form of instrument. The inside of an acoustic guitar can be compared structurally to that of a music studio. The shape of the body, the type of wood used, and the interior design that holds the guitar together all contribute to the sound and style of the guitar.

The strings are, of course, the biggest contributor to what makes the sound. However, most people don’t think about what the strings attach to. The bridge is the piece of wood that is positioned on the body of the guitar that anchors the strings near the bottom of the guitar. This also holds the saddle, the piece of material that props the strings up. With this holding the strings, it will vibrate with the strings when they are struck, thus vibrating the top of the body of the guitar, also called the sound board, causing the sound to reverberate in the guitar. The sound escapes through the hole that the strings span over called, shockingly, the sound hole. This is how sound is made with an acoustic guitar (it’s not when a mommy and daddy sound love each other very much).

I'm taking blog fiber, to be more regular.

My blogging duties, I have shirked
But life is busy, I'm not a jerk
To remedy my situation
I have a simple solution
To help me stay more regular
I will take my blogging fiber!

My life has been quite the merry-go-round of not-always-merriness. In my personal life, my wife and I are trying to infect the world with little us's and it is proving to be a goal that requires both patience and much practice. The practice I don't mind... With the band, we are on the verge of doing gigs and getting our own sound out to the people and potential fans. Our manager has a conflicting idea of how to introduce us to the world, so we may exercise our bandly rights to book our own shows. We have finished recording all of our parts to the songs that will be our demo, and as soon as that is mixed, I will post the songs on here for anyone that stumbles across my blog to enjoy. I'll also add a gadget that will post information on any upcoming gigs.

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I know I promised that my next blog post would be a dedicated plethora of information. However, I thought long and hard about this and came to the disappointing conclusion that not everybody would be as interested in guitars as I am. So I am going to post information on each section at the end of my normal blog posts to avoid invading your cornea like an alien invades... well, you know.

This will be more of a guide for the uninformed (less educated, not people in fancy dress...that's uniformed). All of the information that is given here will be from my own knowledge. For the sake of space and time, I’ll split this up into two posts. The first post will be Acoustic Guitars. Here’s what will be covered:

Acoustic Guitars
a. Sounds and what causes them
b. I’m sorry, you’re not my body type.
c. My, what strings can do!
d. The not-inbred hybrid.

The first section will appear on my next post.

Making a mistake means you're human. Missing notes means you play bass.

Here, here! Here I am!

Absence. Darkness. Waiting. My blog has sat neglected for well over 2 months. Marriage, music, employment and exciting movies have incurred since my last entering.

Staci and I were married on the Ides of May (5/15/2010 for those that don't know). It was quite the momentus occasion, as the photo depicts. I discovered that married life has never been described quite right. The words don't exist to describe the great pleasure it is to marry your dearest, best friend. She is quite a delight!

On to the music department. The band that I am currently providing my Lead Guitar services for, Image Down, is on it's way to making its way through the world. The Image Down website is due to be up soon, complete with bios, pics, music and more! I'm excited! We have a four song demo that we will soon distribute to many venues in the hope that someone will like us. We have about 12 original songs known and ready to show off to the world. Our music style can be somewhat be referred to as an "Alternative Cocktail." Each member of the band has their own favoring era of the Alternative genre: Dark 80's, Electro-80's, Punk-90's, and Pop-00's. It may sound messy, but the flavors blend together quite well when the right sounds are emphasised depending on the song. I will whore my band on this 'ere blag once the website is up and running. I'll also post show information.

In my last post, I promised that I would delve into the wonderful world of guitars. There are many, many, many, many, many different aspects of the guitar that determine sound, sustain (how long a note can be held for), playability, style and other things. To tell the truth, I lied. I'm not going to do that with this post. I will, however, dedicate the whole next post on this, as well as an update on the band information....since that is what this blog is supposed to be about. :D

To live and die is our purpose. To live and play makes the dying seem further away....

Bridge the Gap

Three days have gone by, all filled with the same inanity found within the majority of days throughout the year. Unless you're a pirate, treasure-seeker, ninja or all three but that is too much awesome to fill a single body. The awesomenicity levels would obviously be too imbalanced in ratio to the mass of the body and the very fibres of the body would.. well I won't get into it. The science is far more gruesome than anyone should ever encounter. I had planned to try adjusting the bridge on my guitar (the piece of plastic at the bottom that holds the strings up from the body.) I may still do this, but I don't want to risk taking too much off. Oh well. I'll try anyway... (hurray for motivation!!!)
One of my favorite activities is making the minor tweaks and meticulous adjustments required on a guitar to make it function to the best of its ability. This also makes it so that the actual playing of the guitar is much more... endurable.
Not many people without musical ability understand the intricacies involved in making your instrument become the extension of your being.
This is true for all instruments. Drums, guitar (bass included), clarinet, trumpet, violin, even singing.
They all start as a sort of clay for you to either let stand in the basic shape of the object-in-reference to perform with mediocre quality, or shape into an ethereal form, sharing the inner glow of the illumination of your soul to produce a sound capable of making Teletubbies cry, babies giggle, giraffes dance, Lincoln shave and other related events.

In lieu of my writer's block, I have been working to hone my skills after going quite some time without practice or writing. I moved to Utah in July of last year but previous to this, I had spent quite a bit of time with quite a bit of time on my hands. I dedicated my efforts to learning about the recording arts (as it is as much of an art as the music itself, not to mention a science in its own right). I had set up my own small home studio in an attempt to pull a few of my songs together. In the hustle and bustle of moving to Utah and establishing a life in a state in which I had never been, I had forgotten a small detail; if I don't keep practicing, then motivation disappears along with the callouses on my fingertips. It would be about a month and a half before I even thought about picking a guitar up. I had been asked to be in my cousin's band playing the music I play now, and the shock of suddenly playing again was not the most comfortable thing I have experienced.
If one does not take proper measurements before playing, especially after taking a hiatus, then one can do some extensive damage to one's self. For anyone just beginning guitar or even anyone that would consider themselves "amatuer," I would highly recommend remembering to do warm-ups and stretches regularly. Even if you don't plan on practicing or playing a song, just pick up the guitar randomly throughout the week and just do some exercises. You can do them as little as 5-10 mins at a time. This may seem like a fruitless activity and after a while you will find that they are quite boring and not doing anything for you.
This is a great sign for two reasons:
1) You are getting bored because the exercises have become so fluid and natural to you, which means that you can apply the principles of the exercises to the songs you play as well as the songs you write. It will feel like you've always known how to play that way and to others it will look effortless.
2) Exercises are never-ending. You can always speed them up, add flourishes, and slow them down to work on accuracy, etc.

The reason I stress the exercising, stretching and warming-up is because the damage that I mentioned earlier that one can do to one's self can range from having a sore hand to even crippling your hand. Now, keep in mind that you would almost have to try to cripple your hand so you shouldn't be wary of playing guitar for fear of this. The more serious injuries usually occur in fast playing, but if you can play that fast, then you would know what you're doing which means you would be stretching and warming up before you seriously get into it ;)

Here are some links to good warm-ups:
Jazz Guitar (good technique builders that apply to all genres)
Guitar Lesson World (several different areas for excersize. It has pictures!!!)
Cyberfret.com (I personally love this place. I've linked directly to the technique section, but I would suggest browsing around. It has just about everything.)
Ultimate Guitar (this guy has a really good pre-game warm-up going on)

These are just a couple of places that really have stood out to me or places that I have trusted in the past. I encourage you to search for yourselves, deep inside your interwebs to find self-satisfying programs of progression. Tune in next time: I'll go into guitars themselves. It'll be an epic struggle of life and death as I try to escape! *Insert dramatic outro music*

Life is an adventure... but so is music :)

A day, no more.

A peaceful morning, chirping birds, sun gracefully sliding its way over the mountains. The smell of dew-laden grass wafts through the air. A loud crash. The birds fly from their trees, the peace flees with just as much flight and the sun ducks behind the mountain again with a cringe on his face. I had slipped and fallen down my stairs due to smooth heels and a groggy demeanor. My only thought was, "what a theatrical way to start another day." I just now realized that this line would go great in a song :D All in all, my yesterday's morrow began with the wrong sort of bang, but who's to say that we can't all be human, anyway? (another line for a song! See, kids? Songwriting can be easy!)

Work was work, Bob's your uncle, it's 5pm. I get home from work and the first thing I do is pick up my guitar. The second thing I do is put it back down. I discovered that my muse decided it was time that we should take a break and start seeing other people. Luckily she isn't the one I'm going to marry. Instead I went to the kitchen, grilled me some chicken breast, and threw it in a Caesar Salad. I grabbed my dinner, made a bee-line for the couch and feasted my eyes on Mythbusters while I feasted my mouth on the salad. Beautiful thing it was, the sunset. Casting its red-orange-pink hue across my living room, making sure to put an ample lighting on the TV set just to make sure I was seeing it. I never thought Jamie Hyneman could get any redder. It was quite a treat, indeed.

I finished dinner, enjoyed the rest of both the grandiose light show and the incredibly fascinating display of science, and decided to watch a movie. I like movies. I like them a lot. I didn't like this movie. It was a psychological thriller named "Nine Dead" starring actress-turned-director, Melissa Joan Hart. No wonder she turned to directing. Anyway, the movie was bad, the ending was worse and I couldn't be happier for watching it. It gives me hope that movies like this are released to the general public. It means that I have an even greater chance for inflicting people with my entertainment. It's gonna be so much easier than I thought! Muwahahaha!!! Er... ahem.

Fast forward to present moment. "Bones" graces my telly's screen to keep it company while I again prepare to clean my home. I have a certain room that I desire to furnish into a practice space whilst also providing a crafting area for my other half. I believe I will retreat into here in a little bit to get some practice in. I'm heading over to my cousin's house tomorrow to go do the recording for the rest of the demo, seeing as how I have nothing to do during my evenings. I'd like to have the demo finished so that we can whore our music to venues during my wedding preparations and the big day. That way, when everything is done and the dust has settled (sexy dust for that matter), then we can be ready to go with gigs.

Future awaits us.

Intro

So here I go. I embark on what will hopefully be a fabulous journey. This journey: Blogging. I begin with shoes on my feet, albeit the wrong ones but I'm sure nobody will notice ;)

I guess I could start by cluing you in on the writer. I'm Kevin! Hi, how are you? I'm fine, thanks for asking. I've been playing guitar for almost 10 years. Unfortunately, I also act like I'm ten years old. There is naught, save a few special things, that gives me joy more than sitting down and diddling the strings on my guitar. The notes. The chords. The music. They encompass one another to invent themselves into a beautiful, flowing structure to give house to emotion. Emotion then can then live in this house and create a life for itself. Go out and get a semi-successful job. Start dating, perhaps even find that special someone he can come home to and by whom he can be told to take out the trash.

I digress.

Me, myself, I'm a simple man. I like sunsets, Chinese food, (virgin) piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. I don't like making love at midnight on the dunes of the cape, however. 'Tis far too sandy. Indeed, I do try to make life as fun and interesting as I can make it, though normalcy does reserve the point of perspective. I am a good driver. A wee bit slow for some, but don't try to race me... you won't win :) That being said, carefulness is a trait that has become a small sort of pride for me. I enjoy a good adrenaline rush every now and then, but what's the use if you're not going to live long enough to enjoy it often.

I do expect for my personality to shine forth through my writings and perhaps you will get to know me that way instead of me running my mouth like a leaky faucet. (Though, I do believe, in this case it would be my fingers pecking away at the keys like an anorexic woodpecker that just made a life changing decision. Again, I digress.)

On with the blaggin'.

Today, after work, I started on my set list. My compilation of songs, written by myself and others, to learn for acoustic guitar to both improve skill and give me an arsenal in case anyone challenges me to a sudden guitar battle. Thankfully, that would probably only happen in a Guitar Hero environment, in which I could hold my own. *smirk* Amidst my hard work, the aforementioned addiction took over, so I played GH to loosen up. To my all-too-often dismay, it did not loosen me up, but make me furious. Cursed Steely Dan. I stopped playing. I am now starting on my housework to clean things up for the upcoming onslaught of guests to fill the house due to the ever nearing wedding I get to share with one of the only people I love more than music.

Ah yes, the wedding. Twelve more days. I would put a counter on here, but I'll be married before anyone reads this. I know it's juicy knowledge and people eat it up, but I will put the details of the lady and the marriage aside and write about it in a future blog. For now, I have house work that really should be attended to. Even the glamorous life of a musician demands organization and cleanliness. It is next to holiness, after all. :)