Stuff about music, either mine or stuff I am listening to.
Brian Hook turned me on to Jake Shimabukuro, and I’ve now gotten all his CDs. Short form: imagine a ukelele player who makes it sound like a classical guitar. Or an electric guitar. Or occasionally, a bit like a mandolin. Really virtuosic stuff. Musically, he maybe drifts a bit too much into smooth jazz/Acoustic Alchemy territory, but when the focus is on his playing, he’s amazing.
Check out this video of him doing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
His CDs:
Here’s another acoustic guitar piece for you all. It’s played in open G tuning, and features my father-in-law’s 1962 Gibson acoustic — an amazingly resonant guitar with a real “old-timey” sound. I usually play slide on this guitar, but in this case I played fingerstyle, no picks. If you listen close, you can even hear the jangle of the untrimmed strings at the headstock scraping against each other.
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…anymore, that is.
I took lessons for a while. In high school, I started out with keyboards, not guitar. It wasn’t until midway through my first year of college that I first picked up the guitar, which means that I have now been playing it for almost exactly 15 years.
While playing guitar, though, I did actually spend a semester taking piano. I did OK, I suppose, but I struggled in some ways. My hands aren’t very big — could barely reach a full octave with one hand. I have a childhood injury that left my right hand pinky and half of my ring finger numb, and the pinky in particular is lacking in agility.
I also took music theory and composition classes, which were heavily driven by the piano. And that’s where this came from.
I know, it’s old. But you you must watch it anyway. It’s funny because it’s true, admit it.
Today I took the training wheels off of my daughter’s bicycle. Oh, she’s past due — she’s eight going on nine, and really should be braver about taking spills and learning how to ride for real. She got pretty good about jumping off right before it fell over, though.
But why she picked a chilly January afternoon, all overcast, right before it started raining, I have no idea. She and her friend Julia took over the cul-de-sac, and I split my time between chasing the bikes and going back inside to work on a little riff.
Well, the riff turned into a tune. Sort of a rough jam, really. Called “Bicycles in January,” naturally enough. Click play or download it — free music!
