Well, well, well. A crazy month. Would you believe if I told you I learnt guitar in less than a month? Well I can't play like Slash/Joe Satriani but I have learnt enough to make my own simple tunes!
I was getting tired of trying to find songs without percussion and drumless tracks. My options were feeling limited for the same reason. So for my birthday (last month), I got myself an electric guitar. My type of music varies across the spectrum (literally) and acoustic guitar gave me only one type of sound and relying too much on chords to sound cool. So I went for the electric guitar. After much contemplation and review reading, I decided I'll get a used electric guitar but a fairly good one rather than a new entry level guitar. I got the Ibanez Art 100 at a local Music-Go-Round store. Then I bought the 'Rocksmith' game/software for my PS3. Rocksmith claims that you will learn guitar in 60 days. Well I was able to get some basics and start making meaningful sounds in less than 30 days. More than that, what makes Rocksmith unbelievable is that it makes the amps that you get for your guitar (at least the entry level ones) pretty much useless! You can create your own guitar sounds (and hence amps) or use general genre tones (metal, rock, electronic or blues) or you could use existing sounds based on songs (For e.g. lets say an Alice in Chains song, you choose that tune, you will have your guitar output sound like Alice in Chains. How effing cool is that?!). I am totally convinced that if you like music and motivated to learn guitar, Rocksmith gives you a really great launchpad and makes it fun. I can go on and on about the game features, but I am not here to write a review for the game. So lets focus on what came out of 30 days learning and practicing the guitar ~1hour a day.
This is it. Turn up your volume or use headphones for better clarity.
I was jamming with 'Experimental Electronica' band on Rocksmith and invented this tune. Yes. I actually made it! Using a simple bass-y riff, I tried to add a few more notes to the tune and before I knew I had more than a half decent tune. Well at least I like it, not sure about you. But I would like to think I am extremely hypercritical about music so *maybe* if I find it decent maybe you will too.
So this was my drill.
1) Use an online metronome and set basic beats first on headphones
2) Play the tune on guitar using metronome as base. Record this (used basic laptop mic)
3) Edit guitar tune to remove noises to give the final guitar track
4) With the guitar track on headphones, record cajon beats (again just laptop mic)
5) Edit cajon beats separately for noises, adjust volume with reference to guitar track
6) Mix guitar and cajon tracks
There was a lot of work. Probably took me 3-4 hours to do all the above. But I am happy with the result. If things go well I might consider investing in some amateur recording equipment. I actually would not mind if somebody wanted to lend a hand in these matters as well ;). Also if you wanna jam (feel like things would be more interesting with dedicated bass, vocals), let me know.
Called it introSpect for two reasons. One, it is downtempo-ish in style and introspect is the name of my Pandora downtempo station. Secondly, I discovered that ALL music is inspired :). When I was jamming I was always looking for an existing starting point or inspiration, be it tune/tempo/beat. So I sort of had this self realization that maybe not all seemingly 'copy' tunes are real copies. There could be coincidences. Not for Harris Jeyaraj. NO.
I actually have two more tunes under my sleeve both different genre from this. Much heavier than this. I was so pumped up, I called my sister and played to her on speaker phone and my nephew heard it. He called this one a sad song and the other ones angry songs. He demands a happy song but looks like I will have to work a bit harder to convince my nephew.
Dare I say one more time? Rocksmith rocks \m/.
I was getting tired of trying to find songs without percussion and drumless tracks. My options were feeling limited for the same reason. So for my birthday (last month), I got myself an electric guitar. My type of music varies across the spectrum (literally) and acoustic guitar gave me only one type of sound and relying too much on chords to sound cool. So I went for the electric guitar. After much contemplation and review reading, I decided I'll get a used electric guitar but a fairly good one rather than a new entry level guitar. I got the Ibanez Art 100 at a local Music-Go-Round store. Then I bought the 'Rocksmith' game/software for my PS3. Rocksmith claims that you will learn guitar in 60 days. Well I was able to get some basics and start making meaningful sounds in less than 30 days. More than that, what makes Rocksmith unbelievable is that it makes the amps that you get for your guitar (at least the entry level ones) pretty much useless! You can create your own guitar sounds (and hence amps) or use general genre tones (metal, rock, electronic or blues) or you could use existing sounds based on songs (For e.g. lets say an Alice in Chains song, you choose that tune, you will have your guitar output sound like Alice in Chains. How effing cool is that?!). I am totally convinced that if you like music and motivated to learn guitar, Rocksmith gives you a really great launchpad and makes it fun. I can go on and on about the game features, but I am not here to write a review for the game. So lets focus on what came out of 30 days learning and practicing the guitar ~1hour a day.
This is it. Turn up your volume or use headphones for better clarity.
I was jamming with 'Experimental Electronica' band on Rocksmith and invented this tune. Yes. I actually made it! Using a simple bass-y riff, I tried to add a few more notes to the tune and before I knew I had more than a half decent tune. Well at least I like it, not sure about you. But I would like to think I am extremely hypercritical about music so *maybe* if I find it decent maybe you will too.
So this was my drill.
1) Use an online metronome and set basic beats first on headphones
2) Play the tune on guitar using metronome as base. Record this (used basic laptop mic)
3) Edit guitar tune to remove noises to give the final guitar track
4) With the guitar track on headphones, record cajon beats (again just laptop mic)
5) Edit cajon beats separately for noises, adjust volume with reference to guitar track
6) Mix guitar and cajon tracks
There was a lot of work. Probably took me 3-4 hours to do all the above. But I am happy with the result. If things go well I might consider investing in some amateur recording equipment. I actually would not mind if somebody wanted to lend a hand in these matters as well ;). Also if you wanna jam (feel like things would be more interesting with dedicated bass, vocals), let me know.
Called it introSpect for two reasons. One, it is downtempo-ish in style and introspect is the name of my Pandora downtempo station. Secondly, I discovered that ALL music is inspired :). When I was jamming I was always looking for an existing starting point or inspiration, be it tune/tempo/beat. So I sort of had this self realization that maybe not all seemingly 'copy' tunes are real copies. There could be coincidences. Not for Harris Jeyaraj. NO.
I actually have two more tunes under my sleeve both different genre from this. Much heavier than this. I was so pumped up, I called my sister and played to her on speaker phone and my nephew heard it. He called this one a sad song and the other ones angry songs. He demands a happy song but looks like I will have to work a bit harder to convince my nephew.
Dare I say one more time? Rocksmith rocks \m/.
