April 2009 Site Enhancements Lessons updates to include Modal Flavor section. Also, posted 2 videos on Youtube. Links exist in Video section. Reflections I have been quite busy. I have started teaching guitar at a local music store and have been spending a lot of time working on luthier sorts of skills guitar work. January 2009 Site Enhancements A lot has changed, probably too much to mention in specifics. In general, I am in the process of really trying to provide greater focus and utility. With respect to this goal, I will keep this somewhat brief and just say that I have expanded the Lessons section quite significantly. Please take a look and let me know if you have any suggestions or comments. December 2008 Site Enhancements  It has been a while but I have certainly been busy. I added an MP3 called Dance of the Dead. It is quite different than anything else up here, and is probably representative of the fact that I am becoming more eccentric with age :) I made minor changes to the site, cleaned up a couple of things. I actually removed the Guestbook as I was having some issues with it. I don't know if or when it will be coming back.  People will just have to mail me or join the forum. However, I may trash this as well because it is really quite lethargic in terms of activity. If people want to reach me or communicate they can click on the link to email me and I always respond. Still pondering whether I should remove the midi files, though I still like the one this page :) Reflections In terms of my development, I have been trying to grow in the areas of fluency, ear recognition, production, technique and overall roundness. Let me explain a bit. I have been trying to develop a better understanding of the Neck along with better understanding of theory, intervals, chords, etc. I find that I often get in the rut of diatonic pattern playing. For example, I know diatonic scales across the neck, but that doesn't mean that I necessarily understand what I am doing. A lot of times I am playing a pattern, and just trying to accentuate what feels right. I want to be able to play over a complex chord and know what I need to accentuate, exactly where it is located, and be able to do this in real time. I also want to tie this together with a better understanding of scale and harmony. I want to be able to say "Hey, that scale has a minor x, augmented y" and I want to be able to just play it all over the neck by having an instant understanding of where x, y are :). Look, if you give me a note and ask me to find it on every place on the neck, dependent upon the note, I sometimes have to think about it. I don't know the neck as well as I would like. I want instant recall and I think that I can get it with practice.     I have relative pitch. I can hum a note and then go play that note on a keyboard and end up within a quarter tone. I believe that I have the ability to develop perfect or at least near perfect pitch. I believe that I can train myself to do this, but that it will require some discipline and time. I have been working on this for a couple of days, and I seem to be making some sort of improvements. Along with notes, I am studying intervals. My goal is to be able to hear a note or chord and know what it is. On guitar it is much easier, because you can often infer based upon the geometry of the guitar, the use of open strings, and things like this, etc. However, doing this for an instrument such as the piano is much more difficult because there is a somewhat equal playing field across the instrument. My efforts appear to be working. I don't know if I can develop absolute perfect pitch, but I am certainly going to try.     I have also been working on my mixing and mastering skills, as I ultimately want my productions to sound much better than they do. To this end, I have been working with equalization, effects, dynamic range analysis and adjustment, frequency spectrum analysis. In summary, I have spending a lot of time working to improve my mixing and mastering skills. I have also been moving away from just placing MIDI notes on a piano roll, back into the realm of recording via playing a keyboard. In summary, with Sonar, numerous plugins, soft synths and samples, etc. I can really produce some really good sounding stuff. The technology is there, it is just that I am the bottleneck. At this point, I really don't have anything up on this site that really incorporates a more developed understanding of sound engineering, of which I am developing (a bit of an awkward sentence).   Technique Technique, technique, technique... It is easy to see how dividing my time like this can detract from technique (there I said that word  again). I have developed a couple of new exercises. Actually these are expansions upon things that I have already been working on, just with greater concentration on the difficult areas. I have been playing a lot more acoustically, as I figure that if I can pull off what I can on electric cleanly with acoustic, I will be in pretty good shape. On the acoustic you really can play with your arm, on the electric, so it is forcing me to train my wrist better. Other I have been putting some time into efforts meant to extend my sphere of influence. Specifically listening and trying to learn jazz and Middle Eastern music, as well as trying to acquire better sight reading skills and a better knowledge of the fretboard. Along with this goal of rounding myself out and filling in the gaps, I also started to practice keyboards, middle eastern drumming (dumbek), and I actually picked up the violin again. There is a lot of things on my plate. Too many things, too little time.     May 31 and June 3, 2008 Site Enhancements Wow. it has been about a  year since I updated this site. Time flies. I updated the content on most of the pages as well as the layout. On most pages it was  just modification of existing text and addition of new text. Approx. 1 month ago I  fixed an issue whereby the site was not displaying correctly when using Firefox. IE (although it is the predominant industry browser) is not completely standards compliant, so it is really best that I test future changes with both Firefox and IE. I am  having an issue with playing MIDI files with Firefox. Since Firefox is not enabled (by default) to handle MIDI files, I am not going to jump through hoops and recode the pages to be more compatible for these object types. I am also not sure whether having music play when you launch a  page is all that good, as it is really starting to annoy me. I will probably end up replacing the MIDI files, but whether I will associate an audio file...I am still chewing on this one. Probably the most notable change in this site, is that I added some newly recorded MP3s.    Reflections I don't know what form an eventual project that I have referred to will take. I had originally wanted to press some sort of CD, so that I would have something to show my grandchildren. I suppose that this is a really antiquated concept, as my grandchildren may not even know what a CD is or was (or maybe have a way to play it). Although I think that I will probably burn my own CD/Album for posterity, it is probably more important that I just keep creating. I am NOT in this for money. Yeah, like anything I would produce would have any type of mass appeal :) So what have I been doing? Well, in the last year there have been some significant changes in my life. My grandfather passed away, I switched jobs, my truck was totaled when I was rear-ended by an 18,000+ lbs truck. These three events occurred  in a 2 moth period, while I was also participating in two 4 credit online classes. In the past year, I also excavated my property and added a two car garage, put flooring in my attic, remodeled my family room, remodeled my office (well this is kind of still work in progress) and installed central air conditioning. A lot of projects and a lot of change. In the past couple of months I  have also been on a diet and have lost about 20 lbs. I will have to put some newer pictures and videos up on this site. More fundamental to music, I also upgraded to Sonar 7 Producer and acquired Guitar Rig 3 (software only, purely for recording). I have a couple of thoughts on Guitar Rig and amp modeling... It can sound pretty decent, but It doesn't truly have the warmth of tube (though it is much warmer and closer than solid state). I find myself copying tracks and layering them with different sounds to get a thicker composite sound. The sound is good, but you do need to play with it a bit to get what you like (I am still experimenting). The beauty in modeling, is that you record your instrument direct in. Of course you need some sort of a preamp to bring things up to line level, but that is it. Once you have recorded your dry sound, you can do whatever you want to it. If you don't like the distortion sound, delay, reverb or whatever, this can be changed with a couple of clicks. You have ultimate flexibility. You can also add cabinets, change the microphone orientation, etc. It is really pretty cool. Back to my first point... GR is somewhat unforgiving for the type of sound that I want. I like to front end my amp with a subtle overdrive. When I do this, I am able to get a really smooth sound with a lot of sustain, but still with clarity. In essence, I want a sound that is dirty, yet clean. This is hard to get with modeling, since it seems that when I try to get this sound, it ends up too thin and unforgiving, or too muddy. This is why I am layering. Even at that, any mistakes I make seem to get accentuated. It forces me to really try and nail it, which I suppose is good, but a bit frustrating. It is like trying to play fast on a tube amp at a low volume. I find that It is easier to play with a clean sound, then it is with this 'in between' distortion.     I also have been studying musical  composition. Back in January, I acquired a book entitled the Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Despite it's somewhat cheesy title, I find this book extremely fascinating and very well put together. The author, Dominic Pedler, breaks down many of the compositional techniques or attributes employed in the music composed by the Beatles. I don't want to use the term formula, as I don't think that the Beatles necessarily thought of things in this manner. However, their final product can be understood via formula and theoretical concepts, as well as sound theory. Dominic starts each chapter with a compositional concept (for example the use of dominants) and includes tons of example of where these things were employed by the Beatles. Being a huge Beatles fan, I can hear most of it in my head when he provides an example. This book is extremely insightful as Dominic also provides older examples of where these concepts were employed by other artists who influenced the Beatles.     I also added a couple of new MP3s, which I recorded this year. bLACK is definitely a shred tune, influenced by the likes of Yngwie and older Vinnie Moore. Extraspectral started as a Deep Purple'ish type of thing, hence the name. (The color Purple, as it is not primary color, does not have a specific wavelength, hence the name). Perspectives may be one of my best song-writing efforts. It is instrumental, but at the same time, has a lot of air and drama (at least I think so). I will be adding more content shortly. Please stay tuned.     April 2, 2007 Site Enhancements  It has been a couple of months since this site was updated. In this time, significant cosmetic as well as content changes have occurred. Originally this site was constructed to use "frames." This was causing some issues with certain browsers, screen resolution as well as search engine optimization. I have re-engineered this site to use PHP, so instead of pulling a frames page which references other pages, the content is dynamically generated on the server, via .php includes. In addition, and in conjunction I have started to use style sheets, to simplify formatting. The search page has been removed for technical reasons. I am considering which this actually adds any value, due to the limited content and relatively flat hierarchy of this site. I changed the hit counter, so that it only appears when you first load the site. Being limited in my knowledge of PHP and web technologies in general, this was the easiest way that I could come up with to prevent launches of subsequent pages from registering as hits. Yeah, I know that there is fancier way to do it, whereby it won't register a hit for each page viewed, and where I can count only unique hits (as well as referrals), but in all honesty it is not top on my list of priorities :)     Reflections  I have been concentrating on expanding my understanding of theory. In addition, I have been playing catch up with newer players, and have been listening to a lot of jazz and progressive music. I have also been reengineering my picking technique. This effort has essentially amounted to relearning how to pick. While this may seem a bit extreme, extreme measures are sometimes the most effective ways to break bad habits and sometimes we need to take a step back in order to take 2 steps forward. This been very "painful", as I have had to slow my playing down to less than half of the speed that I was accustomed to playing at. I am happy to say that I am adapting. The worst is over. Through this process, I have begun to understand some important concepts related to developing habits, and I have updated the tips section with some of this information. Originally, I had indicated that I wanted to complete a music project this year. I am not quite sure that this will happen. I really want to break new ground, but I think that the foundation necessary to do this, as well as some of the detours I have been taking from a technique perspective may make this goal unreasonable. In essence, my project has suffered scope creep. Although I realize this, and also know that this phenomenon can be problematic, I also realize that quality of the final product is more important than self-imposed time constraints. I see it this way... there are 4 components in project management; time, cost, scope and quality. By increasing scope, you reduce the quality, unless you can increase the time or cost. Cost, in this sense, is not monetary. It is really the opportunity cost of what I need to give up to complete it in a certain timeframe, whether it be time with the kids, or the quality of other aspects of my life and career. The bottom line, I need to maintain balance and keep things in perspective, so the timeline will likely slip. While, I could decrease the quality or the scope, I am not willing to make these sacrifices. I will, however, post some newer material, in the form of videos and MP3s this year for submission on this site, so all is not lost. In addition, I will also try and pass along what I discover.   February 4, 2007 Site Enhancements  Significant cosmetic changes have occurred. The current scheme is now loosely based upon the color of my red/pink/magenta Ibanez. Purple has been removed from the color scheme and all background images have been replaced with solid colors. I felt that the images, though cool, made the sight a little too flashy, hard to read; too much like a cartoon. All images not created by me, have been replaced with home-grown images, including the logo and animated gif on the left. In addition to changes in the cosmetic appearance of the buttons, all buttons now reside in the table of contents. I felt that these buttons, though pretty, were consuming unnecessary real estate on the top frame. Moving these buttons allowed me to consolidate the guitar picture, as well as site subtitle on the top frame. I recreated the banner in the bottom frame, with the hit counter. This banner, is unusually wide, can be shortened and will likely be based upon the future need to reference things such as voting sites or whatever. In summary, I am using space much more efficiently. The image on the forum page has also been modified. Most, if not all pages now have the "Back to Top" link. Hopefully this will make navigation easier. Contact link no longer launches page with contact address, but rather the client's default mailer. Tips and suggestions now contains a short passage on practical application. Essentially, it discusses the concept that patterns and licks should be practiced in the context of another. For more specifics, please check out this new addition. Added more notes to MP3 page.     Reflections I am continuing to learn more about web-mastering and image manipulation, so it is a pretty interesting experience. The forum started rolling, but I only have 2 other members (Jody and Joe, both very good friends). We got into a very interesting discussion about the "Battle of the Bands", where Joe and I met, and I ran into Jody. (This was the first time that Jody and I saw each other after high school). In actuality, this seemingly insignificant event was actually very pivotal in our lives, though we probably didn't even scratch the surface on this one. Even though the band that I was in lost, the benefits surely outweighed the "agony of defeat" :) I hope to grow the forum and gain better visibility for this site once we become listed with the major search engines and get listed with some more of the Internet guitar sites. We have been listed with Guitarweek.com, and fortunately, we did not make the "crap guitar sites" list :) I still want people to sign the Guestbook and I am still after my friends and family to get me some more pictures for the site. I really don't care if I am in the picture, as long as we worked together in some capacity. I still have some blackout periods that can certainly be filled in, possibly with MP3s, in addition to pictures.     January 30, 2007 Site Enhancements  New search page designed to help find material on this site more quickly and efficiently. A community forum has been created to allow others to share their opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics Subtle cosmetic changes have been made to this site to improve its usability and appearance, such as this revamp of the news page. TKGuitar.com has been manually submitted to the big 3 search engines, as well as a couple of additional sites for inclusion in their URL listings.   January 25, 2007 Site Enhancements  This section is new, and so is my "eyewitness news" Midi file that you are hearing now :) New "tutorials" have been posted, so if you have not checked them out, they are available in the Video, as well as in the Tips section. New perspectives, a new picture (you may find this amusing - I am trying to get my hands on some additional pictures for this area), additional links, and depending upon when you were here last, you may encounter some new Midi files that I created. Reflections In all seriousness, this site has been up for about 2 weeks. The feedback has been pretty good. There are many people in my life who had absolutely no idea that I had this side to me, so it is quite humorous to see (or hear) their reactions. I would have to say that I have found enrichment in this whole experience. From a web design perspective, this is my first publicly accessible web site, so I am learning quite a bit as I go along. OK, so quite a bit has changed... not the general layout, but I made some corrections... I corrected the statistic about the size of the music industry - it is not 10 % of the chewing gum business, but actually 1%. A very large manufacturer was trying to understand the size of this industry and commissioned a study in the late 80's which produced this statistic. I don't have the original report, and it was word of mouth by an anonymous but reliable source. As always, feedback is important, as it will help me to improve this site. Please sign the guestbook, and if you want to tell me something offline, contact me via the contact email address. I will certainly read your correspondence and get back to you. I will have to make a concerted effort to correct some of the grammar in this site. It is pretty good, though I just don't feel like doing this at this particular moment.   Back to Top