I wasn’t alive to see the civil rights movement or even the first British Invasion. I even missed out on Woodstock: an event that some call the crowning act of the 1960’s. To make matters worse, the extent of my knowledge on interesting cultural figures of the time, such as Wavy Gravy, is limited to the historical record and what little exposure I’ve had to Ben & Jerry’s Ice-cream. I want to relate, darn it, but the lack of direct experience is a barrier to the nostalgic self-gratification brought about by memorials of thought revisited by others around me. What is worse is that to folks who lived through the glory days of that generation, the temptation is always there to say, “Man, you missed it. You should have been there.” But, what exactly did I miss out on? And how do I even know I’m missing out, when I live in a time that is filled with technological advancements that were not around back in the 60’s. It reminds me a little of an old Bruce Dickonson song where he talks about black and white television being up to date. To the children of today, that would probably seem more like a punishment than a joyous time to reflect on.

In the absence of direct experience, should I pretend to relate to a generation that really had nothing to do with me at all? The cultural connection just isn’t there. It isn’t that I’m not interested in learning about that time in our history. I actually possess quite an interest in some of the music of that generation, even if I was never overly familiar with all the significant events that took place back then. But, if you were to ask me about the MTV music revolution of the 1980’s, that is something I can certainly relate to. The “I was there” factor makes the experience real, if only in faded memory today. But, faded memories or not, it was a significant part of the culture in which I had grown up. However, to the kids born in 1991 and later, the music revolution of the 1980’s is as removed from their culture as the music revolution of the 1960’s and early 70’s was removed from mine.

So, is there anything useful later generations can learn from the experience of former generations, concerning what truly drives the music industry to the point of an industry revolution, that would be relevant in modern times? Absolutely! For example, what radio could never do for the music industry, VJ’s and music videos certainly did. For the first time, you not only had music to listen to, you could also see your favorite bands hamming it up every day on MTV. As a teenager I could hardly wait to get home from school. You never knew what new band was going to drop the latest hit music video on the world stage. What a powerful cultural connection that created in its own right. The music industry had finally given us something we didn’t even know we couldn’t live without. And although much of the glory of the 1980’s has drifted off into obscurity, being lost to a new generation that was simply not there to experience it, it was certainly a time to live to those of us who still carry the torch and refuse to let the flames die. Another point to consider is that we understood what it meant to have lived before 1981, when you didn’t have this cultural connection that was brought about by the music video revolution. So, there is some sense of cultural pride in being able to say that we were the first generation to experience VJ’s and music videos as a mainstream form of entertainment. Unfortunately, it seems today that the music industry has lost sight of how much fans need a revolution with a real direction and real leaders in order to keep the industry alive and kicking.

Now, almost two decades beyond the closing moments of the 1980’s, we are on the brink of yet another music revolution. We can feel it in the air, like the way the weather changes in autumn, even if we aren’t exactly certain how it will manifest itself. We are just looking for a leader in the industry to provide us with that special something that we didn’t know we couldn’t live without once again. The atmosphere is ripe for change. The economy sucks and the music industry as we know it is all but dead, but the technology is here to forge a new revolution that may simply turn out to be the flower child of the pirate generation. All of the piracy going on today is really nothing more than the fans trying to get the fires burning, but the industry refuses to take the bull by the horns and figure out a sound strategy to properly brand the new revolution and make money off of it in the process. But, with or without the industry executives getting on board, the revolution is coming. And maybe someday you will be able to tell your kids, “You should have been there.”

Let me start out by saying that Eternal Essence absolutely rocks. This is so good, I have to grab my pair of Sennhiser headphones for another listen while I write. My initial impression of this band was that it was heavily influenced by Dream Theater. You can just feel it in the mix–especially if you focus on EJ’s machine like tight drum work, which is just all around superb. The use of piano and synth throughout, which provides a backdrop to work with, helped to give each piece a lot of genuine atmosphere and character. Even the bassist brings something to the table, interjecting subtle details of noted intricacy that add a nice touch when needed. The guitar work, which is oddly well tempered for a band of this genre of music, keeps with the spirit of the overall thematic approach that this band has crafted so well from one song to the next. And if I had to hazard to go out on a limb, I would risk saying that this band is going to continue to put out more awesome sounding tracks. In fact, I look forward to it. But, don’t take my word for it. I urge you to have a listen for yourself. And be sure to drop me a message to let me know what you think about Eternal Essence.

To check out Eternal Essence, please visit:
http://www.myspace.com/eternalessence

  This one man band, namely Guy chambers, from the UK is too much.  The sound effects are eerie, the beat is hypnotic, and the overall feel is like being drug underground and left in a dark cement walled tunnel with the echoes still bouncing around in your head to prove it.  In other words, it’s a little like the last meeting I had with my shrink.  But, I had the volume on my headset as high as it would go in order to catch the full experience.  I might not recover from that for a couple of days.   Fortunately, I had enough ear wax build up to prevent me from receiving permanent inner ear damage.

  At times the drum and bass parts verged on feeling a little repetitive, but the ear candy produced from the nicely layered sounds kept the tracks from getting stale, as can often happen with music in this genre.  I think the trick to keeping that from being a problem–especially if you want to maintain a repetitive feel for dance purposes–is to introduce some high pitched sounds in various counter timed segments to gently lead the audience’s attention away on a tangent.  It’s like, you almost expect to hear a plot builder in the background, such as a bit of subtle piano work walking about, to give the sense that there is something lurking in the shadows.  But, I digress.  The work of Quantum Soul is definitely something I would urge my readers to check out.

To check out Quantum Soul, please visit:
http://www.myspace.com/quantumsoul

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO:

In this three part lesson, Michael Angelo Batio takes us through how to harmonize the A harmonic minor scale, applying the Phrygian and Aolean Modes, and some thoughts on his approach to writing songs.

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO: Harmonizing the A harmonic scale

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO: Interesting Mode Study

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO: GUITAR WORLD LESSON

To find out more about Michael Angelo Batio, please visit:
http://www.angelo.com/

  We all dream of it: a two car garage, a job we absolutely hate, and even looking forward to coming home at night to flop down in front of the boob tube to waste what remains of those few precious moments we refer to as life.  If we are lucky, we’ve even got a nagging mother-in-law and a couple of obnoxious screaming brats to keep us further entertained.  And if we are really lucky, we might have a decent amp, a nice guitar, and a few effects pedals to enjoy behind closed doors.  You know, that special place you go to crank it to 11 so that you can’t even hear the ringing in your own ears anymore?  But, if you are Michael Angelo Batio, your home studio and rig is likely a little more over the top than the average player’s.

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO’S HOME STUDIO

  Let’s face it, you don’t get to be one of the world’s most famous shredders by being normal.  No, you throw out the whole 9 to 5 desk and/or cement mixing job and put most of your time and effort into trying to figure out what properly harmonizes with some crazy mode of the major something scale in 5/4 time, while kicking your bass player around to help keep focus during band practice.  Okay, I don’t actually advocate picking on your bass player, but bassists know it’s part of the job if they have been around the industry long enough.

  Now, being a world class shredder gives Michael Angelo the right to use a little creative license when–uhm’ well, Interpreting!  Yeah, that’s it, Interpreting the work of a late legendary guitarist like Randy Rhodes.

MICHAEL ANGELO BATIO’S INTERPRETATION OF RANDY RHODES WORK

  That was perhaps a little over the top in spots, but amazing nevertheless.  So, while you are stuck at work trying to figure out how to stick it to the man, just remember that Michael Angelo is somewhere out there rocking hard.
 
  Would you like to be a world class shredder, but just don’t have the desire to practice day in and day out?  Now you can pawn your old guitar for good this time, because the iAirGuitar is finally here.  Get your hands on a copy for your iPhone and iPod Touch today.  Visit:

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In a recent controversial exchange with music industry commentator Bob Lefsetz, a defiant Gene Simmons made a plea to bands and the music
industry corporate structure to urge both to realize the dependency that they share on one another in his grand vision of how to rebuild the music industry.  The moment was truly touching, but isn’t it a little late for corporate executives like Gene to be realizing how important the bands actually are to the success of the music industry?

See this segment taken from: Gene Simmons and Bob Lefsetz battle at Canadian Music Week 2009:

Instead of imparting anything truly significant to explain how he
planned to carry out his grand scheme to rebuild the fallen towers of
music Babylon, Simmons danced around with witty analogies and used
clever distractions to try to convince the audience that Lefsetz didn’t
have anything of substance to offer up to compete with Simmons’
superiority complex or his looks.  Personally, I’d have to disagree with
Gene and admit that Bob made a couple valid points–especially when it
came to his example of a Canadian band who had made a name for
themselves without relying on the help of a major label.  These sorts of
examples start to beg the question of how much longer major labels will
even remain relevant in a music industry that is undergoing serious
changes with every new technological advancement.  Gene should have
thought to encourage the suits to change policy and be more friendly to
artists 20-years ago, back when artists had little choice but to play
along.  Simply adjusting the industry rhetoric to make it sound like the
bands count this time around, doesn’t explain in the least how sticking
with a major label will actually help the artists, if even Gene
recognizes that the major labels are struggling to keep from losing
money hand over fist.

Earlier in the debate, As Lefsetz addressed the long history of how
bands have been abused at the hands of major labels in the past, I was
reminded of a story outlining some of the problems with the music
industry entitled, “The Problem With Music,”
by Steve Albini.  The article is a little dated, but still a must read
for anyone looking to get a sense of why there is so much distrust
between artists and record labels.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

 To get another perspective on the matter, I contacted my good friend
and fellow online radio announcer Derrick Heffner (Exec. VP of Roadie
Rage, Inc.)  And it was not too long into our discussion before
something important about this debate began to surface.

 ”Although I agree with Gene when it comes to the issue of product
branding, Gene has to realize that the problem of internet piracy isn’t
going away.  What is unclear about his business model is how he plans to
take another band to world class status and yet help that band to
generate a decent profit before their albums get leaked for free all
over the internet.  Remember, the issue of internet piracy caused him to
blame fans for the downfall of the music industry not long ago,” Derrick
said.

 After a little digging around, I ran across a couple of statements
by Gene along those very lines of thought.

[Simmons raged: "In all seriousness - and it's unfortunate - but the
record industry is dead; it's six feet under the ground and
unfortunately, the fans
have done this. They've decided to download and file share and there's
no record industry around. We're gonna wait till everyone settles down
and becomes
civilized and as soon as the record industry pops its head then we'll
record new material."]

Excerpt taken from: Kiss Blame Fans For Industry Downturn, June 16th, 2008
http://www.xfm.co.uk/news/2008/exclusive-kiss-blame-fans-for-industry-downturn

“There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How
are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if
people can
just get it for free? I will be putting out a Gene Simmons box set
called “Monster” — a collection of 150 unreleased songs. KISS will have
another box
set of unreleased music in the next year.

The record industry doesn’t have a f*cking clue how to make money. It’s
only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then
wondering why
there’s no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every
freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of
the earth. They should
have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the
beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of
work. How can you
pick on them? They’ve got freckles. That’s a crook. He may as well be
wearing a bandit’s mask.

Doesn’t affect me. But imagine being a new band with dreams of getting
on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it.”

Excerpt taken from an interview with Billboard Q&A’s Antony Bruno on
November 12th, 2007.
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003671447

 But, something is amiss here.  Gene told Lefsetz and the fans back
at the debate that he intended on taking a band or two from Canada all
the way to world class status.  Which is a sharp contrast from his last
statement about the chances of a new band making it above.  Now, if Gene
had said that he was going to take a band all the way prior to the
emergence of the whole problem with internet piracy, I wouldn’t have a
reason to doubt his ability to pull it off.  But, I suppose only time
will tell if he can make it happen from within an industry he has
characterized as being “six feet under”.

  Playing the guitar is easy, it’s becoming the guitar player you want to be that is the hard part.  Most people can reasonably learn to play a few chords, crank out a little lead piece, or make it over a hump or two in the learning process.  But, when they see the mountain that they must climb in order to be truly great on the guitar, it can sometimes be down right discouraging.  Even though I have been playing for the better part of the last 20-years, I still run across guys who blow my mind with their ability to play.  Honestly, it can send me into seclusion for days and sometimes weeks.  It’s no secret to anyone that I have a weakness for sound.  And I’ve been known to sit in my room for hours tweaking knobs, adjusting hand positions, and working out what ever subtle changes need to be made to get my guitar playing from where it is to where I want it to be.   But, the crazy thing about it all, is that the most important lessons I’ve learned about guitar playing, I didn’t get from a teacher or out of some book.  Rather, the most important things I learned about guitar playing came from embracing my own struggles on the guitar and taking the time to understand more precisely how I was relating to my instrument and/or how I was failing to relate to my instrument.

  How exactly does one relate to their guitar?  You can walk into a room of guitar players and you will often find that there is usually one guy in the pack who is head and shoulders above the rest.  And that guy isn’t going to tell you why he is better.  His lips are sealed, if he even understands why he is ahead of the pack himself.  But, I’m going to explain the big secret.  It’s not that he necessarily practices longer than you do.  The difference is summed up in a few key areas that automatically sets him apart from being another average guitar player.  And if you can start to develop these areas in your own playing, you will start to see massive results also because all these areas improve the overall relationship that you share with your axe.

1.   Confidence

  How you feel when you play effects how you express yourself on your axe 100%.  If you condition yourself to feel like a lousy guitarist, you will express a lousy performance when you play.  If you want a piece to come alive when you play it, then start to express that energy in yourself before you even pick up your guitar.  This is why two guys can play the same chords, the same riff, and use the same gear and sound completely different from one another.  When I pick up my axe, it is because I intend to play and let the musician inside me take the reigns.  If you just sit their and act sluggish, it will come through in your playing.  If you let the emotion course through your veins and feel what you want to express, eventually, you will notice a dramatic change in your playing.  The music that comes out when you play is simply an extension of who you believe you are on the inside.  Often people mistake confidence for attitude, and so a lot of musicians imagine that if they develop an irritating attitude this will make them a better player.  Usually, it just makes them irritating.  I always like to think of Satriani and his attitude, because he is almost always projecting a pleasant positive attitude, he exudes confidence with his playing, and he gives you the impression that he is having loads of fun.  It’s what truly great guitar is all about.  And when he plays, you hear what is truly inside him reaching out to you.  When you can encapsulate the value of that in your playing, you’re already a step ahead of the average guitar player.

2.   Awareness

  I see it all the time, guitarists who learn a technique, but never take the time to examine what the technique is all about.  If you want to achieve a higher level of playing, you have to become aware of what you are playing and aware of what it is that you must do to make the changes in your playing that need to take place to get you to that next level.  It’s not uncommon for me to take a three hour lesson and study one aspect of my playing, such as how I am executing a piece.  Making sure my picking hand and my fretting hand are cooperating harmoniously, making sure i am nailing notes solidly, and making sure that I am catching all the subtle pauses in the timing that give a piece that extra special feel are all important to making massive improvements and rising above the rut of being an average guitar player.

3.   Troubleshooting

  There is simply going to come a point when your teachers aren’t going to be able to help you over that next hump and the struggle will be between you and your guitar alone.  Trust me, that is a glorious day to have greet you.  Because it means that you are finally at a point when you can do some genuine learning on your own and maybe even a little much needed pioneering.  Your most creative work on guitar is still future to your current state, if you will allow the learning process to continue.  But, if you always look to teachers for every answer, you are just robbing yourself of some of the most important learning experiences around.  Of course, I think teachers are important to have.  A teacher can introduce you to concepts and ideas you may not be aware of and they can get you over many initial humps in the domain of common knowledge.  And they might even have some valuable uncommon knowledge to impart to you as well.  But, if you never take the time to develop a sense of how to get yourself over humps in the road with your playing, you will soon hit a brick wall that you nor your teachers will be able to help you over.  Because your teacher can only help you as far as they understand how to help you themselves.  It wasn’t until I started teaching other guitar players how to play that i began to see more clearly why certain techniques were better than others.  Why certain parts of music theory worked to get me what I wanted and others not so well.  In explaining these things to other people, I was actually helping myself more than I was helping them.  Because it forced me to have to think out why things worked the way that they do.  So, I encourage you to teach others what you know on the guitar any chance you get.  The more you explain what you know, the more familiar you will become with what you do and do not understand about the guitar.  This will in turn give you a sense of direction to help you see what areas need work.

4.   Make Mistakes

  I’m a big believer in making lots of valuable mistakes.  Yes, you heard that right.  Mistakes are opportunities for the door of real learning to open up to a guitarist.  If you are afraid of making mistakes, then you have a limiting belief that is holding your playing back unnecessarily.  The trick with mistakes is to be willing to examine the mistake, understand why it is happening, and to reason your way around the problem.  And whatever you do, make sure to write down the process and what you learned from the investigation.  It’s often a good idea to keep information like that on file so that you can refer back to it from time to time and chart your own progress.  Because having a general checklist of things to pay attention to while trying to help yourself through a mistake is handy to have around the next time you are thrown for a loop.

5.   Exploration

  I’m all for people sitting down and learning to play their favorite bands song note for note with a perfect ability to recreate the work of another great guitarist.  And in all honesty, this is where true genius begins even for a lot of exceptional guitar players.  Unfortunately, it’s where it ends for a lot of exceptional guitar players as well who never reach their full potential.  The true innovators and masters of the guitar don’t spend their lives following in other people’s footsteps.  Rather, they spend more time looking for ideas that have not been overused already.  For some this means finding a new chord progression that has an unusual flavor.  For others, it’s learning a new way to bend the guitar string to get a unique sound out of it.  For others it means dropping their B string down to an A and exploring an entirely new way of tuning the guitar and learning music theory for that tuning all over again.  When you take a step off the beaten path and start playing around in unfamiliar territory on the guitar, you are undoubtedly going to run into a plethora of roadblocks along the way.  You might learn a new cool sounding chord, but have no idea how to use it in conjunction with other chords.  In fact, you might even find yourself on a college campus flipping through old music theory books or talking it over with some professor in his 60’s who has an expertise in jazz.  And that’s just to get a grip on what you have discovered and to find a few useful ways to apply it.  But, the key to exploration is to learn for the purpose of developing something new and fresh to add to your playing style to escape sounding average.

  By focusing on these five areas, you will develop a much deeper relationship with your guitar than you started out with.  These areas help you to identify what it is your guitar is capable of and more importantly what it is capable of in your hands.  So, I hope this has helped to shed some light on how one becomes the guitar player they want to be.

  No matter how hard the RIA tries to put an end to online music piracy, the truth is that the RIA has accomplished nothing.  Internet piracy is just a symptom of a more serious problem.  That more serious problem is that technology itself has advanced to the point where the RIA and the courts can not keep up with the overwhelming number of violations happening every second of every day.  Any child can take a CD, put it in their computer, copy it, and distribute it to hundreds of thousands of people across the Internet in the matter of seconds.  The hope of the RIA and the courts is that if they make examples of enough people at the hands of the law, then maybe people will be scared enough to stop pirating music online.  Yeah, fat chance!  All that is doing is provoking people to pirate music more and more out of spite.  The bottom line is that the average person does not like it when an organization like the RIA leans on the court system in an attempt to bully people with the law.  And the simple fact is that there are just not enough resources available to keep the problem at bay.

  Technology messes with the industry in other key ways.  In past decades, it used to be that you had to trade in your records for 8-Track tapes, your 8-Track tapes for cassettes, and your Cassettes for CD’s.  The music industry was able to rake in billions every time you shelled out hundreds of dollars to rebuy your music library on the latest storage devices.  Now, with everything digital and the ability to store thousands of songs on one or two high memory capacity storage devices cheaply, the need to purchase your music library over and over again every decade or so is simply no longer necessary.

  To make matters worse, many bands do their own recording, mixing, mastering, and out source labeling and packaging for pennies on the dollar.  Thus making major studios and recording labels more and more irrelevant with every passing day.  Then many of these bands give their CD’s away for free, making it harder for established major label bands to sell their music at the high prices they got by on just a few years ago.  It is our easy access to highly useful technology that has made all this possible.  Unfortunately, it is this same technology that is making the business model the music industry has relied on in previous decades as obsolete as black and white television.

  Whether you realize it or not, you are a lab rat in a sick human experiment being conducted by the Monsanto and other like minded companies.  For years, Monsanto and friends have been tampering with the food supply.  A little genetic modification here and a little genetic modification there, and before you know it, even congress is playing along.  all at your expense!  GMO is the modern cyanide in the Cool Ade, intentionally forced into the food supply, and the end result is that we are rapidly approaching a health care crisis unlike anything this planet has ever experienced before.

  The question is how much tampering with the food supply can the human race truly endure before the population really starts dying off in droves?  By the time Monsanto figures that out, it will probably be too late to reverse the damage they have done to our food supply.  I mean, how does one unravel the genetic mess they have introduced into the food supply?  Was their original goal to try to make the population of entire regions genetically sterile, thus forcing a reduction in population growth in key areas around the globe?  Or, is their goal to simply make us sick and dependent with hideous genetically induced disease, so that the pharmaceutical companies can make billions off the suffering they engineer into the populace as we slowly die off?  Whatever their agenda happens to be, I don’t buy for one second that their intentions are good.

  Companies that tamper with the global food supply simply do not have the right to risk the lives of people on such a mass scale like that.  If something goes wrong, the degree of genocide that could potentially result would be unmatched even by the likes of Hitler.  Companies who tamper with the global food supply are doing nothing short of waging war on the human race itself.  And our useless government refuses to protect us from the likes of such depraved organizations.  If we do not act now and put an end to this insanity, our children will also suffer the consequences as a result of our negligence.  If Monsanto wants to tamper with the food supply, let them and their children eat their abominable GMO products.  It’s time to say no to GMO!

  DISCLAIMER: Corey is a huge conspiracy nut who spends most of his time locked away in a padded room babbling about the fictitious monsters under his bed when he was a little child.  We encourage you to be cautious and to not believe anything he says, unless you already know what he is saying to be true.  Corey is not a genetic engineer, nor is he a medical professional, and his words have not been evaluated by the FDA, the AMA, or any of the incarnations of Doctor Who.  But, despite all that, this GMO crap really needs to stop before someone gets hurt.

  To be a true shredder, you have to understand the whole concept of arpeggios and sweep picking.  And, there is always the fact that sweeping arpeggios sound awesome.  This first video that I include below, draws on your knowledge of diatonic progressions.  And even though Siggi may not be as smooth as many other guitar teachers, I think the ideas he is demonstrating in his video are quite useful for those trying to break into the whole arpeggio domain.

SIGGI MERTENS: ARPEGGIOS

  Okay, that chord that Siggi was struggling to identify is actually a minor 7 flat 5 chord, or otherwise known as a half diminished chord in the diatonic progression.   Remember, the diatonic progression is

Major 7th, minor 7th, minor 7th, Major 7th, Dominant, minor 7th, and minor 7th/flat 5

  As a guitar player, you want to be extremely familiar with this progression, and Siggi’s incorporating this in his lesson on arpeggios is a great way to reinforce the study of the diatonic progression.

  To clean up your arpeggios, it is a good idea to use a metronome to help slow things down and gradually build your playing back up to speed over time.  So, if you do not own a metronome, I highly recommend picking one up.  Using a metronome can take months and even years of frustration out of your playing, because it helps you to execute exercises properly in time.
  This next video by Tom Hess is far more advanced than the last, in that it aims to focus in on how to approach sweeping a specific arpeggio.  Tom stresses the importance of paying attention to what your picking hand is doing as he walks you through this superb exercise.

TOM HESS: SWEEP PICKING GUITAR MASTER CLASS

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