Mimi Fox and Martin Taylor at the Freight

It's one of those special weekend that I went to back-to-back awesome concerts. I'm writing about the 2nd one first. As a student of jazz guitar, this one featuring Mimi Fox and Martin Taylor is a must-see. Both of them are not only great performers but also teachers (Here are links to one of Mimi Fox's book and Martin Taylor's online school) Living in the Bay Area, I'm fortunate enough to go to Mimi Fox's concerts quite a few time (even a free performance at Stanford Shopping Center. I also remember very well the jazz organ fellowship gala that featured her as the guest. Mimi Fox lives in the Bay Area. As an aside: this year's gala will feature the amazing organist Tony Monaco playing at Stanford University!) About the famed European jazz master Martin Taylor, I actually first heard of him from my days as a devoted audiophile 15 years ago (Still am but spent less though) He recorded for Linn, the company known for high-end audio equipment. I got more familiar with his music after I was invited to join his online school. (Long story: one of the early success in online jazz instruction was Jimmy Bruno's Guitar Institute. I was a student there and learned quite a lot from Mr. Bruno. See my prior posts on this topic. Sadly, JB and the company who built the site parted way and the latter found Martin Taylor as sort-of "the replacement teacher") I went through his introductory video on the idea of utilizing the 10th (one octave above the 3rd. This was the first time I heard of such idea. (Here's a link to an interview of him on YouTube in which he explained it. I didn't end up joining though. I've never seen him performed live until today. This is one of the concerts that could sell itself simply because of the names on the bill. When I saw these 2 names, I didn't even bother to check if they are accompanied by a group or just playing with each other or solo, I knew no matter what it's gonna be awesome and I was right!

The set started with Mimi Fox playing solo guitar. I've listened to her latest album so I knew what to expect but still it's much better watching her live. It's cool to watch her right-hand technique: hybrid picking with a pick and also the ring finger. Sometimes she would hide her pick and use the thumb to play bass lines on the 6th string while hitting other strings with the middle finger for harmonics. She played mostly her Heritage archtop (I'm familiar with Heritage because Alex Skolnick of Testament also plays Heritage. HK's Tom Lee TST Showroom has a Heritage archtop) and also a flattop acoustic with a vintage/custom look, which is not a common choice for jazzers) She played "500 Miles High" (a Chick Corea tune and also a hint for the other concert I went to :P) on it. Other memorable pieces included Wes Montgomery's "Four on Six", "Moonlight in Vermont" and Beatle's "She's Leaving Home" from Sgt. Pepper.

Then came Martin Taylor. His style was quite different from Mimi Fox. His playing was more "densed" than Mimi Fox, meaning he played more chords (using the "latin" fingerstyle patterns taught in Berklee Chord 201!) and had a heavier emphasis on the rhythm parts. This video of him (from his younger days) explained it well:

In fact, he did play "I Got Rhythm" last night! I didn't just enjoy the music but also learned a great deal. I think I get a better understanding of his "scaffolding with the 10th" idea watching him demonstrating it in person moving up and down the guitar neck. It seems quite straightforward to apply too: if you could play the chords of a tune in drop-2/drop-3, the thirds (or the 10ths) would be quite obvious on the neck. He made melodies out of these quite a bit. Another idea I saw him using was embellishing the original melody, like what he did with "Georgia on My Mind." Coincidentally, it's the same idea Mimi Fox taught in the book I linked to above! Of course there are a lot more to learn from Mimi Fox's performance too, like her repeat usages of sequences against different chords in the progression (taught in Berklee Jazz 201 Week 3)

Finally, they jammed together on "Blue Bossa" (a must-learn tune for any jazz guitarist. In fact, it's the 2nd tune to improv on at JB's old guitar institute. I wonder if it's still the same for his current school!) and then "Blues for Two" written by Fox (can you believe the topic of this week's class at Berklee's Jazz 201 is blues? Yes, they did substitute quite a few chords of the basic 12-bar blues form!) I actually like Martin Taylor's playing more in this setting where he played more single-note lines while Mimi Fox was comping.

So I skipped my normal practice time to go to this concert and it's totally worthwhile! (And hopefully I would win the drawing I entered for the Peerless Martin Taylor signature model Virtuoso archtop guitar that is being given away! He played the same model last night.)

我的結他雜記: Wrong note?

The worst fear in me regarding improvisation is playing wrong notes. I spent a lot of time learning what scale/lick works with which chord. I worried about playing them wrong. Oh well, are wrong notes that bad? I bet everyone has tried correcting a wrong note by playing the right note next and found that the end result didn't sound that bad. In fact, the great bassist and teacher Victor Wooten said something really simple but may not be obvious: "You are never more than a half-step away from the right note!" Check out this video in which he explained:
And in this video he actually played a solo using all wrong notes and sounded good!

我的結他雜記: Decoding KORG

I have been using my KORG Pandora PX5D for years with the presets only but I've decided to really look into its amp modelling capability. It used a bunch of cryptic names. I guess it's because KORG doesn't want to pay the original manufacturers the right to use their trademarks.

This is what I was able to guess and google:

• TWD1X12 1x12” guitar combo covered in tweed cloth, should be Fender Tweed Deluxe
• TWD4X10 4x10 guitar combo but designed for bass guitar, should be Fender Bassman
• BLK2X12 2x12 guitar combo indispensable for country or blues players, could be Fender Twin Reverb
• UKBLUES UK-manufactured vintage stack guitar amp head, could be Marshall 1962 Bluesbreaker
• US HI-G 100 W guitar amp head covered in snake skin from 1991, could be Mesa Boogie Mark IV.
• US MDN High-gain guitar amp with an eye-catching metal plate, could be Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier

Geek to Guitar Hero

The title doesn't referred to me, of course, but the great guitarist Alex Skolnick, best known for playing lead in the thrash metal pioneer Testament. This is actually the title of his recently published memoir. In general I don't read much biography but I did read a few about musicians, including Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix (I still remember I had to kill time while waiting for female classmates at the library so I picked up Miles' biography) This is a little different because Skolnick is still alive and wrote the whole thing by himself. Testament is one of my all-time favourite band. I "discovered" them after listening to Metallica and Slayer and magazines raved about them being a thrash metal band of the same caliber. Their album at the time was "Souls of Black" and I was immediately hooked and bought their prior and subsequent releases. Alex Skolnick's unique style of guitar solo was one of the reasons I'm attracted to their music. And I subscribed to his Facebook page, on which he promoted his book. I wanted to read about the beginnings of his band and his guitar study and the book certainly didn't disappoint.

The book basically covered his childhood (not a very happy one because he didn't fit in with his family and school) to present, primarily focusing on his experiences from his first stint with Testament. I felt somewhat connected to his stories because he grew up in the SF bay area (Berkeley) He mentioned a lot of local places (e.g. Yoshi's!) and bands that I'm familiar with.

There are quite a few episodes that I found most interesting from this book:
When Alex asked for advices from his guitar teacher Joe Satriani whether he should join Legacy (renamed to Testament later because the name was taken already), Satch encouraged him to just play like himself. So he decided to bring the standards of the best hard rock guitarist that inspired his playing to thrash metal, which he initially didn't think his style would fit in. And he did it!

Even though I think "Souls of Black" is an ass-kicking album (may not be as good as "Practice What You Preached" but close), Alex didn't like it that much. He revealed that they did the album just to get enough money from the record company to support their touring. And he thought it's a step back from "Practice" that they should not have made. Rushing to do "Souls" might have cost them the opportunity to become as successful as the "Big 4" (of thrash metal: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax) In fact, according to Alex, the band wasn't as successful as I imagined. They played in a lot of small clubs after their heydays of playing in big arenas, mostly opening for the biggest names in metal. Now I remember going to one of Testament's concert at a small SF venue called Trocadero Transfer in mid-90s. They certainly made less money than I thought. Alex mentioned few guys from the scene were able to afford buying houses in the bay area. You see sports car in rock music videos a lot but he was no where close to buying his dream Ferrari. After his Pontiac Firebird was stolen, he drove a Corolla instead and sang high praises for it! My experiences with cars is a parallel to his: going from a sports car to a compact car that is also based on Corolla :P

His book mentioned a few lesser-known but great jazz guitarist: like Lenny Breau and Tuck Andress (p.286) I first learned about Lenny Breau while driving in Toronto and listened to its local jazz radio station several years ago. His style was so fascinating that I had to look him up on internet once I got to my sis' place.

Alex wrote some of Testament's early songs using the less-common scale (actually, mode) Mixolydian b2 b6, taught by Satriani earlier. I learned this from Berklee and they call it Mixolydian b9 b13 (b9 is the same as b2 and b13=b6) and wrote a post about its fingering here.

He mentioned there was a song for which he came up with a rhythm guitar part that both he and the other guitarist in the band (Eric) couldn't play well and the producer almost hired a session player for the recording!

A few more things we have in common: we both enjoy the writing of Haruki Murakami. Alex quoted Murakami in his book. We both disliked the disappearance of guitar solo from metal during the grunge era. It's one thing to have your own style that doesn't rely on guitar solo. It's another to imitate bands that don't have guitar solo because you can't pull it off anyway. We both moved to New York, even though in my case, it was just a year but there's no better place for a jazz guy than NYC.

His book actually didn't say much about what happened after he left Testament. I found out he recorded quite a bit of music, for example, with violinist Joe Deninzon on an album titled "The Adventures Of Stratospheerius", and formed the fusion band Attention Deficit that released 2 albums.

I wish he wrote a bit more about his days at Newschool studying jazz but he was living a low-profile life then and may not have much interesting stories for most readers. Nevertheless, it's a fun read. Highly recommended!

Live music = Excitement!

Took a break from live music because of holidays and my trip back home (other than jamming with friends) but resumed last month as soon as I was back. The SFJAZZ center, the first one dedicated to jazz in US, opened last month. Too bad I have yet to visit it or attended any concert from the opening week and after :( On that 1/25 and 1/26 weekend, there were actually several appealing concerts, including the ones at SFJAZZ, the International guitar night (featuring the great guitarist and educator Martin Taylor) but I had to pick the one by Joe Lovano US Five. Saxophonist Joe Lovano is THE most prominent jazz musician today IMO. His new releases of recent years have all been exciting: with new compositions and young players, including the charming bassist (who also sings vocal with her own group but not US Five) Esperanza Spalding and an unusual duo of drummers. Check out these video:

Why two drummers? I brought it up with my drummer buddy and he wasn't impressed but a NPR blog post has a deep discussion on this very topic.

I consider Testament my favorite band (ranked about the same as Pink Floyd and the Beatles) and I've been to many of their concerts since 1991, about every other year except during the time that their vocalist Chuck Billy had health issue and the band was inactive. I felt guilty when I was on the fence knowing they would play in SF, the opening night of their tour promoting 2012's hugely successful album "Dark Roots of the Earth." (Man, I'm becoming an old man, or my "old man :P" not wanting to pay extra fee, to LiveNation and long/late/costly drive/parking......) I checked LiveNation the night before and tickets were still available so I took a gamble and decided to buy ticket at the door and fortunately I was able to (also found free street parking) Kinda felt bad 'coz Testament should have sold out the show in their home town. I was able to get in early enough to hear the first opener, a local band called the Butlers. Their style is more hard rock/glam than thrash. They played some covers but was quite enjoyable overall. And they've got some friends from local metal bands played as guest on stage with them. The metal brotherhood rocks man! The 2nd opener was Australian band 4ARM. While the vocal is metalcore-ish, I definitely hear thrash metal roots in their guitar playing. Their lead guitarist Johnny Glovasa could shred! And his Ibanez XPT sounded and looked totally awesome. Next was long time thrash metaller Overkill. I don't know why but this band deserved to be much bigger than what they already are after thrashing hard for 20+ years. Their lead vocalist Bobby Blitz has one of the most devilish voice in my opinion. And D.D. Verni was THE bassist I wanted to sound like if I play thrash. Listen to his bass on "Nothing to Die For" on the album "The Years of Decay" and you'll know why. This album ranked high on my list of great metal albums. I screamed the loudest when they played "Elimination" from that album (yeah, that's where I learn the word from in late 80s) Finally, Testament came on stage. I kinda worried about their guitarist Alex Skolnick 'coz he posted pictures of the cold med he had to take before the show. Well, when the spotlight is on, he played (and sang backing vocal) like his usual great self. Since it's for promoting the new album, they played a lot from it, which were all great songs on par with their classic albums. What a show! I was glad that I didn't miss it.

For a fan of jazz and Chinese music like me, Ultra World-Xtet's music combined the best of both worlds! I decided I had to go to their concert after watching Gary Schwantes' solo on YouTube. He is the band leader (saxophonist and dizi player) I've never seen a Westerner playing dizi, the Chinese flute, which was also the first instrument I seriously trying to learn. The rest of the group played drums, bass, guzheng and yangqin, respectively. Some might imagine the awkwardness of fitting the sound of Chinese instrument to jazz music but there was none. It sounded very natural, like they are supposed to be played together. I found both guzheng and yangqin players to be masters in playing Chinese music on their instrument but at the same time adopted quite a bit of improvisation skills from jazz. The encore was the Chinese-new-year-of-Snake-appropriate "Golden Snake Dance." (Yeah, everyone who played Chinese music have learned it)

我的結他雜記:Improvisation with arpeggios

In addition to practicing licks, arpeggios are also part of my daily routine. I understand their importance. The million dollar question in my mind has been: how am I supposed to apply them during improvisation? I've recently come across two helpful resources:

- Making Music from Arpeggios: a free lesson written by Will Kriski

- 25 Major ii-V-I licks for Jazz Guitar: an e-book written by Joseph Alexander. Even though all are 3-4 bar licks, the author made it quite clear how the notes came from arpeggios.

我的結他雜記: Chordal Pattern System

I just watched this video about a system for learning jazz guitar:

The reason I mentioned this is I think it is related to my current studies: (1) the "old-school" way of Robert Conti who taught licks, complete solo as well as the underlying rationale/tricks. For example, it mentioned the "move up 3 frets" trick taught by Conti. And (2) the theory-centric way of Berklee from which I'm taking a class on chords (not just 4-note 7th chord but a lot of triads too)

I am reading his blog.

A Day full of Jazz

I listen to a fair amount of music everyday but this day was special. First of all, I read about the bad news of jazz great, pianist Dave Brubeck passing away, one day before his 92nd birthday, via none other than the Facebook feed of classical radio station KDFC! The Dave Brubeck Quartet's original, "Take Five", was considered as the most well-known jazz tune ever. Jazz station KCSM played an interview of him after work. I learned quite a few things from the 10 minutes I listened to it: 1) at one time he had a bad relationship with Paul Desmond, the then-future saxophonist of his quartet who would compose "Take Five."  2) they started the trend of jazz musicians playing concerts at colleges which were more accessible to students because of less expensive tickets and the need to drive or take a bus. I was a beneficiary of this myself: one of the very first jazz shows I attended was at the student union at UT: a Stanley Jordan solo performance. Later that night I listened to the radio show Piano jazz hosted by Marian McPartland on KCSM with guitarist Russell Malone. He talked about the first time he played on stage with Jimmy Smith. He tried to show off his skills but got a lesson from Smith, which was very interesting. Malone offered some advices during the show as well: he suggested instrumentalists to learn tunes by listening to vocalist and paying attention to lyrics for phrasing and interpretation. That was during my drive to Yoshi's to see veteran guitarist Lee Ritenour and his special guest Mike Stern. I am kinda familiar with Stern's fusion style and "signature" sound (on a Fender Telecaster) through previous live performances and his albums. I have listened to Ritenour's playing on the "smooth jazz supergroup" Fourplay (which has its fair shares of criticism for playing it safe) as well as his "6 String Theory" album that featured an "all-star" lineup of guest guitarists. He played 3 different guitars during the show: a Yamaha "Silent" nylon string guitar (for acoustic tunes), a Gibson L5 Archtop (for traditional jazz) and a Les Paul (for rock/fusion). Obviously there were lots of variety during the show. They played quite a few songs from Ritenour's new album called "Rhythm Sessions", which featured several different rhythm sessions (bass/drums). I can't believe the full listing of songs and personnel is so hard to find though! I listened to the whole album on Rhapsody and it is quite enjoyable.

Is Smooth Jazz Dead?

I didn't come up with the title. I simply took it from an article in the JazzTimes magazine (discussed here on the Saxophone music forum.) I am really surprised that a type of music that is trying to please everyone and offend no one could go downhill like this [link1, link2] (I was equally surprised when the radio station KKSF dropped the smooth jazz format) I guess the moral of the story is that musicians just need to be themselves and play without worrying about offending or pleasing some audiences. Good players will always find way to be heard, with the smooth jazz moniker or not. (Look at David Sanborn) On the other hand, less talented folks who rode on coattails of others won't last long.

Electric blues compilation

I have been a big fan of electric blues since the first time I listened to SRV years ago. Just read about a new 12-CD compilation from the Guitar Player magazine. I was in the mood for some blues and listened to some Lightnin' Hopkins 2 weeks ago. What a coincidence!

我的結他雜記: The Pentatonic Jazz improvisation system

Check out this video for a good demo of the system:
I came across it from this forum post. Following this system, you won't play any note that doesn't "go along" with the harmony. His fingering is always 2 notes per string, which is "classic" pentatonic fingering. His system has many many fingerings though. Some also said jazz was about playing the "wrong notes" On the other hand, it has a lot of appeal to players like me who are unable to improvise at all with so many note and scale choices. He used only 1 fingering (moved for different keys) in the above demo and it sounds pretty good already.

Current landscape of cloud music service

Yes, I intentionally made the title sounded like some sort of research/report from the likes of Gartner. Well, it was 5 years ago last time I wrote a related post. The buzzword "cloud" wasn't as big back then and the industry still refered to streaming services like Rhapsody and Napster as "subscription" Lots have changed though between these 5 years besides of the name. I'm still a user of such service (back to Rhapsody after Yahoo Music Unlimited was shutdown in 2008) but haven't paid much attention to the health of this business until today. I've found:
1) Rhapsody was spun off by Real Network (and partner MTV Network) as an independent company (Real still owns some stakes) in 2010
2) Rhapsody celebrated its 10th anniversary, reached one million subscribers and on track to become profitable last year according to this. The growth was credited to popularities of competitors like Spotify and support on portable devices like iOS and Android tablet/phones.
3) Among the providers I mentioned in my 2007 post, only 2 remained: Rhapsody bought Napster from BestBuy last year. MTV's Urge merged with Rhapsody in 2007. Microsoft's Zune Pass will become Xbox Music soon. And I already mentioned Yahoo shutdown its service in 2008.

Lots of techie disliked Real Network because of its practices (Real Player installations related) in the early dot-com days so I guess not longer associating with it is a good thing for Rhapsody to some potential customers. It seemed quite amazing to me that a business could survive for 10 years while struggling with profitability. It is also surprising that the appearance of a heavily hyped upstart like Spotify actually revitalize the whole sector ("grown the cake" if you will) and benefited "old timers" in the sector like Rhapsody. Hey, anything that's associated with "the cloud" is cool, especially after Apple created iCloud, isn't it? I guess it showed that Rhapsody was way ahead (9+ years) of its time. I certainly would not blame its lack of success on its technology. Not sure how many people knew and remembered the whole saga of Harmony DRM back in 2004 (BTW, finally a class action lawsuit was filed against Apple recently). Rhapsody created Harmony so that their tracks (purchased by user only, not the subscription ones) could play on iPod. Of course, Apple being Apple wouldn't allow this to happen and patched this "loophole" during the next release of firmware. At that point I thought Rhapsody could make a great move by releasing its own iPod firmware that works with both purchased and subscription tracks! (They don't even have to do it officially. Just leak it and claimed it's a hack by the user community!) Well, things come full circle when Apple finally approved Rhapsody's iOS app years later, which works for both types of tracks. IIn fact, the app was another boost to Rhapsody's growth. Looks like this industry is in good shape and we could all go back to enjoying great music.

我的結他雜記: 即興道

這不是甚麼新興武術，而是一個爵士即興教材的名字，我是從討論區這個帖得知。練習方法就是聽一個jazz lick（旋律），彈出來，然後按cycle of 4th把該lick轉足十二個key彈出來，教材包括伴奏的CD。可以想像得到，要練成跟到伴奏，必有一定功力；值得考慮試試。

It runs in the family

Listened to a bunch of "new" jazz music last weekend (some of them are released recently while others are just discovered by me) The common and interesting theme is that all of them comes from musical families. The first CD is "Spirit Fiction" by saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, whose father is one of the most important musician in the history of jazz, as most people already know, the late great John Coltrane. John Coltrane died when Ravi was 2 and obviously didn't gave him any input in terms of music directly (On the other hand, every jazz player must have been influenced by John Coltrane one way or the other) Ravi has his unique sound and this CD is one of the his best. The 2nd CD is "Colombe" by guitarist David Reinhardt. Again, he has an instantly recognizable last name from his grandfather, the legendary Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. David also doesn't sound like his grandpa. He plays in a organ trio setting on this CD. The next musician, saxophonist Von Freeman, is different in the sense that I've actually listened to his son, Chico Freeman, before I listened to him. Finally, I discovered a CD by jazz ukulele player Lyle Ritz, "A Night of Ukulele jazz/Live at McCabe's," on which his daughter Emily has also performed.

Find Yourself

It's a track from the album "Disney Jazz Volume 1: Everybody Wants to be a cat" from 2011 that I just "discovered" today. My favorite jazz violinist Regina Carter performed this track:


You could hear a harp-like instrument on the track. It's kora from Africa performed by master Yacouba Sissoko, who also collaborated with Carter on her earlier release, Reverse Thread.

The whole album featured an all-star lineup with players like Dave Brubeck, Roy Hargrove etc. Highly recommended. Here is an insightful review.

BTW, the original song is from the final credits of the movie "Cars" I watched it many times with my son when he was younger but I've never noticed the song. Nice song (of course I like Carter's version better):

我的結他雜記: Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing

Just came across a forum thread/study group on the MI book "Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing" The scale and arpeggio fingering patterns look familiar (CAGED based, also similar to the ones taught by Jimmy Bruno) I plan to look into the application of these patterns later in the book. The book has chapters/exercises of "connecting games", which I think has to do with connecting arpeggios during chord changes and should be very useful.

我的結他雜記: Robert Conti interview

Just came across a very interesting article reprinted from the Just Jazz Guitar magazine from 2002. It's an interview of jazz guitarist/educator Robert Conti, from whose DVDs and books I've learned a ton. He talked about his days hanging out with the great Pat Martino, and even more interesting was the business side of being a professional performer at hotels and similar venues.

Pat Metheny

我最喜愛的爵士結他手及學習對象包括Pat Martino及Jimmy Bruno，Pat Metheny不在其中；但作為這個年代影響力極深、唱片銷路甚佳的結他手，他的concert對我還是很具吸引力，但對上一次看他竟然是十年前在Oakland Paramount Theater。Pat Metheny成名四十年，記得廿幾年前聽香港電台的爵士節目（不知現在還有沒有？），常常介紹Pat Metheny Group，Chick Corea及Miles Davis等等，他們到港演出均是盛事。雖然不是所有他玩的風格我都喜歡，但我欣賞他夠多元化：Pat Metheny Group玩的我認為New Age感强烈，和他的Trio/Quartet的現代爵士感覺相當不同。今次他的Unity Band風格是後者，對我來說比較啱聽；事實上色士風手Chris Potter有獨當一面之能，我一向十分欣賞，所以今次非去不可，US$55在SF算是十分貴，但連星期三晚八點場門票也早已售罄，我預先買了十點的票，早廿分鐘開始排隊，排了半小時才能進場，前面那位阿叔和我一樣頗為不滿，不過一開場這些立即拋諸腦後。打頭陣的是Pat Metheny用他那支「奇門兵器」4頸42弦Pikasso acoustic guitar獨奏，在他手中效果尤如一隊樂隊，當世不知有幾人能彈得到？接著樂隊四人full team登場，是唱片原班人馬，在西岸也是罕見，即使是名氣不下Pat Metheny的頂級樂手，很多都找加州本地樂手伴奏。演出的有來自新碟的新作，也有Metheny膾炙人口的作品，現場即興氣氛特別熾烈。最後十五分鐘拉下了兩塊神秘布幕，原來大有乾坤：蓋著的是幾組Orchestrion：靠吹打發聲的機器，由Metheny透過結他來控制，再加上looper（可錄下一段聲音重覆播放），效果相當豐富，只是長了一點難免有些許冷場。總的來說是十分精彩多變的演出，自然encore連連，Pat Metheny最後彈的是意外驚喜：去年acoustic guitar獨奏唱片中玩過的Beatles cover "And I Love Her." 這次演出可算是總括他近年三張唱片的東西，絕對值回票價有餘。

Classical and Spanish Guitar music

Recently I'm in the mood of playing classical guitar music again because of my last "big purchase" at Amazon before it charges sales tax. One of the items I bought was "The Huge Book of Classical Guitar Solos in Tab" It has over 150 pieces. Even if I learn 10% of them, it would be a huge addition to my almost non-existent repertoire. I especially enjoy the section for Spanish guitar music, including pieces like Malaguena.

Apparently Pandora could read my mind and played:
1)
Album: 24 Preludes and Fugues, for guitar solo
Artist: Igor Rekhin (Composer), Dimitri Illarionov (Performer)

Rekhin was a student of Aram Khachaturian. Can't go wrong!

2)
Track: El Camino Real
Album: Spanish Soul
Artist: Stefan Schyga

Schyga actually teaches online. Interesting! And the name of the track should be familiar to anyone living in SF Bay Area :)

我的結他雜記: 非學院派教爵士

Berklee爵士科導師教scale及arppegio，我問有甚麼「公式」或「捷徑」可以應用它們，他說沒有捷徑，唯有練熟及多聽名家從中學習。 從該課程學到的樂理及範例，我認為是相當有幫助的基礎。另一方面，我也覺得應從其他渠道在此基礎上發展，所以我才買了Wolf Marshall的Best of Jazz Guitar(附CD，可練聽力又可學學名家lines)，及Sid Jacobs的Complete Book of Jazz Guitar Lines & Phrases；雖然Berklee導師不覺得需要這些，聽名家CD已是一大資源。

Jacobs的書有很多配合ii-V, V-I及I chord/progression的短phrases，包括很多爵士語言的典範，我正在很努力的背及練習在不同的key上應用，務求見chord可即彈。背熟彈熟之路固然還有一大段；始終覺得兩個bar轉三個chord要「背」出對應的phrases且要連貫又是另一條長路。究竟有沒有一些方法或教材針對幾個bar的chord progression彈奏長句？ 之前跟大師Jimmy Bruno學的即興方法，看的不只是一個chord而是整個key，每一個大調都有五種指法可彈該調的pitch collection。當然，這也不是甚麼公式或捷徑。

經驗中教得更加具體的，是有出教學DVD的Robert Conti老師。他的入門DVD Ticket to Improv把一首曲子的單音solo由頭到尾逐粒音記下，學生只需做copycat 照彈。他的理念是學爵士即興第一步就是要多彈，彈的是充滿爵士語言的完整樂句，踏出這一步之後，才去理解為甚麼要這樣彈，總之是實戰重於理論。我覺得也是值得一試，尤其是像我嚴重缺乏爵士語言遑論創造。Robert Conti進階的教材是The Jazz Lines, 基本上亦是教授一些完整樂句，多了的是如何在不同的chord之上應用，例如適用於ii chord同一條line可用在unaltered的V chord之上，這個道理以前我也學過，不過他也教了transpose後的line可用於altered的V chord之上，亦略為解釋了他的line為何配合這些chord。他教學生練的lines比較長(一般多於四個bars），應付兩個或四個bars的ii-V-I chord progression「綽綽有餘」。此外，第一課我就學了一個以前不識的彈法：以subdominant (IV chord）為基礎，即C major key彈Fmaj7 arpeggio。不能不讚的是Robert Conti教學編排頗為循步漸進，The Jazz Lines教的lines和Ticket to Improv的甚為相似，彈過後者的再練及背前者就事半功倍。（當然，可能純屬巧合，他教的當然都是他彈得最熟的lines）

十分巧合地，收到結他雜誌Guitar Player介紹網上版，其中一文The Fast track to Bebop chops打正旗號介紹爵士「公式」「捷徑」！亦提到major scale中subdominant的用法，各位不妨讀讀。

The month of metal: Suicidal Tendencies and Death

That's a funny title: Suicidal tendencies often lead to death but that's the two concerts I attended this month.

The last time (and only time) I saw S.T. was in 1991 when they toured with Queensryche and played in Austin (What an odd combination! Hardcore thrash and prog metal? I liked both bands and their performances though. Metal fans could be quite open minded to different styles) S.T. still sounded as aggressive as ever after all these 21 years and their front man, vocalist Mike Muir, is still as angry as ever. As long as there is injustice in the system, we rockers have reasons to be pissed and revolt against The Man. I always felt the power in their music but this time I also appreciated their musicianship. The guitar and bass solo were awesome.

I am surprised that I have never been one Death concert considering I've been a fan for 20 years. I jumped on the death metal bandwagon kinda early and Death was the pioneer of the genre (along with Deicide, Obituary and Morbid Angel, the Death Metal Big 4. Ironically, I've been to concerts of all Big 4 of Thrash: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax) There were many band names that contain the word "Death" (e.g. Napalm Death, Death Angel, Christian Death) but they truly deserve that one word. Granted, their main man Chuck Schuldiner (lead vocalist/guitarist) met the real grim reaper because of brain cancer (but the real cause of death could be found here. Hint: a certain greedy industry. Man, another great death metal guitarist James Murphy, who played for both Death and Testament, was also diagnosed with brain tumor, albeit a non-cancerous one. I'd better go to one of his concert when I get a chance) in 2001 but I should have been to one of their concerts before that. (I was curious and checked their past tour schedule and found one that was near where I lived back then: the Sound of Perseverance tour stop in SF's Maritime Hall on Dec 4, 1998. I guess I was mired in relationship issues then. They also played at Madision in 1995 but I guess that happened right after I left) Fortunately, 11 years after Schuldiner's death, his former bandmates teamed up for a multi-city fund raising tour that benefits fellow musicians so I got a glimpse of what Death's live performance was like (other than Death's live in Eindhoven 1998 DVD that I had) The opener was another death metal band Gorguts. I was OK impressed. I just didn't feel much developments (twists and turns) in their music. Death to All (this is the band name the collective former Death members used) got on stage at 10:30pm. They sounded just like what I expected of Death. Gotta give some credits to the sound engineer: all instruments and vocal sounded loud, clear and balanced. I could hear the solos very clearly. So glad to see Paul Masvidal on guitar. I heard him before not just on Death's album but also his own band: Cynic, a very unique and progressive sounding death metal band. And Masvidal played a Steinberger! (Me too! Well, I played its 2nd "label," the Spirit) His seemed to be a GR4 model from the "Golden days" of Steinberger and custom painted. Another great reason to see the show was legendary bassist Steve DiGiorgio who played for some of the biggest names in metal. His 6-string custom bass by Thor was great looking and sounding (Coincidentally, S.T.'s Stephen 'Thundercat' Bruner also played a 6-string bass!) The lead vocalist/guitarist Charles Elliot successfully recreated Chuck's vocal style of Death's earlier albums. Then the band switched to another group of musicians, fronted by Matt Harvey. He sung in the style of Chuck in the later albums. He was also more notably animated than Elliot and reminded me of the late great Ronnie James Dio and Bruce Dickinson. Both frontmen of Death to All are great vocalists/guitarists. This tour certainly gave more visibility and exposure to their own bands (Abysmal Dawn/Bereft and Exhumed) I wish all of them great success.

Last but not least, Chuck Schuldiner rules! He may be with Death but his music of Death will live on forever.

我的結他雜記: Berklee Jazz 101後感

期待已久的爵士結他101課程已於上月完成，十二堂教得最多的是chord scale theory，即各種和jazz chord progressions有關的scales, arpeggios, approach notes等等。這些基礎知識算是學會，但要應用在即興solo，感覺和上了四堂後寫的一樣:前路漫漫，單單是見chord彈到arpeggios已不容易，再加上彈對應的scale是難上加難，遑論由root以外的chord tone開始再由chord tone結束樂句，即使勉强預先寫下彈出以上，導師的評語是：彈的音是正確但無爵士語言(not using jazz language)

不過，與其沮喪下去，倒不如對症下藥，第一步是調整心態：原本以為上完101我應做到低層次的即興solo；但想深一層，爵士即興就是難，學了一兩年(Bruno + Berklee)而做不到，也不太過差勁。記起大學時代讀完各科的101，也僅是略懂皮毛矣。以我的能力，短期內求成有點不設實際；目標已重定為五年甚至十年，就算還是失敗亦無悔。

第二，要持續練基本功，做到見chord即彈到arpeggios，再加上對應的scale及approach notes，並由root以外的chord tone開始上行及下行。我的信念是：這些唯有多做才會上心上手，別無他法。經過數個月，我找root note已比以前進步，希望假以時日，其他也能做到。

第三，要吸收爵士語言，每天都要聽一段名家solo抄下來(transcription)；以及試彈一些名家常用樂句(licks) 前者用Wolf Marshall的Best of Jazz Guitar一書(附CD)；後者則用Sid Jacobs的Complete Book of Jazz Guitar Lines & Phrases

即興尚未成功，鄙人還須努力！

我的結他雜記：Acoustic Blues - Rock Me Babe

In the mood of learning more blues, especially after watching James Cotton last night. Here is the tab. Also found a few links ([1], [2]) for slide guitar instructions

Grisha Goryachev and Jérôme Mouffe

There were 2 concerts I'd like to go to in SF at the same time last Sat. SFJAZZ had a salute to jazz harmonica master Toots Thielman while Omni Foundation had a classical/flamenco guitar one. I am a big fan of the 2 instruments and 3 styles. They are not performed very often, even in a big city like SF. Traditionally, singing and dancing were both way more important than guitar playing in flamenco performances until several great guitar virtuosos raised the bar during last century. Since then a lot of guitarists have incorporated some elements of flamenco, i.e., the so-called "Nuevo Flamenco" style. I enjoy this style a lot too and have seen key players like Ottmar Liebert, Jesse Cook, Strunz and Farah played live but this was the first time I got a chance to see traditional flamenco guitar performance so I chose it over the SFJAZZ one.

The concert began with Grisha Goryachev and Jérôme Mouffe playing several duets, including an arrangement of a piece by Falla. Then Mouffe played several classical solo pieces to conclude the first half. The 2nd half featured Grisha Goryachev playing flamenco pieces by Paco de Lucia and Sabicas (he had recorded a CD of the latter's work) I enjoyed both halves a lot. It's about elegance and emotions. Another thing I like was that they didn't just "rehash" the typical guitar repetoire but try arrangements that you don't hear often.

BTW, the SFJAZZ concert was actually in the same building, Herbst Theatre. Originally the concert featured Toots Thielman himself but he was sick. That's why it became a salute concert. Hope he get well soon!

我的結他雜記：reuse 5 major scale fingerings for harmonic minor

The 5 shapes taught by Jimmy Bruno have been very valuable to my playing of not just major scale but also arppegios (major 7, minor 7, dom 7, min7b5 ) Even for minor (aeolian) scale,  it's just the matter of finding the relative major. However, playing mixolydian b9 b13 scale (or 5th mode of harmonic minor ), it requires more thinking. For example, to play the scale over G7b9b13, consider we are raising the 7th (Bb to B) of the C minor scale, which has Eb major as its relative.  So,  with G as the root,  it's basically playing the major scale 2 whole step down but start with G and raise the b3 to 3rd (i.e. Bb to B)

我的結他雜記：swinging 8th notes in jazz

When I started the Berklee jazz class, the first forum post by our instructor was about how to swing 8th notes. Actually, the first thing he mentioned was how NOT to swing 8th notes. The common way of treating them like tripplets with the middle missing usually ended up with choppy sounding dotted 8th plus 16th note, which is OK for other styles but not jazz. For jazz, the 8th note should be played evenly (same duration) Here's another good explanation I found on the web. His suggestion is the same as our instructor: it's better to play even 8th note slightly behind the beat (i.e., the 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &) even if it is not the ideal or "perfect" swing. It works out great for me because of my inability to stay ON the beat. I mean, I'm usually behind anyway. Our instructor thought I did that intentionally and liked it!

Also check out what renowned jazz saxophonist David Liebman said about the same topic.

我的結他雜記: Berklee Jazz 101

在Berklee今個學期終於上期待已久的主修課堂:爵士結他101。短短一個月(即四堂)所教的內容可謂十分緊湊，目標就是在chord progression伴奏下，彈單音solo lines。第一堂練chord tones( root, 3rd, 7th)，要彈不是最低那個八度，主要練第五把DGBE 弦上的音。接著三堂分別是練maj 7, min 7, dom 7的arpeggios, approach 。其實和Jimmy Bruno 教的差不多，只不過用較多的樂理名詞概念來解釋，亦提供大量練習曲，包括比較『抽象』純為練熟chord tones/ approach notes 的，也有一些jazzy licks可『即抄即用』的;這些都是Bruno 所無的。當然，Bruno的宗旨是no nonsense, 所以樂理名詞可免則免了。至於範例，Bruno 的網站包括學生上載彈奏及他回應的短片（我只用過他的舊教學網，不知新的是否如此），跟片學彈是學習過程一部份，只是沒有譜可跟而已，其實也是練聽力的好機會。

目前最大的難題倒是和跟Bruno 學時一樣，就是未能把這些chord tones/ approach notes 組成jazzy 樂句。問過Berklee 的老師，他說是沒有公式可跟的，他能教的只是『工具』，必須練熟這些工具，熟到即可應用，再加上多聽多抄(transcribe)，累積咁上下經驗，才能即興solo。以前Bruno 也只是叫我多點跟片學彈 。總括他們所言就是:前路漫漫，連Berklee 也無必『掂』秘技可授，實在有點沮喪，恐怕彈爵士此夢難圓。

無論如何，今日我在Berklee勉強能跟得上進度，當年跟Bruno學的5 shapes 居功至偉。5 shapes 其實就是由CAGED 五個open chord 衍生出的五個major scale fingering patterns 。從中可以『抽出』I ii V chord ( maj 7, min 7, dom 7 )的arpeggio fingerings，在結他頸上任何一處都可彈以上任何一種arppegio，並即知對應的major scale，再由此可彈major scale 的modes 。(雖然Bruno 不主張從scale/mode 的角度思考，他教的是考慮ii-V-I整個progression的pitch collection，正正就是shape之中每一粒音）

其實Berklee和Bruno教的很多殊途同歸，例如：
1) Berklee教maj 7或min 7 chord tone可從scale中下一個（較高）音去approach。Bruno教solo時可以由低至高彈arpeggio，然後由高至低彈scale；其實這樣彈的話正包含這些scale approach tone。
2）Berklee教dom 7 arpeggio的b7音，可從root去approach；Bruno也教dom 7 arpeggio可從whole step之上去approach，b7上一個whole step正是root!（不過Berklee有教dom 7 arpeggio的3，不宜用scale tone去approach）
3）Berklee教min 7 chord伴奏時，可彈低whole step之maj 7 arpeggio來solo，就是dorian sound。這個maj 7 arpeggio正是該min 7 chord的b7, 9, 11, 13音。Bruno一直教I ii V任何一個arpeggio都和整個progression夾，無需刻意I arpeggio配對I chord，也是這個道理。

上過這些課，想起十二年前買Herb Ellis《All the shapes you are 》一書，教的其實也是這些道理：練熟ii-V-I progression的arpeggios及scale tones，聽熟他示範配合數十個chords的licks。書中介紹了多個fingerings，他稱之為major scales, minor scales及dominant scales，其實和Bruno教的fingerings同出一轍。不過名字就有少少誤導：他的minor scale fingerings其實是dorian mode而非minor scale一般指的aeolian mode（他用minor一詞是指配合ii min 7 chord吧）；而dominant scales當然就是mixolydian mode。Ellis的建議是認熟每一個fingering對應的chord形（他也叫這做shape，但此shape不同Bruno教的5 shapes），solo時多用chord tones及approach notes。和Berklee及Bruno教的都是同一回事。唉，如果十二年前有人解釋給我聽就好了！不過其實我在08年分別請教過一位結他老師（爵士非其專長）及網上論壇，結果還是靠自己搞清楚。現在我用這本書的CD來練transcription，畢竟特地為教學示範而彈的lines比較易聽易明。

我的結他雜記: Samson Go Mic

It's a tiny USB condenser mic. I bought one since my new guitar doesn't have a pickup. When I use it with Audacity for recording purpose, I could hear the background track from the headphone out of the mic. Nice!

我的結他雜記: 買了好結他

Even though I planned to save enough money for an expensive archtop, I couldn't resist the temptation to buy a Godin 5th Avenue when it was on sale (~$450) during Thanksgiving. It's an acoustic guitar without pickup and tone control. The guitar actually sounded ideal for acoustic blues, which I'm learning a bit. 

我的結他雜記: 要買好結他

欲望真的停不了，不過想法有點改變。那是因為一張舊照片，當中有一支是向（有錢）同學借來的結他，起碼廿年歷史，上拍賣網找找，估計值US$1000有多，相信除通脹後這支結他多少也升了值。對我的啟發是，還是多儲點錢買支好少少的結他，至低限度也保值，說不定還會升值！

目前目標是老字號中檔貨色like a Gibson ES-137:
http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/ES/Gibson-Custom/ES-137-Classic.aspx

$2000 for a big brand name. It's 1 pound lighter than a Les Paul too. It's comfortable to hold (I mean the body is not huge) and the neck is comfortable to press. I also like the jazzy sound from the neck pickup. And it's not heavy. Very practical. Just wish it's more "pretty" You know, those big hollow-body archtop with tail piece look classier.

The Fender Japan Telecaster Thinline is another of my target:
http://www.fenderjapan.co.jp/tn72g-ftmh.html
Gold pickguard on white body with f-hole. Not cheesy but classy!

我的結他雜記: 購買結他欲望停不了

I found out my Steinberger Spirit got some buzz when I played barre chord for the Berklee assignments. I'm not sure if I'm pressing the fretboard with the right pressure. I think it has more to do with the low E and A strings. In fact, even if I play single notes on these 2 strings, I need to be careful. Cannot press too hard and pick too hard or it will buzz. Fortunately, the buzz is not that noticeable when I record my playing for homeworks using the Korg Pandora. I like the Pandora a lot BTW. 

Anyway, seems like I have an excuse to buy a new guitar. Looked at these 2:

http://jazztimes.com/articles/15300-peavey-jf-1-exp-guitar

http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/guitars/electric/6-string-semi-acoustic/5th-avenue-cw-kingpin-295806/review

The former is about $350 after tax while the latter is about $1000. Basically, they model after Gibson ES-335 and ES-125.

ES-335 is played by both jazz, blues or even rock guitarist. According to that review, it's good with distortion. Feedback is not a problem.

ES-125 looks more like a jazz guitar. 

好想買支正宗jazz archtop，但人生好似又點都要買支ES335 style既結他，果支Peavey係cheap野，可以慳d錢。

About buying guitar, I think if I ever visit Japan, I'll check out those vintage (70s) Japanese copy of American guitar. Ibanez and Tokai copied quite a bit of Gibson, including ES335 and ES175 back then and they were of high quality. 聽講東京御茶之水有好多二手樂器店：
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_645e03fb0100gxxw.html

To fly the guitar back home, this might be useful:

http://paulblow.tripod.com/fly_with_guitar.html

 

我的結他雜記: Dorian and Mixolydian

These are 2 very common scales (actually modes) mentioned in jazz tutorials.

There are 7 modes from a major scale. Let's say C major:

C Ionian mode (same as C major scale): C D E F G A B

D Dorian mode: D E F G A B C

G Mixolydian mode: G A B C D E F

The most common jazz chord progression is ii-V-I. So, in C major, they are

C maj 7

D min 7

G dom 7

I was often taught to improvise by playing C major (or Ionian) notes over the Cmaj7 chord

D Dorian over Dmin7 and G Mixolydian over G7.

But I was also taught to look at ii-V-I progression and the key it belongs to as a whole. Just play notes from C major over all 3. In fact, D Dorian has the same notes as C major. G Mixolydian too.

Yet another thing I learned is that playing D Dorian doesn't require learning another fingering. Just use C major fingering but start on the 2nd note instead. To play G Mixolydian, starts on the 5th note. 

On the other hand, Berklee DOES teach different fingering for Dorian and Mixolydian. To play a C Dorian, you simply change 1 of the 5 C Major fingering by lowering the 3rd and 7th. And A Mixolydian is almost the same as A Major except you lower the 7th

Back to the topic of playing jazzy, there are a few things:

1) plays 7th chord. So, if you see a I chord, play maj7 instead of maj. Play min7 for a ii chord and dominant 7th for a V chord.

2) solo over the chord tones including the 7th and sometimes plays half step below or above these chord tones.

3) swing the 1/8 notes.

4) Use our old friend the minor pentatonic scale (and blues scale). It could be played over many chord types:

http://www.jazzguitar.be/major_guitar_chords.html

http://www.jazzguitar.be/minor_guitar_chords.html

This is Your Brain on Music

想讀這本書已有一段日子，當初在Ferry Building的書店看到，就覺得人腦如何處理音樂是一個複雜而有趣的題材，不過之後一直沒有去找來看，直至兩個月前到圖書館才借下來。一讀就讀了兩個月，畢竟該書性質上接近普及科學讀物多於消閒小品，不是太容易消化。作者Dan Levitin的背景也值得一提，現時他是在大學從事神經科學研究的教授，以前他卻是一位音樂人兼錄音師！
本書前半部主要介紹音樂理論及其物理性質，後半部才是「戲肉」。首先，學玩音樂究竟先天（遺傳）影響有多大？其實本書也沒有肯定的答案，簡單來說是有；但後天亦當然重要，據研究要成為專家，一萬小時的練習少不了。這個一萬小時法則不只限於音樂，其他範疇如象棋也適用。俗語有云：台上一分鐘，台下十年功；可見中國人一向就有這個看法。
作者又提到，學音樂需要腦神經作出新的連接，在廿歲左右這個過程會大幅轉緩。音樂討論區常常有人發帖問成年人能否由零開始學音樂，很少回覆會大潑冷水，不過發帖人總要有心理準備學得慢及難學得好吧。幸好這幾代受過現代教育的人，多多少少在學校上過幾年音樂科，總不至於由零開始。
最後一章是全書高潮：探討玩音樂的能力在遺傳優勢的關係，即是影響音樂玩得好的基因是否較大機會被遺傳。再換一個角度看，就是音樂玩得好會否幫助吸引異性與之交配，你說這個是不是很重要？記得友人「神醫」曾撰文介紹美女的遺傳學理論，指出男人之所以熱切追求具備某些特徵的女性（即公認的美女），全因為那些特徵（例如對稱的面孔，豐滿的臀部）顯示該女性身體健康，繁殖下一代的能力强，因此是「播種」的理想對象！這本書的作者認為女性喜歡玩音樂的男性也是類似，除了引用達爾文支持的見解，也列出多個原因：自古以來音樂和舞蹈有密切關係，同樣需要節奏感强，而古人的舞步往往反映狩獵等求存技能的動作。至於較為近代的情況，是玩音樂屬有閒（錢及時間）階級的玩意，當然亦是女性「接種」的理想對象。我想補充一點個人見解：古人玩音樂往往自製樂器，亦突顯靈活的頭腦及雙手。該書還引用以下研究：給在排卵期（易受孕）的女性選擇以下兩種男士之一：音樂能力高但由於運氣差而貧窮者，及音樂能力低但由於運氣好而富有者；她們傾向前者，和在排卵期以外明顯不同。這個夠說服力吧！

我的結他雜記: Berklee Scale/Chord 101

顧家輝伍樂誠陳輝揚係Berklee College of Music讀過。我將會成為佢地校友，sort of。Berklee's online college is offering 爵士結他證書課程，共五個courses，盛惠~US$6400。雖然超貴（五個course合共60星期教學，人地大師網上 教jazz guitar都係US$60三個月咋）但係人生苦短，仲有命都係唔好咁計較，同埋我覺得人地鼎鼎大名，編製出黎既課程同練習方法點都有番咁上下卦。It teaches by showing class materials (words, pre-recorded video/audio and some flash animation) on their website and organized their contents lesson-by-lesson, also grading weekly assignments. The only interactive part is online chat session. 最緊要係，俾左咁多錢，會有心機做佢既練習，就算幾悶都會。其實除番即係一個星期每科一百美金，揾有料結他導師單對單教一個鐘都唔平得幾多。學音樂除非自學否則都係高消費喇。 

咁今個學期我學緊Chord 101同Scale 101。前者教major/minor/sus/aug/dim/dominant 7th等等triad同chord，仲有inversion，以前我買既書都有講，不過一直無心機記同練。我一向無乜掃chord，轉chord甚慢，做功課逼住死練，都有幫助既。今次真係學到野，佢有解釋barre chord點解係咁㩒，而家識得以前彈jazz tab死練果d chord其實係乜chord(dominant 9th, min7b5等等)。

Scale 101對我黎講易dd，因為都係教5隻major scale fingering，同以前練既大同小異；major scale(5 different fingerings)同minor pentatonic(2 fingerings)彈左咁多年，總算有d底。其餘果d major pentatonic, minor blues, dorian, mixolydian, harmonic minor, melodic minor，真係記到儍，唯有當防止老人痴呆囉。以前聽人講彈jazz improvisation，要12個key既以上任何一個scale，可以在條頸任何一處開始彈（仲要識得由中間既音開始，唔係次次都root）呢個境界就係呢個班既目標。我諗都急唔黎，希望日子有功啦。

每個星期每堂要做兩份功課，即係錄音上載俾老師評核。功課多數係跟tab彈，死練都OK，我會好似得個樣既歌星咁逐段錄，剪接技巧已經純熟。而且instructor俾分幾鬆手， 過關唔成問題。so far轉chord唔夠快，彈單音唔夠legato，後者正在努力改善，基本上都係左手手指唔好咁快攞起，但變左甩少少beat(墮後)，不過d同學話墮 後少少好過d音斷下斷下喎。

睇番同班同學，自我介紹有 website有錄左佢地彈既野，彈結他既水平已經好高，真係professional，我諗佢地係想補番d theory，同埋follow下個structure，第時開班授徒可以參考添！

我的結他雜記: Korg Pandora

I've bought the Pandora Mini. The amp modelling effect on the Pandora Mini was just ok. When I listened to it through headphone directly or thru my bass amp, it sounded kinda jazzy. But when I recorded it, it sounded kinda crappy (especially on chords) I actually used that external USB soundcard for recording since the Mini doesn't do it. I'm thinking about returning it and buy the "regular" Pandora instead. The regular Pandora is a USB soundcard itself and has more backing rhythms, also the ability to "cancel" the bass track for practicing bass.

我的結他雜記: Jimmy Bruno and Robert Conti

講返練野，舊年在網上學，跟呢位大師：
http://www.jimmybruno.com/school.php
http://jbguitarworkshop.com/sampleLessons.cfm

佢已經將彈jazz guitar簡化左好多，入門教major scale同arpeggio，就可以即興solo，我都係覺得太難。即興彈得好唔似jazz。

今個月轉左軚跟呢位（DVD）：
http://www.robertconti.com/free-jazz-guitar-video-lessons
佢仲簡單，寫晒TAB出黎，拍埋DVD教你逐個bar彈，好似小學生咁教。佢既理念就係，學即興之前唔好諗太多，尤其係理論。乜都係假，不如彈下人地即興果時彈既lines，做個基礎將來有得抄。本來我好抗拒咁學，但諗下諗下我都覺得有道理，最繄要係啱我程度。好似讀熟唐詩三百首卦。其實d單音唔係太難㩒，但係夾啱拍子都唔易。聽住background
track rhythm guitar黎夾，成日都會甩到唔知去左邊。

我的結他雜記: Fender Mustang II amp

上個星期去朋友屋企，帶埋支Steinberger去玩佢個新amp，係Fender Mustang II，以前未見過，賣點係平得黎(US$200)都有40W仲有amp modelling（已內置八款，可經電腦下載更多）

果個metal同90年代(grunge) models都幾啱，不過我玩jazz，重點係試佢Fender Deluxe model，d聲又幾夠jazz味。

Mark Feldman and jazz violin

Saw John Abercrombie at Yoshi's earlier this week and was very impressed by his violinist Mark Feldman. Here is his website:
http://www.markfeldmanviolin.com/enter.htm

Too bad he didn't mention what violin he plays.

His myspace page has some audio and video as well:
http://www.myspace.com/markfeldmanviolin

Definitely has classical background. Seems like that's the norm for jazz violinists.
On the other hand, jazz guitarist with classical background seems to be minority. My guitar teacher, Jimmy Bruno, does have classical training. He got some ideas about practicing from Wohlfahrt!

我的結他雜記: Danelectro N10 HoneyTone

結果都係忍唔住買左隻Danelectro N10 HoneyTone, a battery powered mini-amp黎玩，扭下幾個掣都可以校出多隻唔同聲，由jazz到metal都有。

我的結他雜記: Pocket Pod and amp

關於PocketPod的amp modelling，我又要呻笨，剛才睇manual，話其中一個掣上下按可以選擇不同amp及cabinet，包括著名jazz amp:
Fender Twin Reverb及Roland JC120。通利果位姐姐又無專業知識，攪到我白費減價好機會。

而家把心一橫，睇緊Digitech RP255（見Insomnia位仁兄用digitech，對呢個牌子重拾信心），呢部都有以上兩amp
model。仲有得踩wah wah及轉preset既腳掣（雖然無乜用），在美國只比pocket
pod貴少許，I'm still not sure...... one thing I really like about Pocket Pod is that I could use battery with it. The Digitech uses AC power only.

最新體會：舊年買左個 external sound card，係EMU 0404 USB，本來係用黎聽歌（好似比內置sound card好聽同推headphone好力水d）

但佢跟埋幾套software，其中兩套係Cubase LE同Amplitude。當時我裝落部舊電腦，發覺彈左一陣先有聲出，唔掂。

尋日想bid部Pocket Pod，又唔記得左落bid，結果俾人平買左，心有不甘，再裝過Cubase LE同Amplitude落部新電腦，都係彈左一陣先有聲出，原來device setup可以改用ASIO for EMU 0404 USB，就可以即彈即出聲，有十幾個amp model/preset可以玩，其中一個彈jazz好掂，其實都係clean聲，校到Bass勁多，treble勁少。

諗諗下，其實只要個amp跟住咁樣調校，根本乜model都唔重要。我個100W bass amp，試左用黎彈jazz都OK，果d amp modeller同multi effect對我可能真係無乜用。

我的結他雜記: Guitar strings

How often are we supposed to change strings on guitar? I was told every 30 hours of playing. I seldom change unless it's broken (usually the high E)

I almost stopped playing my Steinberger Spirit after I've bought that Ibanez Acoustic. Maybe I should change the string on my Spirit then I have motivation to play it again. It's common for jazz guitarist to play 013 strings! The heaviest double-ball strings I could find is 011. However, I might stick with the same gauge. Lots of people says that if you switch gauge, the neck will get different string tension and will change the intonation and need to adjust trust rod or the bridge. Sounds too troublesome for me.

我的結他雜記: Alternative instrument

I bought a Hohner. Not a guitar, but a harmonica.

Hohner is actually very famous as a harmonica manufacturer. It's a good brand for harmonica.

Man, it's not easy to play though. One basic technique is bending. Like bending in guitar. (the term is actually borrowed from guitar) On a basic 10 hole harmonica, it doesn't have all notes on it (for example, no B-flat on a C major harmonica) so you have to bend. And bending is HARD! I haven't figured that out yet. :(

The reason I'm trying harmonica is that there is some pain in my ring finger. I guess I'm too old to start playing jazz guitar because jazz uses "big" chords that requires stretching my fingers very wide. I'm really afraid that I might have to stop playing guitar and bass forever. I'm looking at alternatives but nothing is comparable to guitar!

我的結他雜記: chord-melody, practice, bass amp, nylon

Tried following this lesson. The song it taught is the most popular jazz standard called "Autumn Leaves" and Download #3 on that page is the TAB. If you don't bother to follow the lesson, just play the TAB. This style is called "chord melody", i.e., the guitar plays both the chord and the melody so other instrument is not necessary. I consider this the 最高境界 of jazz guitar.

In addition to "Autumn Leaves", I have learned a few more chord melody tunes, like "Stella by Starlight" and "Norwegian Wood." Saw a kid played "Yesterday" on YouTube. He told me his arrangement came from the same book that I got my version of "Norwegian wood!" So I started playing that. It will be quite a while until I could play as fast as he does.

I have always had some free time at night. I don't spend all of it on guitar though. I'm rather lazy. Usually it's just 30-40 minutes. Half spent on theory (like playing ii-V-I in different keys and arpeggio of those chords) Half spent on songs.

Years ago we tried to figure out what blues scale and the flatted 5th were. Now I play more jazz and they don't seem to be essential to playing jazz. On the other hand, adding the 7th (and higher, e.g. 9th, 13th) to chords really make songs sound jazzy. As far as scale is concerned, major scale works very well. Even pentatonic works. And blue scale is just one of the scale that works.

I bought a cheap bass amp when I was trying to start a new rock/metal band a few years ago. I really regretted that purchase because even though it was a 120W amp, I could barely hear it when playing in a practice space roughly as big as the "big room" in President studio! I expected a 120W to sound loud enough but this one didn't. Beware of the brand Behringer. I bet a Hartke 120W sound louder. Besides, I was never able to get a band started and used it 3 times only. However, I learned that some bass amp could actually be used as guitar amp and sounds pretty good with guitar. (The most famous one is Fender Bassman) Some people used bass amp same as mine for jazz! I plugged my Spirit into it and it indeed sounds not bad. The emphasis on the bass makes the sound very warm. Good for jazz.

I listened to more and more classical guitar these days. And some classical masters also play flamenco. I'm buying a cheap classical nylon string guitar. I played my teacher's and really like the sound. Very acoustic, warm, jazzy. Also, there is more separation between strings on a classical guitar so hopefully it helps me fingering those difficult chord (right now my fingers are too close and muting the next string!) The action is usually very high though so barre chord will be more difficult. In any case, I want to try something different. Nylon string feels very different from steel too.

In the 80s and 90s, Japanese made a lot of high quality copies of American guitar (Fender, Gibson) Should be able to find some good stuff in Tokyo. On the other hand, a brand new "real" Gibson Les Paul is ~US$2500, which costs less than a trip to Japan!

我的結他雜記: Steinberger, SG, Pignose Amp, jazz scales/chords

I plugged my Steinberger Spirit into my Pignose amp. Then connect the preamp out to the computer for recording two tunes I posted on MySpace: All the things you are and Seven Come Eleven. I like the sound of this setup. I read that the amp makes the most difference in the sound for jazz. The guitar itself is not as important.
I got the TAB from books and magazines. Wasn't able to improvise. If you analyze the melody lines, there's actually a lot of major scales and mixolydian. Also there are some common licks. Finally they make some big "jumps" from high to low and back to high (高音跳去低音，低音跳去高音)
以下六線譜為例：

--------------------
-8---6---4-----3----
--------------------
---8---6---5-3------
--------------------
--------------------

仲有d常見lick:
-----------4-----
---------4-------
-------5---------
-----6-----------
-----------------
-----------------

至於chord方面，都係7th chord, 例如major 7, minor 7 同dominant 7，掃出來好jazzy
其實我在香港果支Epiphone SG比較多metal友用，好少jazz友彈SG，不過SG個pickup P-90就有經典jazz友用係其他結他。Jazz友多數彈大支厚身面拱出來果款。I'm tempted to buy an archtop jazz guitar someday. Not now of course. Maybe after the recession is over (10 years later?) Google過先知Les Paul有f-hole果支已經停左產。好少有。記得包以正好似有彈Steinberger。

Artist: Nightrage

Album: Sweet Vengeance

Just heard this band from Last.fm. What a pleasant surprise! Found out it featured an All-Star lineup with Gus G from Firewind and Tomas Lindberg from At the Gates (on this album.) I saw Firewind at Arch Enemy's concert a few months ago and Gus G's guitar playing really impressed me. This guy could shred. The most surprising thing is that he's a power metal guy but this band plays melodic death!

Show: Gigantour

Bands: High On Fire, Job for a Cowboy, Children of Bodom, In Flames, Megadeth
Venue: SJSU, SJ

No disrespect to Megadeth, the pioneer of thrash metal, but I gotta admit I would not have gone to the concert if COB is not on the bill.


In Flames is a big incentive too.

Show: Arch Enemy

Venue: Slim's, SF

Arch Enemy headlined the Tyranny and Bloodshred tour. Dark Tranquillity, Divine Heresy, and Firewind were the supporting acts.

Video: So What

Artist: Miles Davis



For those who think jazz only has a niche market, please explain why the above video has almost a million hits? Granted, it's from the all-time #1 jazz album "Kind of Blue" (not the all-time #1 track though. That would be "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck)

Artist: Fueled By Fire

MySpace Link

Thrash is back! At least according to Village Voice. That's good news to me since I have always missed the gold old days of headbanging to Metallica and Testament! Fueled By Fire is supposed to be one of the flagship band of this comeback. ("Thrash is back" is the name of their song)

Opinion: "Health" of Subscription music service

While researching my previous blog posts regarding Rhapsody and Yahoo Music, I was curious about what players are in the market and who has the biggest market share. The result? It is kind of "scary" to a fan of the subscription model like myself: According to its financial material, Napster had 830,000 paid subscribers world wide and claimed to be the No. 1 player. Consider the subscription model has been here since 2001 and the No.1 player hasn't even break the million subscriber mark. This model doesn't look too promising, does it? Maybe I'm really the minority and the naysayers are right (for the wrong reasons maybe. The arguments from the latter link were not logical at all! For example, the author thinks listeners want to listen to the hits of the moment. I quote: "Tunes are addictive for a while and then discarded. " Isn't this perfect for a subscription model where you could always listen to the latest hits without buying more and more?)

Another way of gauging the health of this market is looking at how the major players are doing: the major players one year ago are: AOL, Napster, Rhapsody, Virgin and Yahoo. Now the music services of AOL and Virgin were both acquired by Napster but we have 2 more new players: MTV's Urge and Microsoft's Zune Marketplace. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Service: Yahoo Music Unlimited to go

If you've read my previous post, you know I have switched to Yahoo Music Unlimited to go from Real Rhapsody. Price-wise there is no comparison: the recently raised yearly rate for Rhapsody is $119.88. How much does Yahoo cost yearly? $71.88!!! And if you pay with MasterCard, you get the 2nd year free! So I do myself a favor and "upgrade" to the "to go" version, which is $143.88 (for 2 years since I took advantage of the MC deal) and it is still cheaper than Rhapsody!

So what do I have to "give up" by switching? 2 Million songs. (According to Rhapsody, their catalog has 4 mil while Yahoo claim they have 2 mil) Though what really matter the most to me is the loss in classical music. A significant portion of the comprehensive catalog of the budget classical label, Naxos, is available on Rhapsody but not on Yahoo. Don't get me wrong: You could still find a lot of classical music on Yahoo. In fact, I bet the "Top 40" major classical works are there. However, the selection is just too "limited" for serious classical music fan.

What other complaints do I have? Buggy software! Although Real is not known for writing solid software (maybe Listen.com did a real good job and the core was retained?), the Rhapsody client is far more stable and responsive than Yahoo's Music Jukebox (YMJ) during my 2 years stint with them. In contrast, YMJ crashes often and has some weird bugs (e.g. sometimes after playing the 1st song on the playlist, it appeared to move on to the next but actually repeated the 1st one) And when it behaves normally, it feels very sluggish : slow to display contents (e.g. contents on portable devices, artist/album/playlist pages) BTW, unlike Rhapsody, it does not support Windows 2000. (It used to. I wonder why it does not anymore)

The user experience for transferring songs also leaves a lot to be desired. First of all, just like Napster, it is a very slow process, probably due to the overhead of handling DRM. For example, transferring ~720Mb (~100 songs) of music to my Samsung Yepp player took almost an hour! So this is more suitable to be performed in "batch" mode (i.e. before I go to bed!) However, the software is not really well suited to run in this mode either. Let's say I dragged a list of 100 songs to a portable player, the following happens:
Phase 1: it will try to download the 100 songs from its server to my PC
Phase 2: it will try to copy the songs from my PC to the portable.
During Phase 1, if it encounters a previously downloaded song, it will pop up a message and ask if I want to re-download. It will sit there and do nothing until I respond! (What it should have done is comparing the checksum of the local and remote file to determine whether re-downloading is necessary!)
Before Phase 2 begins, if it encouters any error during Phase 1, it will pop up a message saying there were errors. Again, it will not do anything until I acknowledge!

Nevertheless, besides being less expensive, it does have its virtues:
1) higher bit rate: I believe Rhapsody serves music at 160kbps while Yahoo does 192! (I will have to perform some serious A/B testing to tell if the higher bit rate translates to higher sound quality though)
2) better recommendations: I praised Napster for this. Yahoo is also superior to Rhapsody in this regard. My rating of artists/songs/albums/genres affects Yahoo's recommendation. And I could break it down by genre so I could build playlist that have exactly the right balance of different genres. (I know this is weird but sometimes I do insist on 40% jazz, 40% classical and 20% metal!) Unfortunately, Yahoo did not take it to the next level, i.e., utilizing recommendation to enhance portable music experience. What it should have done is supporting smart playlists determined by genre or similar artists, when the songs were played last time and the total size. And it should allow "real" sychronization of such playlists to portables(i.e., keep songs on the player and in the playlist, remove the rest and finally add missing ones) The current so-called sychronization barks when there is not enough space on the player. Also, I couldn't rate music on my portable and "feed" the ratings back to YMJ. I guess it is challenging to support such feature across many players from different manufacturers, unlike Apple only needs to deal with iPods (and iPhones now)

Finally, even though it does not show on Yahoo's compatibility list, I am able to transfer and listen on my Dell Axim x30 (running Windows Mobile 2003 SE) The transfer speed is even worse than my Yepp though. (It probably has to do with Axim's SD card hardware) What a pleasant surprise!

Service: Goodbye Rhapsody. Hello Yahoo Music

I've been a subscriber of Real Rhapsody ever since I started this blog but all good things come to an end. It's time for me to cancel my subscription. There was only one reason: rate hike. I have been paying the quarterly rate of $24.95 and now Real has raised it to $34.99.

And the cancellation experience was not without pain: I had to call them (couldn't do this online) and was put on hold for 20 mins until I was able to talk to a customer service rep, who kept trying to convince me to stay with reasons like it is the first time in six years that they have increased the price of Rhapsody (which I don't really care) I had to be very firm about the cancellation to finally get it cancelled. And I will check my credit card bill very carefully for sure.

Stay tuned for my review of Yahoo Music Unlimited!

Service: Rhapsody - What have they added in the past 2 years?

I'm sure they have added a lot of new albums, i.e, those release during the past 2 years. How about old stuff? Let's compare my sampling of what is available on Rhapsody and what is not by using mostly nonmainstream artists/albums from my first review :

Punk: Now become Available	Punk: Still Unavailable
Minor Threat, Punk Goes Metal
Jazz: Now become Available	Jazz: Still Unavailable
David Murray (2 albums only)	Maria Schneider
Metal: Now become Available	Metal: Still Unavailable
Shadows Fall (1 old album only) Smashing Pumpkins	Tool, John 5, Exodus, Impaled, Metal Massacre
Classic rock: Now become Available	Classic rock: Still Unavailable
	Led Zeppelin, Beatles

Decent improvement. Agreed?

Album: Strange As Angels - A Tribute to The Cure

I always want to cover The Cure's tunes with my band but it never happened so I have to listened to others' cover versions. As a metal fan, I found Chimaira's rendition of Fascination Street indeed fascinating. This album is another interesting one and they all play in the punk/post-punk style.

Show: The Haunted/Dark Tranquillity

Venue: The Slim's, San Francisco

This was the first metal show I went to since 2001 (the last one was Pantera's Reinventing the Steel tour, with Morbid Angel and Static-X as supporting acts)

To be honest, I'm not familiar with these 2 bands at all. I learned about them from my new bandmates and we're covering their songs.

Dark Tanquillity is one of the best representatives of the "Gothenburg sound", i.e., the melodic death metal from Scandinavia. Their music striked the right balance between power and complexity, which was showcased perfectly in this show. What interested me the most was the vocalist looked and sounded very polite, which I totally didn't expect listening to his vocal. He kept asking if the crowd would mind hearing songs from their new albums. Of course I didn't mind since the new songs were pretty good. Another interesting thing was he joked about whoever have listened to those songs prior to the show gotta be pirate. However, he didn't show strong objection at all. I guess it's because Sweden is one of the more liberal place as far as P2P is concerned. Also, the band makes most money from touring. P2P is more of a problem for the record company.

Finally, a few words about the headliner, The Haunted: I didn't have too high an expectation about them since some of their songs I listened before sound kinda pop-ish or "soft" (more clean vocal, more metalcore-like than melo. death) And they indeed played a few "soft" ones at the show. However, the rest are better than I expected. The vocalist, Peter Dolving, shared some of his strong feelings against right-wing Christian and wars during the show. Check out his blog.

Album: This Is Metal's Most Covered Moments Of The '80s

Artist: Testament & Jake E. Lee
Track: Seek And Destroy (Rhapsody Link)

As I huge fan of Testament, I tend to think that I've heard of every song they played, but obviously not this one, which I discovered today! There are 3 reasons for me to like this song:
1) It's by Testament!
2) It's from the early days of Metallica, which did not suck (yet)
3) Jake E. Lee played guitar on this. He was Ozzy Osbourne's former guitarist. Typical 80's guitar hero style!


Artist: Ratt, Gilby Clarke and L.A. Guns
Track: Sweet Child O' Mine (Rhapsody Link)

This is another interesting track, with former members of Guns N' Roses covering GNR's most famous song.

Opinion: Can I find music I like on radio anymore?

Inspired by the story about WBEZ dropping jazz, I'm curious if I could still find music I like on air anymore. Turns out it is not that bad here in SF Bay Area.

On FM 90.5 KSJS, down in San Jose, there is a metal show "The Splatter Platter", from Tuesdays 10am-2pm. Check out its playlist. Very heavy stuff.

And FM 91.5 KKUP plays some blues and jazz. (Interesting story: a friend's friend played on this station during the blues marathon and that's how I knew about the station. The other day I was looking for it again but forgot the frequency and accidentally tuned into the above metal show on 90.5!)

And finally, in search of the great and probably non-existent jazz podcast that's supposed to displace jazz radio all over the country, I found Redjazz. The interesting thing is that it is broadcasted over the air on AM 1550 KYCY, the so-called "Open Source Radio."

As good as it is, there's no way it could replace the 24/7 jazz offerred by the local radio station KCSM. Here is the deal: if you could find me a daily podcast with 2 solid hours of jazz and classical music, I'll stop argue with you that jazz and classical are hogging public radio and should be taken off air.

Service: Jazz Radio on WBEZ

From this article:
"A Station Research Group multiyear study from 1999 through 2004 showed that of public radio's primary formats, jazz stations had the lowest average loyalty and lowest average time spent listening. The same study showed that the most dramatic audience growth came from all-news stations."

So, Chicago's radio station WBEZ replacing jazz programming by news seems like a very logical choice. It's sad news to jazz lover like myself though.

The same article also mentioned that iPod's popularity is another contributing factor to this decision, i.e., people'd rather listen to jazz on their own iPod than to radio. I'm not too sure about this one though. I recall there's something hugely popular before iPod and it's called Walkman.

[Update: apparently a lot of people care and discussed this topic]

Podcast: The Roadhouse

The name of this podcast is probably inspired by the song "Roadhouse Blues" and it is indeed a podcast about blues music. I recommend it because it strikes a good balance between well-known and lesser-known artists.

Here are links to its website and its podcast feed in case you want to use it with a Podcast client.

Service: XM Liquid Metal is BACK!

This is kinda old news. XM has put Liquid Metal back on air last month after about a year of hiatus (it was available online only during that period.) Hurray! I guess XM heard too many metal fans bitched about it. Power to the people! (well, power to metal fans actually)

What does it mean to me since I wasn't a subscriber of XM? I am a Directv customer and Directv switched their music provider from Music Choice to XM last year. Music Choice has fairly decent metal programming. When I heard that Music Choice's Metal channel would be replaced by XM's Squizz channel. I thought WTF 'coz Squizz is more of an alt. rock station and that's when I realized Liquid Metal was canned.

Now I'm one happy Liquid Metal listener rocking to "Are You Dead Yet?" by Children of Bodom!

Service: My experience with Napster-To-Go, part 2

If we take the To-Go portion out of equation, how does Napster do in general?

Let me start with its weaknesses:
1) Poor selection compared to Rhapsody in the genres I like (jazz, blues, classical, metal) Lots of artists have none or only few songs available. For example, Jimmy Bruno and Jimmy Raney aren't exactly household names but they are well represented on Rhapsody, not on Napster though.

2) Poor user interface: it just ain't user friendly. For example, on some artist's page, the top pane (list of album) is too big and makes the bottom pane (list of song) too small. Users like me are more interested in the bottom pane, which allows me to pick songs to download. Another examples are cryptic radio station names like "Crossroads." You would never know if you're not a blues fan already. Doesn't it discourage users to explore music they are not familiar with?

3) Poor classification/information:
For example, "Top albums" of Blues are Confessions by Usher and #1 by Destiny's Child!
And there is no consistency: following a certain navigation path you may see John Coltrane filed under Blues. Everytime I click on Top Artists under Blues I see a different list. Sometimes the album has a "download album" link next to it but I found that even if it doesn't say so, songs from the album might still be available for download when I click the album to drill down.

Nevertheless, it does have some nice features:
1) its radio feature actually generates playlists instead of streaming. Why is this a good feature? It allows listener to keep a record of what has been played so that (s)he could download all or some of them in a shot later on.

2) In addition to the "radio station" Napster created for every user, you could build custom station based on all songs in your library or your current playlist. This is more flexible than the more common way of setting up custom station based on artists/genre.

3) This is just me being nostalgic: the download window really reminds me of the good old days of the original Napster :P

The verdict? I don't think I'd switch to Napster since it charges the same as Rhapsody (and more than Yahoo) I do hope Napster will improve 'coz more competition in the digital music business could only be a good thing for consumers like myself.

Service: My experience with Napster-To-Go, part 1

Almost a year after last time I wrote about Napster-To-Go, I finally get to try it out (free trial of course) with my newly acquired Sandisk Sansa m240, one of the cheapest PlaysForSure Subscription compatible player out there. (Sidenote: I bet a lot of people would be surprised that Sandisk is No.2 in US MP3 player market They did it by building solid and competitively priced products instead of hype. I think there's something to learn from their approach.)

Remember I wrote the service sounded exciting? I still agree with that, but the keyword is the quantifier: "theoretically." Practically speaking, I ran into these problems:
1) sometimes I got errors for no explanation, during downloading of songs to my computer or transferring to the player.
2) songs are transferred to the player very slowly, much slower than copying DRM-less MP3s using Windows Explorer. I bet the overhead for handling the DRM (digital right management, or copy protection in layperson's term) is pretty big.
3) the Napster client cannot tell what is loaded on my player consistently.

To summarize, this is the exact opposite of good end-to-end experience like what you get from iPod + iTunes I am not sure if these problems are Napster only or it is universal across all PlaysForSure Subscription services (i.e., Napster, Rhapsody and Yahoo Music Unlimited) since I haven't tried To-Go with others. (In other words, how much could they blame on Microsoft, the vendor of PlaysForSure DRM technology?) In any case, simply copying iTunes' look and feel into Napster most likely cannot make it happen.

In the next part of this series, I'll compare the non-To-Go portion of Napster with Rhapsody.

Artist: The Rolling Stones

When I told my dad the Super Bowl performance will be broadcasted with a delay just in case they need to edit out improper scenes, in light of the now infamous wardrobe malfunction fiasco back in 2004, my dad asked what improper thing the Stones could do? I said maybe Mick Jagger might drop his pants.

Well, it turned out the Stones' performance was indeed censored, not for Jagger's pants though. The word "come" in the line "you make a dead man come" from "Start Me Up" and the word "cocks" in their new song "Rough Justice" were silenced. No wonder Jagger's singing sounded so weird to me. I wouldn't believe Jagger would choke for such a high-profile performance especially given the amount of "practice" they got from their extensive touring schedule.

I think this is really lame but that's just another indicator that America is ruled by ultraconservatives. Their mind was stucked in 1967, when the Stones' lyric was censored on the Ed Sullivan shows back then.

Podcast: Metal Injection Guerilla Radio

IMO Metal Injection has become a force to be reckoned with in the area of metal media. Its Guerilla Radio is a group of podcasts that gear towards different sub-genre of metal. My favorites are the Entropy League and MSRCast, both of them are mentioned in this blog before and just recently joined force with Metal Injection.

In addition to these 2, Dead Zone is growing on me too. If there's a podcast episode that I wanna listen to over and over again, this one for melodic death metal gotta be it. Prior to this my only exposure to melodic death was pretty much limited to Children of Bodom. The bands on this podcast might not be as famous but are equally awesome. BTW, I think the term melodic death is kind of a misnomer. Death metal as it was played by its forefathers like Death and Obituary sounded quite melodic to me! In any case, the return to more emphasis on good guitar playing (especially solo!) is definitely a direction I'm glad to see.

Service: Cellphone music download

For those who think it's outrageous to pay $2.5 per track to download music to your cell phone from your carrier, you haven't seen nothing yet!

According to Next Magazine in Hong Kong, a Hong Kong 3G service provider, 3, is providing a music service that allows you to listen to music 10 hours per month for a promotional rate of $2.3 (~HK$18) Sound like a good deal huh? Here's the catch: each song you download costs $1.15 (~HK$9)!

This is what I call greediness with a capital G!