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| Third Street abuzz with my anticipated arrival |
Yesterday afternoon, I took the "Night B" bus downtown.
Sitting at the stop was the guy who had told me Thursday night that the Night B would "B" running that night, causing me to sit there for an hour, during which I saw no buses, and no students waiting for no buses.
However, this Friday night, the B dropped me off downtown and assured me that it was to run until 3 in the morning.
I could hear a band playing on the "Friday Night Live" stage, as I sat in a parking lot, drinking my third Hurricane Lager of the day. First Track Cut
I had had one in the morning, back at the campus, as I sat with my laptop plugged into an outside outlet, outside the Baptist Student Center/church/pizza party place and made my first recording using Audacity program and the built-in microphone on this here laptop that I am now using to post, for the first time, on this here blog.
Thanks to Matthew the Classical Musician, having set up the Audacity program for me, all I had to do was click on the record button, before playing guitar and singing and composing a song called "Theres A Creepy Guy Walking Around The Campus."
I am taking my time figuring out how to put the music on this blog.
I think that I might have to post it somewhere else (like Facebook, or some other blogging site which allows the posting of mp3 files, maybe [yikes!] MySpace?!? -I would be afraid of losing all my music if, and when, that social networking site dies from neglect, though) and then "link" to it.
Maybe I'll have a sidebar, where I could use a playlist gadget type thing, sort of where my top-ten lists are now.*
*The top-ten lists are not complete because I can't remember them in their original forms, which were lost a few years ago, when my whole blog got deleted- at one time the Lidgleys of London had sent me them from a cached copy that they had on their computer, and I will have to someday see if they still have them; I'll eventually reconstruct them from memory; or think of new and better ones.
Adult Guitar Adventures
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| Supposedly 3rd Street in 1960 |
| Did they have color film back then?? |
The band which was playing, as I drank my third Hurricane in the parking lot of the courthouse, sitting on the steps right by the police Captain's parking space, was playing stuff like "Roadhouse Blues," by The Doors, "Pour Some Sugar On Me," by Def Leopard, and "Tonight Is Gonna Be A Good Night," by the Red Hot Split Yellow Peas, or whatever that groups name is...
As I sat there, I realized that I knew every chord that they were playing. I knew every fret position that the lead guitarist was on, just by the fact that certain hackneyed riffs and string bends were so tell tale, because they are guitar-specific and executed at certain fret locations.
My point being, that it led me to lament something like ...how many musicians the world over are capable of playing those songs...rock and roll is easy, especially for someone with a little jazz theory training, I mean that's an E minor chord, now a G major, and they're probably going to go to one of three other chords now, (D major, A major, maybe C major to totally surprise the audience with something out of left field...) and I wondered...I wondered how will I ever be able to make MY E minor to G chords stand out, and grab attention and spread a message of hope, when there are so many blokes out there that can play a Tom Petty song, excepting maybe Tom himself...Time To Make The Dough, You Nut
Then, I walked up Third Street, which was pretty crowded; found my spot in front of the AT&T store and began to tune up and play. Immediately two little girls came and each put a hand full of change in my case. They had little hands, but the omen was good.
I was still using the plastic picks which were given free at the Guitar Center -the ones that snap after about 3 minutes of soloing, or 10 minutes of strumming- and snapped the last of the Cleartone strings from Alex in California (the bottom E) which happened to be the last of the new strings not already put on, which was fortunate.
I made it through the night, doing it in three sets and made about 45 bucks.
I splurged on a 3 dollar hot dog from the cart across the street. I couldn't find the medicinal herb man, and so, I went to sleep in the courtyard of the Saint James Church, amongst the plants.
Now it is Saturday and time to get an all day bus pass and go to the Guitar Center, where I now can afford a whole packet of the kind of picks that I like, in at least one of the gauges that I like .73
One More Night
I plan to stay over one more night, downtown, and see if a Saturday night might yield some more "traveling" money as, I can say with 99% certainty that I will have my thumb out Monday morning, at the latest; Howard or no Howard in tow...
If you possibly can, post your muzik on here. I've tried an MP3 file and it won't do one of those alone (which means I think it can, I just haven't worked out the trick yet) but I'm sure you can cheat by having something with a still pic of you or something, and the song. I've seen "videos" on YouTube like this. Just a still or stills with audio.
ReplyDeleteDude, I've done the math. If you can make $45 or $50 a day, you can do a LOT with that. Most Americans are not making that much money. I know $50 day in and day out is a hell of a lot more than I am making. I made $27/day last year and last year was fantastically good for me. I'd worked out that, back when I had an apartment and a car and a legit business, that if I made $50/day, I could live a much better life with less stress which is kind of how I got into the idea of trying to be a busker. They *were* making that and I think some still are, in the Bay Area. I figured I could, on $50/day, rent a room and go around by bus/bike, and just busk and enjoy life instead of working 60-hour weeks. Of course the economic crash took care of that whole working 60-hour weeks problem and a lot faster than I'd have done on my own.
Gack how can you drink 3 Hurricanes and not pass out? I tried one and not only was it vile, but it was also rather strong.
Adult Guitar Adventures ... waitaminute, I see what you did there! Hey man don't knock it, my piano book is so badass, it has a picture of a piano with wings on it, WINGS. Some adult students are using the kids' PIano Adventures books, and those are chock-full of silly cartoons and shit like "hippy hop pony" or some damn thing. The kids' books are the "main" series of Piano Adventures, since for every 50 year old has-been like me there are several little kids whose parents will pump any amount of money into piano teaching materials for their little unique snowflake ... you see this in violin, whenever you see those damn strips of tape on the fingerboard because the kid is so tone-deaf they're lost without 'em.
ReplyDeleteCorrection on trying a Hurricane, it was an Earthquake I tried and that's some drunkohol.
I've been looking for some deals on Cleartone (or similar quality) strings on Guitar Center's sale table but none so far.
Have you considered using an Ovation guitar? I think they're good'n'loud, and may be more stable due to the fiberglass bowl for a body, may stay in tune better.
Sadly, for every person who remembers Bird, or Thelonious Monk, there are many who remember groups like Abba. While it's possible to get very complex with music, most often you lose 'em when you do. The trick is to write something that's unique and yet simple and catchy, like Joni Mitchell's song about clouds. I loved that song as a kid, I didn't know it was about clouds since I heard it as an instrumental. Instead I imagined it being a song about fish, every kind of fantastic fish that ever was, and swimming in my local part of the ocean and seeing 'em all. It was some sappy 1970s instrumental that came on one side of "the" tape that came with our tape recorder, and yet the melody was so compelling that it sure "caught" me. I understand Joni Mitchell actually came up with her own scales and so on, and was very musically sophisticated, but she came up with some beautiful songs and the public rewarded her.
Geez, I almost want to (as the spell check feature chastises me for "geez" -get a life, spell check feature, haven't you ever heard anyone say that, spell check feature, y' know, "geez, I'm hungry" etc..
ReplyDeleteUm, Adult guitar adventures is my sense of humor; not sure what I was thinking but it was probably an inside joke to you; unless there are blog readers who also read your piano at 50 blog, and would get the joke immediately LOL
The Guitar Center staff are divided as to weather like me or not, I believe the ones that like me are the ones that are working there because they like music and figure that they will make their commisions one way or another and the scraggly homeless looking guy that only comes in and takes free picks is like a hero to them; then, there are the ones that seem to imply that there are plenty of mucicians out there that are struggling to make a name for themselves, but at least they come in and buy a set of Elixer ($16) strings, I mean give me a break, long haired, smelling like you slept in the courtyard of St. James church guy...
I think that, in reference to the Thelonius Monk thing, If I'm playing outside a blues-fest, like I am today, and I avoid every single blue note and play Joe Cocker's "You are so beautiful" -major 7ths, and, ok 1 blue chord, but it comes at the right time and hell these people ARE here for a blues fest, but, if I hit them with the anti-blues, I find it to be quite lucrative (I'm talking buying a summmer home on the Riviera)
*The Lidgleys (of London) whom you humurously referred to as the Crudgleys, um, one of the songs that they (she) quoted was the one about looking at life from both sides and realising that you really don't know clouds at all...*twighlight theme here* funny you mention that; maybe the Crudfleys and you are more woven into the fabric of the wheel of time than you might have thought *twighligHt theme, fading off...)
"Adult Piano Adventures" is totally funny, I LOL'd.
ReplyDeleteThose Guitar Center kids make like $1500 a month! I've had years recently where I made that all *year*.
Interesting idea. Play the anti-genre. At a blues fest, play the opposite. Mainly though, people "know what they know" and most will know that rather awful popular song, "Starry Starry Sky" and not know Debussy. Sadly.
Yeah after years 'n' years I've learned the song is called "both sides now" lol nothing about clouds in the title. I often paraphrase names, so that the magazine the Utne Reader becomes the Utley etc. I think possessing a sense of humor in the US now is considered worse than possessing purified heroin, thus I try to sneak it in where I can.
Have you considered making picks out of discarded credit/debit/loyalty cards? Gryphon Strings in Palo Alto has a machine that makes them, but you can simply trace a pick shape into a card and cut it out, nail clippers could be useful here.