fourths Brad this little exercise I invented is making my hand hurt. I will incorporate this concept into my playing at all costs... After listening to jazz saxophonist Bob Mintzer, I decided to adapt his series-of-fourths-minor-thirds-apart thing to the guitar. I've never heard anyone do it before. I'm perfecting it and it's getting there but for pete's sake... it requires my left hand to do a rapid series of six-fret stretches. that's the nature of the fourth interval... they're either too close to one another on adjacent strings to play fast enough or so far away it breaks your hands. But dammit, i'm going to make all of those north texas guitar geeks say "what the hell..." 000716 ... ever dumbening oh, how i wish there were more people like brad out there. mainstream music today sucks such incredible shit. my hypothesis/opinion (pay attention, not theory, not expression-of-fact) is that the problem is twofold. first, the investorsfirst-shortattentionspan-focusgroup-eyecandy-corporateshitpie world does not allow for much straying or creativity. it's all about just having a fucking hook and/or looking good. sure, the hook from the mitsubishi commercial song is cute, but porn is just porn. there are tons, TONS, i say, of songs on the radio that have great hooks. music, however is more than just hooks. granted, the punk movement was partly a direct rebellion against overly intellectual music. and it's fine to have just plain old visceral, or (like now) just plain old sentimental music, but that's only if there are other options. i love junk food, but my body also loves eating dark leafy greens, or some crazy tri-doshic curry with like 30 different flavors going on. do _you_ know what asafoetida is? likewise does limp_shitkit know what the circle of fifths is? second, we spend so little on the arts in public schools that the majority of the people out there who are picking up instruments now have no concept of music theory or history. money has always been part of the biz, but it seems (to me) that there is an ever increasing trend of commercialism and cross merchandising and selling out going on. i know artists don't always have control of their songs, so you can't always blame them for selling out, but that's why i now associate FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT NISSAN with so many great songs (the police, the who, hendix, SRV). so here's to you, brad, for making your hand hurt--stretching you brain and tendons in pursuit of greatness. "Art as expression, not as market campaigns/Will still capture our imagination" -Neil Peart oh, and pleeeeez don't say dave matthews, cuz he's sting rehash at best, so whatever. 011203 ... paste! what really fucks me up is that _all_ music is more available than ever, with file sharing, internet, cdrs, etc., yet people still refuse to pay attention to other styles. at least check something out you've never heard; if ya don't like it, at least you tried. then do it again. and how does corporate america get away "it"? there must be some sort of subconscious quick trigger aesthetic in today's shitty pop mainstream yadda yadda ear trash that just gets the people going. like coffee or some shit. or not like coffee. coffee is good. well then. you did much better than i could and thanks. also, what makes what i listen to any better than "your shitty taste in music"? 86 all discussions with the phrase "it's all relative." there is a universal aesthetic in all forms of art, yet nothing can jump out and say "hey, i'm the perfect manifestion of what everybody needs"; is it just that we pay attention to different parts of it or we work within our own character to define it...? somebody set us up the bomb. 011203 ... ever dumbening i guess a big part of my problem is that i give a shit about other people. i'm so fucking stupid that way. why should i care what people cram into their bodies, minds, spirits? some stupid-ass liberal utopia-seeking scrap of me says the world would be a better place if we all dug QUALITY (z and the a of m m). why don't you all dig KALX or WWOZ? it doesn't matter. in breath, out breath. but nooooooo, i want people to trip off the funky band i found in new_orleans or on the web or on KALX. dear self: stop craving, cuz it's all about being cool. the bitter old piece of nostalgic snarf 011203 what's it to you? who go blather from