Four Hands – One Guitar

This is one of the coolest duets I’ve ever seen.  Especially since its only one guitar!

Stereo Pan in Garageband and iTunes

Ok, I know this probably doesn’t apply to anyone but me, but if there are any worship leaders out there using Reason or GarageBand and then mixing down to mp3 with iTunes I have discovered a sneaky little feature that iTunes has which caused me literally DAYS and DAYS of headaches so I thought I’d post on it.

I make loops with Reason and GarageBand to use in services under the other instruments.   All of these include a click track panned hard left and the backing track panned hard right.  Well, as soon as I imported the song into iTunes, the click track bled (and vice versa) into the backing track.  While this may not seem a problem, when you are playing in front of a large crowd, you probably don’t want them hearing the click…

SOLUTION:

So TODAY I discovered this little check box in iTunes called ‘Sound Enhancer.’

This little checkbox actually CAUSES crossfade inbetween the left and right channels!  ARRGGGHH!  Why iTunes, Why?

SO, if you are doing split track recordings and bouncing them to iTunes, I would suggest that you UNCHECK the ’sound enhancer’ box.

Peace Out!

Mariachi Cover Band

I grew up in San Diego California and spent many a wonderful night in a tasty Mexican restaurant. 
Many of these fine establishments would have a Mariachi band who would play beautiful music while you dine.  I remember one time I was eating in one such restaurant and upon the arrival of the Mariachi, my friend requested a classic – Pour Some Sugar on Me, by Def Leppard.  Unfortunately, this particular band of musicians did not know the cover.  But in honor of them, here are some Mariachi who know the art of being a cover band.  Perhaps this particular one is also fitting given the events of the past couple weeks.  I’ll let you decide.

And another one just in case that didn’t satisfy your hunger for some quality Mexican goodness. 
See if you can guess the title of this one…

My Fav Guitar Apps for the iPhone

Just wanted to give some of my opinions on some of the Guitar apps out there and let you know which ones work well for me.

Guitar ToolKit is one of the first apps I got when I picked up an iPhone 3G.  I use it all the time.  It comes with a Tuner, Metronome, Chord Chart, and Scale diagram.

The tuner works ‘pretty’ well.  It’s not perfect and if there is background noise it doesn’t work great. There are, however, a ton of different tunings available which is pretty cool for experimenting with different sounds.

The Metronome is really good and includes a tap tempo to see what speed the song you are listening to is.  I use this a bunch in rehearsals to set our click track.

The fretboard view is graphically rich.  It looks beautiful.  AND it is interactive so you can strum, touch any note on any fret, etc.  Also, you can display the scales which show up as letters on the fretboard.  Since you can touch the individual notes and hear what they sound like, this is helpful when selecting which chord to place in a song if you don’t have your guitar around and want to hear a chord voice.

I actually have the light version of Guitarist’s Reference, but it is really handy for looking up scales and chords.  The interface is a bit more clunky than I would like and because of this it is just a bit slow for looking things up.  However, the graphics are pretty good and it is very readable.

One of the features this has that I haven’t seen on another app is the chord inversion chart.  It is an informative feature for learning different chord voicings of Triads.  For instance, did you know that the E major chord which everyone learns first (x221xx) is actually the Second Inversion of the E chord.  The Root position is – x764xx

The fretboard view is also switchable between chord numbers and letters.

I don’t like that the introduction screen is an ad, but I guess I deserve that for having the free version…

I have the free version of the Fretboard app too, but this is quickly becoming one of my fav’s!  Fretboard is quick and easy and is a great reference tool to see different chords and scales from the 1st to the 15th fret in one glance.   It is easy to switch from Major to Minor, to Minor Pentatonic, Harmonic, etc.  Pretty much anytime I need to get a quick refresher on a scale in a key I don’t regularly play I grab this and take a look!  For instance those pesky keyboard players who like everything in Eb or Ab.  Now I can see come cool chord forms and inside chords.

The Landscape view is especially cool in that it gives the ‘number’ of the notes in the scale.  The pic to the left shows the ‘1′ in red, but on the landscape view you can see everything from 1-7 all across the fretboard.  This is especially helpful in forming 9th’s and 13th’s etc…

This app also helps me out with different tunings.  I am learning the Mandolin and the chords, notes, and scales are very helpful for me to have right there in my pocket when I get stuck and need to know quickly what the note is, or what a different chord voicing would be.

The app Pitch by Frozen Ape is a nifty little free app for when I don’t feel like using a chromatic tuner or am trying to show my guitar students how to tune by ear.  You simply flip the switch under the string and you hear the string sound.  NICE!

[I can't find a link to this one, their website only has their other apps and not this one...oh, well]

So, these are just a few of the apps that I use on a daily basis for my job, for my guitar playing, for fun!  I hope you enjoy!!!

Guitar Lessons from John Mayer

Indeed, it’s true!

This video is of Mr John Mayer illustrating the use of the pentatonic scale ‘out of the box’

Enjoy and keep on rockin in the free world!

I Pick Jesus

How bout you?

HT: LOS

CD Review – Lincoln Brewster

I just picked up Lincoln Brewster’s newest CD – Today is the Day and it is quality!!!

In addition to Brewster’s insane (and impossible) guitar licks are some really singable tunes.

The title track is a great worship tune for celebration and Carpe Diem-ing.  Give Him Praise shows promise to be a really good Praise Choir tune with some high energy worshipping!  He has a couple of covers, but even those are well done.

I really am enjoying this album and will be interested to see what makes it into rotation in the near future.

And of course the tenth track begins with a face melting guitar solo so you gotta love that!

What album/track is melting your face off?

I had a dream…

I had a dream I was floating down the river on my guitar playing the sweetest song…

From all I can tell this is a real picture, a real guitar, a real boat.

This is Aussie Josh Pyke sailing his Acoustic Guitar in Rozelle Bay, Sydney Austrailia.  His latest album (which admittedly I have not heard) was inspired by the sea.  ”Ever since I was a kid reading adventure books, especially Huckleberry
Finn, I’ve always had a desire to jump on a raft and disappear down a
river”.

If only I were so lucky…

Ultracompact USB Power Adapter Exchange Program

Wow, that was a long title.
Anyway, if you haven’t already heard and you have an iPhone you need to send in your original power adapter because it can electrocute you.  (sad times)
So I finally got around to swapping it out today.
The good news is I didn’t get electrocuted, yet.

By the way – the iPhone is still an amazing piece of technology in my book and the apps that go with it really increase it’s functionality.

Some of my favs are:

Shazam (I still haven’t stumped it)
Twitterfon (though yesterday it stopped working on my phone and started crashing?)
so I’m back to Twitterific
GuitarToolkit (absolutley the best guitar software I have ever used on any platform)
WordPress (mobile blog posts with pics – awesome!)
Jott (even though they are now a pay service, the ‘to do’ section is still free and convenient)
and of course
Bible (youversion.com’s mobile browser)

What are your favorite apps?

Sunday (and Saturday) Setlist

The musical worship for this weekend was a rare treat.  We programmed all the music at the front of the service because of the weight of the passage we were studying (Joshua 9-22).

The opener was Phil Wickham’s Cannons

Then I read a quote by Raymond C Ortlund:
“Worship is the highest and noblest act that any person can do.  When people worship, God is satisfied! “The Father seeks such to worship Him,”  Amazing, isn’t it?  And when you worship you are fulfilled.  Think about this: why did Jesus Christ come?  He came to make worshippers out of rebels.  We who were once self-centered have to be completely changed so that we can shift our attention outside of ourselves and become able to worship Him.”

We continued with a three song set:
For Who You Are – Hillsong
All Creatures of Our God and King – Francis of Assisi, David Crowder
Center – Charlie Hall

As a congregation we read a passage from 1 Chronicles 16:
I read the first line of each verse and the congregation responded with the second.

23 Sing to the LORD, all the earth;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
24 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
25 For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.
26 For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
27 Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and joy are in his dwelling place.
28 Ascribe to the LORD, all you families of nations,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
29 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come before him.
Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
31 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let them say among the nations, “The LORD reigns!”
32 Let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them!
33 Let the trees of the forest sing,
let them sing for joy before the LORD,
34 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
35 Cry out,
“Save us, God our Savior;
gather us and deliver us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name,
and glory in your praise.”
36 Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Then all the people said “Amen” and “Praise the LORD.”

It was a great read in preparation for the passage in Joshua.

Then we closed the set with How Great is our God with a bridge of How Great Thou Art.

Now, I have to say, it is a miracle this service happened at all.  Our entire computer network was down before the first run through on Saturday.  Once that was finally fixed, my whole rig died.  My in ears stopped working, my guitar wireless stopped working, my guitar (which NEVER goes out of tune) was a step and a half flat, after I had tuned it ten minutes earlier.  It was just the worst service run through ever.  So we prayed and prayed and in his great mercy, God showed up!

How was your worship weekend?