Entries Tagged 'music' ↓

Thanks to Coyote for posting.

I was playing around learning “Hit Me Baby One More Time”, and I started playing this instead. Funny how music works.

Happy Easter, whatever it means to you. :)

Ahniwa Ferrari - untitled guitar tune

If you haven’t seen them yet, you really, really, really need to go out and watch these two movies.

Once is a story of music in Dublin, of love, and of chasing your dreams. And it’s completely, madly, absolutely brilliant.

Juno is, of course, the story of a young girl who gets pregnant, decides to keep her baby, and has some insightful, clever, endearing moments along the way.

They’re the two best movies I’ve seen in months, and they both have fantastic music in them. To further entice you:

Glen Hansard - Once Soundtrack - 01 - Falling Slowly

I need to learn how to play that.

I was a high school drama geek and it changed my life. Before drama I was quiet, shy — painfully shy — and had no luck with the ladies. Somehow, being involved in acting changed all that, and as I became more confident and sure of myself, life in general got a whole lot better. It’s funny how that works.

The only really sad part about this story is that I never learned how to act. Despite the many things I gained from being in drama, I really don’t think acting ability was one of them, and I feel like a lot of this has to do with our drama teacher, who we (dis)affectionately referred to as “The Beast.” I’m not sure why, except the fact that she was rather beastly. In her theater, acting ability was always secondary to being able to project and to knowing your lines. Which is fine, sure. Those are good skills. But for those of us who had a talent for remembering lines, and had learned how to project, her lessons were wasteful and superfluous. And we never learned any, you know, acting skills.

All of this just to get to the point that the only good thing I ever learned from the beast, really, is that no matter how you feel your performance will turn out; indeed, even if you know that your performance is going to suck, a lot, you should never start apologizing before you’ve even begun. Never tell people you’re going to suck. Let them figure it out, and who knows, maybe they’ll like you anyway. Somehow. Maybe you don’t suck as much as you thought you sucked. Who knows.

So I won’t say that the song I’ve linked below here sucks. Because it doesn’t. I will say that I’m not the greatest singer, but I hit a great Jack White note in there somewhere, and I can learn to be satisfied with that.

Ahniwa Ferrari — I’m so lonesome now

I briefly related my harrowing adventure, out into the ice, wind, sleet, and cold, to purchase new guitar strings for my lovely rosewood guitar. The strings I got are the same kind I’ve been using since I discovered them, recommended to me years ago in a music shop in Port Townsend, I think, back in 1997 or so. I don’t know if they’re really the best strings out there, but they do keep a nice tone for a long time, which is essential for a musician as lazy as myself, and one therefore prone to not changing strings for significant lengths of time.

I bought two sets of strings, polyweb lights and polyweb mediums, and put the lights on first. My fingers are out of practice, so I thought maybe lighter strings would do a little less damage for now. They sound great, of course, as new strings should. Bright and clear. Once they’ve worn in a bit, I imagine I’ll like how they sound even more. I usually do.

Now, if only they made me a better guitar player. Here’s a little sample of a tune I’ve been working on. My favorite at the moment.

Ahniwa Ferrari - Untitled Guitar Tune