1.  Leave my job and have a go at being a self employed freelancer

2.  Take up piano after my 10 year break and learn Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# minor

3.  Get an full length album 75% finished (I’ll finish it off when I get back I promise!)

4.  Finally fix up that bass guitar that’s been sitting about in the corner not working for years

5.  Visit the Maton Guitar Factory to learn more about guitar building/repairs and get some hands on experience.

6.  Go seriously blonde

7.  Play a few acoustic gigs

8.  Ah I’m all out of ideas.  Maybe I didn’t get much done this year

9.  Though number 1 was a biggie so it more than makes up for everything else

10.  Rock on!

Ok, I’m gonna break tradition and set myself some goals for 2009.  That way I can’t just make them up at the end of the year and pretend I’m awesome.  So in no particular order…

1.  Finish that darn album!

2.  Be calm and cool at the end of the financial year, stay self employed and don’t go running to beg for my old job back

3.  Host some successful art gallery nights at The Manor

4.  Finish a couple of paintings

5.  Get back into gigging and… Go on tour!  Preferably summer tour, but who knows…

6.  Finish that awesome guitar I started building in 2007

7.  Run a marathon.

8.  Learn another Rachmaninoff piece (not decided which one yet)

9.  Write music for a film

10.  Make a music video

Ok, I might even print that out and stick it on my wall for the purpose of proper motivational cliché

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, have fun at New Years and stay safe.

Catch ya on the flip side

It’s 7:30am on a Saturday morning.  I resisted the urge to sleep till 11 since I have a friend coming to record some bass tracks this morning and I need time to clear the myriad of coffee cups that litter my desk.  And time to write another long overdue blog.

Drum tracking is finished, a couple of songs have all the tracking done however most are still waiting on bass.  I am trying to nail a tough guitar solo in one particular song which is giving me grief.  I mean I can play it, but I just really want to play it solidly.  I just can’t seem to get that magic take.  Vocals are done on most of the songs, bar a couple.  Robin Liu (Infinite Flying Kick) came in to record some guitar parts and brought with him a new song he’d written for the album.  I need to write vocals and other parts for that too.  A few tracks have moved on to the mixing stage.  I had planned to do the mixing myself but at this point I’m so sick to death of my own music that I really felt I needed to get a pair of outside ears in.  In fact I’m getting two pairs of outside ears with David Edtmaier of Miscreant Recordings and Michelle Klaessens from The Rock Factory doing some each.

A quick shout out to those who have contributed so far…

Mike Johns - Guitar

Tory Staples (Battle Circus) - Drums

Christina Chunks (Infinite Flying Kick) - Piano/Synths

Robin Liu (Infinite Flying Kick) - Guitar

James Dudley - Guitar, Backing Vocals

Dave Edtmaier (Miscreant) - Guitar, Bass, Mixing

Anthony Corban (The Mysterons) - Bass, Guitar (Yet to be tracked)

Harry Champion (The Exiles) - Bass

Michelle Klaessens (The Rock Factory) - Mixing, and no doubt she’ll throw in some piano and backing vocals

Starting early and finishing late with short breaks to catch the Santa Parade as it went past and to play an acoustic gig, the weekend went by in a blur.  I will be really interested to see how my drums tracks sound in the mix.  With no engineer on hand I was a little worried at first but everything seemed to go pretty smoothly.  I haven’t loaded all the tracks off the computer there yet.  I’m not used to using a Mac so I got a little frustrated with all the shortcuts being different.  I recorded in Logic which I have used a little before but such a long time ago that it may as well have been not at all.  However by three in the morning on Sunday I was starting to get the hang of it and even remembering to press Apple+S for ‘Save Project’ instead of Ctrl+S for ‘Solo Track’

Also by three in the morning on Sunday; Tory had blisters on his hand and the rehearsal room floor was decorated with a sprinkling of sawdust from hacked away drumsticks.  A china cymbal that had been bit damaged on tour was now completely history, and we had consumed enough caffeine to wake a drowsy elephant.  In my case that was only just enough coffee to combat the few unwise vodkas I had after the acoustic gig.

The acoustic gig on Sunday was interesting,  I was very unprepared (story of my life) having spent most of the week stressing about getting this album finished before Christmas break, and generally running about like a headless chicken (the metaphor not the band).  Played partly solo but mostly as an acoustic duo with  friend of mine Mike Johns.  Had good feed back after the gig so either we played well thanks to our 20 minute practice before the show or all our friends are sweet kind liars

Theoretically I’m spending Sunday afternoon and Sunday night recording Tory Staples on drums for my album.  However in reality we will be escaping the studio for a while for a gig.  The gig is at The Crib Bar 151 Ponsonby Road, Auckland New Zealand, kicks off around 6pm and I’d love to see you there!

Old strings just don’t sound as good.  They don’t vibrate as evenly as new strings due to dirt, corrosion or pitting of the string, unevenness in the metal as the string is stretched out over time.  This is usually first noticed as the string becomes less crisp sounding, the high frequencies are lost.  eg.  If you’re playing the open A string, the string will be vibrating at 440 Hz.  Thats 440 vibrations per second and is called the fundamental frequency.  But on a real musical instrument as opposed to a straight sine wave, you get harmonics that give the note it’s depth and character.  The string is oscillating loudest 440 times per minute, but it is also vibrating with less amplitude at other frequencies.  So mostly what you hear is the fundamental frequency, but the other frequencies, the harmonics, are what gives the life and color to the sound.  As a string becomes older, dirtier and less flexible it is still able to vibrate happily close to its fundamental, but the very high frequency vibrations are disrupted.  The string no longer sounds bright and sharp and clear, it sounds like it’s played through a low pass filter.  It sounds dull, without life or definition.

Old strings with their dirt and corrosion can cause premature fret wear on your guitar.  They are more gritty and abrasive than new strings so will wear away at the tops of your frets faster.  Also, if you aren’t changing your strings often you don’t get a chance to give your guitar a proper clean and oil the fretboard.

You can make your strings last longer by washing and drying your hands before you play your guitar, using a string lubricant such as ‘Finger Ease’, and wiping your strings down after you play.  Long life strings are more expensive but do last longer.

For steel string acoustic guitar, Elixir strings (in my humble opinion) don’t sound as good to begin with.  The coating they have on them seems to dull the sound.  My personal favorites are Dean Markley Alchemy’s, which sound amazing.  A close second for me would have to be the Martin SP+ strings.

For electric guitar, I quite like Dean Markley Blue Steel’s.  And not just because I’m a Zoolander fan!  They are long lasting and very crisp and clear.  They don’t seem to suit every guitar though.  I find some of my guitars need a warmer sounding string and then I just go with Ernie Balls.

I have just put Blue Steel bass strings on my bass and I’m really pleased with those.  I have a very cheap old bass that was a borderline case for being chucked out but the strings have given it new life.

Buying the cheapest strings available is fine if you’re going to change them often.  Even though I use long life strings I still change them before recording or a gig because there’s nothing like the sound of fresh strings.

I’ve often heard it said that you should change your strings after every 20 hours of playing. This sounds like a good rule of thumb, but it can depend on what kind of playing you’re doing and how you look after your strings. So it is a good idea to just use your eyes and your ears to decide. Do my strings look manky? Are the unwound strings showing signs of pitting and corrosion? Do my strings sound less than fantastic? Is my intonation going out?

The strings on your guitar are the source of your sound.  Keep in mind that horrid strings can make the best guitars sound awful. And, because I’m a girl I have to say it, old strings are gross and unhygienic and probably will give you tetanus if you spike yourself on them.

This song is very much a half finished WIP.  I lost my voice last week after a cold, and when I tried to sing this on Friday I got only one terrible take done before my voice gave out again.  So I will definitely be redoing the vocals on this!

It has recently come to my attention, that there are people out there who don’t know what WIP stands for.  WIP = Work in Progress.  There you go.  I usually use the term to refer to something that isn’t finished yet, something that is in fact, a work in progress

I am trying out a new Wordpress plug-in called Podpress.  Unlike the previous media player I’ve been using (I think it’s called Wimpy) this one should show up in the RSS feed.  I guess I’ll find out soon.

2.  Today I went to the gym.  I have been meaning to join for a long time and I’m glad that I finally have.  When I got home I ate chocolate biscuits.

3.  I discovered my degrees of separation from my most favorite author Terry Pratchett today.  I play/ed in a band with Tory Staples —> Who also plays in a band called Battle Circus —->  Who recently opened for Amanda Palmer —->  Who’s photo book “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” had text written for it by Neil Gaiman  —> Who co-wrote the book Good Omens with Terry Pratchett.  Small world aye?

4.  I am really pleased with the game music I have done lately, though I keep wanting to do more and more little tweaks because I am on a perfectionist buzz.

5.  With my album I am much less of a perfectionist.  Keeping it indie, keeping it real, it has to sound like it was recorded in a bedroom. I want to finish it in time to go on summer tour.  This summer is just screaming road trip at me.

A little sneak peek of a current WIP. Really rough, not mixed cos still in the recording process on this. Still gotta record drums and redo the bass, record my vocals if I ever get my voice back (thats just my old guide track in there so far), gotta fix up those harmonies a bit (thats my friend James on backing vox, he’s gonna kill me if I don’t make him sound fab).
If you can’t see it on the RSS feed just click through to the site. I do need to find a better player that works on RSS feeds. Any recommendations?

I have been keeping myself busy with writing yet more music for computer games, recording my album with the help of some of my favorite local musicians, and of course trying to keep up with paperwork!

Have also formed a covers band recently. There are a few reasons for this, first and foremost - Fun! It has been a year since I last played with a band regularly and I really really have missed the fun times. Secondly, I really want to get my singing up to scratch and learning a few covers is a way of finding out what I am capable of vocally. I’ve mostly sung originals previously, and have probably stuck within my comfort zone too much. Thirdly, it wouldn’t kill me to earn a bit of extra cash here and there. So there you go, I’m in a covers band. We’re still looking for a proper band name, we’re temporarily calling ourselves (or at least each other) The Tards.

In the not too distant future I will be curating a small exhibition of artwork from some of my favorite practitioners of the quieter arts. Painters and photographers for the most part. More news on that closer to the time. Don’t want to give too much away just yet

I have noticed in my site stats that a few people are finding their way here from searches for “The Venus Project”. I had a look what this is about myself, and it’s absolutely nothing to do with me or “The Transit of Venus Project” - which is my recording project. Completely unrelated.

I also just wanted to give a quick shout out to some of my fav blogs. I know I haven’t been much use lately on the blogging front, but here are some of the blogs that I always read that you might enjoy too.

In no particular order…
http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/
http://rekkerd.org/
http://www.chipcollection.com/articles/
http://www.weeklysongcast.com/
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/

I handed in my notice for my part-time guitar technician job last week. I am now wearing the label ‘full time musician’ or perhaps ‘composer’. I am working on a few exciting projects at the moment, but I can’t tell you about them yet…

One thing I can tell you about is my album. There’s not much to tell except that hopefully I get some time to record it soon! So busy lately. The songs are all written, I have picked out which guest musicians I will be having along. Different ones for each song just to keep things interesting, except drums which will all be played by Tory from my old band. He is about to take off to Australia and Europe on tour with an awesome NZ band called Battle Circus (one of my favorites), but when he gets back I’ll be dragging him into the studio. All going well the album will be released through indie label BDM (Black Doris Music).

I have an acoustic gig coming up next Sunday, my first solo performance ever. Well, not including those awful piano competitions I used to have to play in growing up. Yikes! I will be playing keys live for the first time in 10 years. Playing a few originals, a few covers, and even going to play some Rachmaninov just because I’ve gone to the effort of learning it so I may as well perform it. If you’re in Auckland come along 6pm The Crib in Ponsonby - 151 Ponsonby road, Sunday 28th September.

Ok, coffee is gone, thats it from me this morning.

K.

Format: MP3, 256 Kbps.

Enjoy!