June distraction and poll results

Poll results for "What sort of music are you listening to?"

The results from 37 votes were (I let voters have more than one vote this time):

8  Modern day: >2010
7  Recent years: 2000-2010
11 Alternative: 1990-2000
16 Eighties goodness: 1980-1990
26 Proper rock'n'roll: 1970-1980
13 Flower power: 1960-1970
3  Showing my age: <1960

I think I may have influenced the voting somewhat with my description of eras, not specifically on purpose, with terms like "Proper rock'n'roll" and "Eighties goodness". That's where I grew up, so it gets my vote, and it appears so do my internet mates. From the demographic I see on my Youtube page I'm not surprised there is voting on the modern day end of the scale, I've notice more young folk watching my vids than I'd expect.

The very low interest in pre-1960 stuff is interesting; does that mean that music more than 50-60 years old is now almost irrelevant? No way!  Does that mean that recording techniques back then just don't match the ear of today's generations? Nah, given the continuing interest in modern day lo-fi music. Was music too simple back then? Nah, some of the most complex and intricate music was written hundreds of years ago, and it always has been, in fact, music today is simpler! Do the older generations who listen to that sort of music not read the internet, in particular his blog, in particular, don't vote on polls? Probably!

Distractions; all part of the organic flow of life. I take a bit of time every week or so to cruise my Youtube subscriptions on my smartphone when I have a quiet moment, and Kelly Valleau has been getting a lot of play time lately. He is smashing out great tunes. He offers tabs and tutorials for all his songs, but I'm wondering how many people have the skills to play what he plays? These days he is right into the wrist thump and electric thumb snare, which sounds _amazing_, but whoa, some serious skillz required! Some of his earlier stuff suits beginners but I'd say most of his works is "advanced".  Would be interesting to interview him.

He played a great cover of Hey You by Pink Floyd, totally nailed it.  I've played a basic Hey You over the years, but when I heard that I simply HAD to update mine.  I followed his rendition fairly closely, I'm playing it in a higher key, and the last verse I went high in the melody (but had to pull it back when it hit the G chord), and I decided not to put in the time to fully cover the middle solo.  I was very close to committing to learn the "wrist thump" which he uses to great effect.  You pluck the thumb note at the same time as thumping the soundboard with your wrist, which is a bit counter-intuitive, but doable.  I decided not to invest the time into developing the skill, I have too much going on.

So I arpeggio'd the first verse, finger slapped the second and third, making it sound more "heavy" like the studio recording.  I recorded where I'm at - since I was already playing it of sorts it only took me a few hours to "upgrade" my version.  A few bad notes in this, and the finger slapping is coming across as annoying, I will have to pull it back a little, but man, I love this song:

I'm overdue to record some videos, I've got quite a few to do.  I'm just not making the time for it.  Sometime in the next few weeks I'm going to try to record a bunch of them, and then process them over the following weeks, and then release one a week for a while.  That's the thing stopping me; it's a few hours of effort just to record one video.  And will be moreso if I "dress up" like Shaun wants me to for the next videos.  But if I video a bunch one day, record clean audio tracks another day, and then post-process another day, I've divided it into manageable chunks.  Wish me luck!

And hassle me about finding another cafe gig!  I want one, but I'm not putting in the leg work to find one! :-)

JAW