Guitar Hero

where I get to pass on the ultra-useful and sometimes strange bits of information that make life easier in certain situations. I love pocketing tricks of the trade. They are often hard-won and well worth the effort. If the wire wound strings on the guitar produce too much squeaking when the guitarist moves his fingers to grab his next chord, try using some “Fingerease” string lubricant. This tones down those squeaks and even helps to preserve the strings. Some folks love this stuff. Others hate…

Change. It is vital. It is necessary. It is a fact of life. Without it, inevitable stagnation ensues. Bands change their sound from album to album, altering with time and shifts in society. From cultural to personal reasons, these changes keep the music relevant. The Beatles shifted from a pop group, to a much more psychedelic and experimental group as their career progressed. Miley Cyrus started as living a double life as herself and Hannah Montana in her Disney Channel days. As she grew,…

It was the last day of school of my freshman year. I stood at the doorway of my world history classroom counting down the seconds as Kelcie and I repeated, “Summer, summer, summer.” The bell finally rang and everyone started running to the parking lot. Everybody was rushing to go eat lunch and hang out with their friends. I on the other hand included myself into my neighbor, Taylor’s plans. He asked me if I would like to help him build a slip n’ slide but he never would’ve thought I’d invite my…

Floyd’s version. The first choice they made was changing the instrumentation, Foo Fighters’ version does not use a synthesizer which was a key aspect of the melody section in Pink Floyd’s version. This part of the melody is played by the electric guitar instead of the synthesizer in the cover version. The absence of the synthesizer makes the Foo Fighters’ more straightforward and less complex because it takes away from the nuances of the original song and makes the cover song more direct. The…

Track 2 (“Baby Be Mine”): This song starts with percussion and synthesizer sound effects. The lyrics begin at 0:20. I noticed that the percussion highlighted the second and fourth beats of the measure. The song was a legato sounding pop song that sounded like some of the songs on the top 40 radio stations. Background singers entered at about 0:58; they shocked me because I did not expect something like that in this song. About that time there was an interesting hollow sound that I enjoyed. I was…

Ah! I heard the excited screams of thousands of people. We all had one thing in common. We were waiting for my favorite artist to strut onto the stage wearing a pair of silver, glittery shoes with her short blonde hair and white sunglasses. Can you guess who we were about to see? Yes! We were at Soldier Field about to see Taylor Swift’s 1989 World Tour. On July 18th it was a sweltering 96° F with a dramatic heat index making it feel as if it was over 107° F. It had been raining on and…

introduction to High Society starts with a synthesizer “progression”, of which term I will choose to use loosely, that lasts approximately ten seconds before subduing itself into the first verse devoid of any instrumentation other than drums and bass guitar. The sampled electronic keyboard or piano-like synthesizer sound returns later on in an even more…

is “Crazy On You,” by the rock group Heart. It has been my all-time favorite song since I was in high school, and was one of the first songs I learned how to play on guitar. It is a stellar example of rock music that was popular in the seventies and displays the accomplished songwriting talents of lead singer Ann Wilson, her guitar-playing sister Nancy, as well as the contributions of the other members of the band: Howard Leese, Roger Fisher, Steve Fossen, and Michael Derosier. Composed by…

and the tempo picked up. As all of the singers sang, the electric guitar was played and it contained a wide range with loud, electrifying sounds that helped pick up the pace of the song. The drums kept a constant beat throughout the song, and as the tempo picked up, they too started to play faster and kept up with the overall pace. A little while as everything is playing, it stops and goes back to a solo singer where the electric guitar had kept the beat of the song. It’s like the tempo of the…

The Grammy Awards this year started with “Out of the Woods” by Taylor Swift. Energetic and Powerful, she instantly attempted to command the crowd with her stage presence. Possibly an attempt to continue promotion for her album “1989”, or a performance to meet the standards of a “grammy moment” as mentioned by Host LL Cool J, the looks on the crowd at the beginning of the show showed great joy. From a Pop performance straight to Best Rap album award win by Kendrick Lamar, who later in the night…