F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.

Today I was around my new roommate Jordan - enough to know him better anyway.
He's into graphic design and has excellent taste in music.

I did play my guitar some today.
My post for today will likely be late, as I'm not in a writing mood.

He's got a lot of bands I like - I may get lots of new music at some point in the near future.

Today I picked up my new favorite song.
I've been working on
-Same Old Song and Dance (Aerosmith),
-3's & 7's (Queens of the Stone Age),
but the new one I like is F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X by The Fall of Troy.
It's a remix of another song with a bad name, but there's no real acronym-meaning to the name anyway. I like its lyrics.

I'm learning to play it on my guitar, at least the opening solo part. It is a GH song, of course.
I got the tabs at Ultimate Guitar, but I've modified them to what I've found made more sense.



It reminds me of my last day with Sarah... :(

I don't want to see the day
my words cannot make it safe.
Her heart in my hands - it's too bad - no regrets.

I don't want to see the day
tears are falling on my grave.
This is my one chance...

Songs Old and New

I've picked up another song from Guitar Hero.
It's Same Old Song and Dance by Aerosmith.

I can play all of the normal bits.
I can play one of the three solos.
In time, I'll be able to play it perfect.

It's an excellent electric guitar song.

It's not particularly easy, and there's not a perfect tab.. but I figured out the opening guitar solo out myself.

Darren's been playing my guitar all of a sudden...
I'm surprised to see they want to handle it now, esp. as I'm leaving Thursday for Idaho.

I've been busy - I've got lots of packing to do.

But I did put in a fair amount of guitar practice today.

I've been looking for the old version of Be Like That by 3 Doors Down that I learned. Darren's been messing with it.
I used to have that song perfect... on acoustic.





If I could be like that... what would I do...

More Guitar Hero Songs

Watching my brothers play GH III gives me ideas. I learn a lot.

I can play a lot of "parts" of songs... it's helping me broaden my abilities.
I can pluck faster thanks to The Seeker, for example. You can see it here.

Some of the stuff I don't even know what it's called.
Let alone who sings it.

Once again, on the left you'll find a link with Guitar Hero and Rock Band Tabs, if you're looking for songs to rock...

Today I picked up a piece called "Radio Song" by Superbus.
It's a weird part-English, part-French-I-think song.
I can play the opening perfect, not sure about the layout of it...

A peek? Sure.


Can't pronounce my favorite part... lol...

They call me the Seeker

I've been searching low and high...

Today I've perfected another Guitar Hero song.
For real.

It's called The Seeker ...by The Who. Lol... who knew I would go after such a band?
I mean, if you read my stuff, you'd know I'm a Jack Johnson man.
I like the softer stuff.

Didn't stop me from learning the parts "My name is Jonas" or "The Metal" or "3's and 7's" though...

It's actually rather easy. You can find it and others at the Guitar Hero / Rock Band link on the left.

It is a fun one - I love the lyrics.
The chords are A,D,G, and C. Much of it a beginner could pick up. They're first-position chords. Of course, it's not all child's play.

There are some fast-plucking, and misc "realistic" parts most people would have trouble with.

Nevertheless, it's a good, fun song.


Here's a video:
ah... the sixties and seventies... lol...

I won't get to get what I'm after... 'till the day I die...

More Family Member Forms

Today at iKnow I covered another of the o___san words.
I believe it's the last.
I looked for more and there aren't any i want missing.
So...

Informal/plain:
兄 - ani - older brother
姉 - ane - older sister
弟 - otouto - younger brother
妹 - imouto - younger sister
母 - haha - mother
父 - chichi - father

Formal, Respectful:
お兄さん - oniisan - older brother
お姉さん - oneesan - older sister
お母さん - okaasan - mother
お父さん - otousan - father

Seems clear to me, if I got it right.

Today's interesting words:
そば - soba - side, vicinity ( a noun equivalent of 'near')

よう - way, like, kind (like "kind of", sorta, rather, etc. I think)

閉じる - tojiru - to close (another one!, tho a review... this is close a book)
閉める - shimeru - to close (this is to close a door)
締める - shimeru - this is to fasten, tighten (like a seatbelt)

辛い - karai - spicy, salty
三日- mikka - three days, third of month
来る - kuru - come

前 - mae - front, before ('前で/mae de' is 'in front of')

Here's a little one I picked out of a sentence... I'm sure of it.
りんご(ringo) - apple
Guess I ought to go learn my fruit... That's for later...

peace!

Studying Guitar Hero (Seriously)

I'm not going to rant about playing the video game.

I'm saying I'm seriously studying it, from a guitar perspective.
I'm learning how they made the difficulty increase, and how it applies to the real songs.

I've learned several riffs from misc. songs already, and I can play one of them.
It's My Name Is Jonas by Weezer.

The tricks used to make the things that sound difficult are simple hammer-ons and pull-offs. With mastering those, I'll be able to play anything.

The Metal by Tenacious D (i.e. Jack Black lol...) I know most of.
If you know it or listen to it, you'll discover it doesn't sound easy... and it's not.

I've learned lots already taking this seriously, and if you're learning to play guitar, take a peek at guitarherotab.com, specifically GH III if you want to see the stuff I'm interested in.

It's all good... I'll add a permanent link on the left under guitar! If you're going there, you'd better have spent or be planning to spend some time at Guitar Cardio too!

I haven't had time to work on my song of late. I need to continue...

What I've Done

That's a song by Linkin Park I learned about from a friend.
It was Thomas, from when they came down a while back.

I've heard it before, but I still like it.
I don't have it, and I think I'm going to get it.

I'm going to learn to play it on guitar.
Yes... That's why I brought it up. today's a guitar day.
I'm listening to it as I write this.

It's a very inspirational song.
It reminds me of the All-American Rejects' Move Along, as far as mood goes.

The beginning is easy to play... and fun.

If any of you wonder, I learn to play songs by doing tab searches at Ultimate Guitar.

I love this youtube box... It's pretty shweet.


Let mercy come... and wash away what I've done.

Learning to Play Something Fun

I haven't had much to keep me going lately, at least as far as guitar is concerned.
I have looked for new things to do, but I keep spacing off and doing other things.

The latest obsession is writing those stupid Kanji. How pathetic.

I've looked at some like Cliffs of Dover, but some are multi-instument, and some are just too hard. I need to find something to further my guitar-playing abilites.

I have been toying with new chord groups, and I might write a song if I find some I like.
I have a chord progression encyclopedia I got at a music store years ago... I'm thinking of pulling it out to use again. It's come in handy before.

Well, maybe I'll have a cooler discovery next time.
Sayoonara.

Beating Hard - Upside Down

I beat it!!! I beat the Devil Went Down to Georgia final battle!
I was extremely pleased with myslef... seems like I've been finghting to for weeks.
I'm trying to F.C. (100%) all of easy for fun... if we get five stars on all we'll get a new guitar, supposedly.

Enough Guitar Hero.

Jack Johnson! I'm so cliché.
Lol... no, seriously. tonight Thomas showed me a music video of him doing "Upside Down" for Curious George.

It's kinda cute to me, and I love the song.
This one I actually recommend you check out.

Watch it! It's cool.
I'm SO learning this one. I love JJ. Even more.

If you're interested, Eliza brought me on to this very sad one.
It parallels some stuff she's dealing with so well it just about made me cry.
It's White Horse, by Taylor Swift.


I also want to give a shout out to Andrea... I know it sounds silly, but I wasn't aware videos could be put straight in until I saw her do it... I just was a little slow on making the connection that I could figure out how to do it as well. I may be a veteran of the internet, but I'm new to the creating/coding/blogging side of it.

Well... I've been staying up because Stacy and Darren took Thomas to the hospital over his asthma. I was goung to stay up till they got back, but it's almost 3:30. I've got to sleep eventually. Peace.

Obsessed with Guitar Hero

I'm officially a Guitar Hero nerd. The very one I've always disliked.
Oh well. Too late, now.

I'm stuck on the last chapter of Hard mode.
I just beat Raining Blood by Slayer today. It's the first one.
It's stupid. I won't be playing it again anytime soon.

I already skipped ahead and had beat the second and third.
they are:
Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson ...and
Number of The Beast by Iron Maiden

Cliffs of Dover is a beautiful instrumental. Even those that don't care too much for electric guitar would like it. Someday I'm gonna learn it.
Those of you looking for something entertaining, watch this nutter FC it ("full count" i.e. 100%) on expert mode here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOLZeeCS0-4
It's actually neat to watch and listen to, considering it is silly guitar hero.

Right now I'm stuck on the last one...

One by Metallica.

I have... only One left in the game.
lol...
Well, sorta. Then I get to play Devil Went Down To Georgia.
It's a guitar battle. against the devil. even better, I live here in Georgia.

peace out.

Fire's on the mountain, run boys, run...
the Devil's in the house of the rising sun.

If Guitar Hero Were Real...

No. I'm not some nerd fantasizing about being cool.
Quite the contrary.

I've decided to learn all of the songs in Guitar Hero (III) on my guitar in order.
On my guitar = for real.

Not to be too silly, but I guess I could call myself a real guitar hero at some point.

It doesn't seem like it will be too difficult.
I worked on the first one, Slow Ride by Foghat today.
I just about have it down.

I'm kinda proud of myself.

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow, and I'm kinda freaked out.
I hope I get this up in the evening before I get to bed, otherwise it won't be seen for a few days.

The Great Kanji Matchup!!!

Tonight I did some matching of kanji from my charts.
I stopped, because I had to get to bed, but I have several marked in red that are vocab.

I haven't studied kanji in a while - vocab is more important usually, but I want to list my 180-something iKnow vocab to my charts.

I printed out new charts I'm going to find a way to hang up on my wall, and I'm using the old ones to mark what's been done.

I'm going to eventually start marking off the ones I have fully memorized on the new ones, eventually.

I need to learn to write them, too. I may get a stack of blank paper to keep and just write some of them over and over everyday.

I may just start learning to duplicate the charts!

The charts in question are Kanji grades 1,2, and 3 at Nihongo no Narau ("learn-japanese.com")

Sweet Home Alabama

Yep. I figured it was time to take a peek at learning that.
It's one of the classic "everyone knows it" songs.

I picked up the tabs from ultimate-guitar... I can kinda do it, but I haven't heard it in so long I'm not sure how some of the timing goes.

I'm going to look it up and listen to it.
That should help. A lot. Not tonight, though.

It has a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs which should help me "apply what I've learned", if you know what I mean. I've messed with them, but I've never done a song that uses everything.

If all goes well (and it probably will) I should be officially a "great" guitar player if I can get something like that down.

I'm hopeful - it will require lots of work, though.

I'm not in a particularly good mood, it seems, so that's it for today.
Peace.

Do You Remember

Today I started to learn this song... another one
by Jack Johnson, incidentally.

It was kinda tricky, but i figure it's taught me something valuable.
Aside being a little confusing in the middle of the chorus, it's relatively straightforward.

It's less chord and more individual notes. (it does use G 355433, A 577655, and D 557775)
I love the lyrics... it's a sweet song.

I almost have it perfect already!

I've been working on the song I wrote, too. It's not so bad.
I'm actually thinking of writing another one. This time my reason is kind of as an emotional outlet, so I'm not sure how it will go. Such can be rather spontaneous.

Today's my half birthday, if any one cares. I don't.

How To Practice Guitar!

I dug up an excellent / incredible website.
It makes practice exercises for you, based on how you specify.

My StumbleUpon button yielded a list of guitar practicing websites, all I was aware of, except for this one.
At the website, guitarcardio.com, you're given options of root notes, scales, modes, and difficulty. You tell it how many you want it to generate, and it generates them.

The exercises are clearly helping me. They're a challenge - that's key to improving.
I'm doing medium difficulty ones. Some are harder, some are easier - it's about where I'm at. It's clearly helping my fingers to be more coordinated.

It seems to be the guitar equivalent of my Hanon piano books.

Traffic In The Sky

and it doesn't seem to be getting much better...

I found a new song already - it was one of those stuck-in-my-head, learn-to-forget ones.
I have started learning it because I don't know the lyrics, which embeds it in my head until I learn them.

It happened to cover material I needed - more individual-string finger-picking.
I am trying to learn things that will teach me something. This covers stuff I needed.

Switching to and from the movable broken x1312x chord.
The two it uses are the second and fourth of this verse:

D - 557775
... - x 9 11 9 10 x
C - 335553
... - x 7 9 7 8 x

It's a good song - not incredibly difficult.
I just need to work on holding down those mysterious chords better.

Noticing The Little Stuff

Another day, another practice session at iKnow.
I'm halfway through the course (52%)... supposedly.
The words today are:
首 - kubi - neck
速い - hayai - fast
一緒に - isshyoni - together, at the same time
日記 - nikki - diary
遊ぶ - asobu - to play
今月 - kongetsu - this month

great... another homophone. don't we love those?
はやい - hayai - can be 早い or 速い - "early" or "fast".

I've notice a few little things along the way, though.

For example, とても - totemo - which means "very".
Also, the を (o) vs. に (ni) particles - and when to use them.

i'm a little thrown off by the formal vs. informal speech.
I need to go learn about the -masu and -shou endings, and what they mean.
the whole "shou" thing is a little confusing...

I learned that the -tachi pluralizing suffix can be added to many things.
not only does it make I -> We and You(s) -> You(p) and He/She/It -> Them, but
It makes Child -> Children.

I have picked up a few misc unintentional vocabulary words...
鳥 - tori - bird
キリン - kirin - giraffe
公園 - kouen - (public) park
忙しい - busy - actually i think this was vocab at some point... but I can't remember.

several are reoccuring-I-think vocab, like 寒い - samui - cold.
That one's used it the 冬/fuyu(winter) practice sentence.

I think my comprehension is getting a little better... I'm trying to help it along.
I still don't care for the dictation thing, even if it is helping.

The Finished And The Forgotten

I finally have ...Follow You Into The Dark by DCfC perfect!
I'm glad to have another one down.

Something happened tonight to irritate me slightly... I realized something depressing...

I've forgotten a lot of the earlier things I learned.

Eliza showed me a song of Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat tonight, Lucky.
It was pretty cool.

I used to know how to play Mraz's Prettiest Friend.
I've forgotten, and re-learning it isn't going to be easy - I had to figure it out by ear. Somewhere I wrote it down, though... Hopefully I can find out where.

Also, I used to be able to play Hey, There Delilah by Plain White T's.

I'm kinda thrown now... I feel obligated to go back... Once I do, I'll pick up something new, though. I still practice the more recent old stuff regularly, for practice's sake.

I Will... Into the Dark II

I have the chords/lyrics to DCfC's I Will Follow You Into The Dark. I'm learning it today, like I said I was planning on doing.

It's not easy, but it isn't as difficult to understand as I thought it would be.
It uses:
Dm - x00231
F - 133211
Bb - 113331
Bbm - 113321
A -002220
C - 032010
C(bar) - 335553

It's just there's no "pattern", so there's a lot more to remember.
The intro is this:

Dm F Bb F C
Dm F C(Bar)
Dm F A Dm-C Bbx2 Bbmx2

(Following Her) Into The Dark

I made a big discovery when I was playing bits and pieces of Lee's What It Does to Us this evening. I was about to go to bed, but I forgot to post here anyway.

I'll Follow You Into The Dark - by Death Cab for Cutie - an incredible song... was introduced to me by Eliza long ago, funnily enough, who I just got off the phone and/or texting with. What about it?

Well... Lee can play it. And I was playing two of the chords he uses in his song... the sound was familiar... and then it hit me! I thought I was just imagining it at first, but I looked up the video to go listen to it, and sure enough - Perhaps he was inspired by it, however subliminally... I love it! I'm going to learn it. I have to... It will be marginally difficult, and I was looking for a challenge in my next song to learn. It fits perfect!

I wasn't even thinking about that song at the time. It took forever to figure out where in the past I had heard that sound...


If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied -
illuminate the "no"s on their vacancy signs,
if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks...
then I'll follow you into the dark.