Lesson 1 (10/24/2005)

I went up to West Mobile Music. My instructor, Andy, was just finishing up with the student before me. Promptly at 6:30, they wound things up and I got out my guitar and went into the little practice room they have at the shop.

Andy took my guitar and made sure it was in tune with his. He then played a few licks, I supposes to make sure that my cheapo guitar was in good working order. It was, for sure. Just put a new set of Elixir 12's on it less than a week before.

As a side note, I am beginning to like my guitar more and more. It's really not bad at all. Decent sound, action pretty good. I still would love a $1500+ Taylor, but that's just not in the cards, now is it?

Andy gave the guitar back to me and picked up his. He asked what I knew. I told him that I knew the basics. I can play major chords, some minors, some scales, etc. So he asked me to play a G chord. I did.

He then immediately found that I was sitting with the guitar on the wrong leg, and he asked me to use a lot more wrist, and a lot less arm while picking.

We went through all the majors. Then through the minors. Some I did not know, but for the most part we just played those I didn't know as a bar anyway. He asked about sevenths. I knew just a few. He talked about how 7th chords are formed, theory wise. As an excerise I'll be figuring out all the 7th's for next time.

We then moved on to the C scale in 1st position. I had played it before, but have not practiced it enough to be proficient. Remarkedly, it has not taken me long to get it up to a halfway decent speed. But, back to the lesson. After talking about the scale, I played it a time or two. Andy quickly corrected me about alternate picking. I was always striking a string on a downstroke, no matter the beat I was on. That is going to take some practice, but even after last night, I can feel it starting to sink in.

For next time, I'll have all major, minor, and seventh chords ready to go. I will be playing the C major scale in first position, alternate picking, as fast as I can. I will also play the scale and say the note names as I play it. Forwards and backwards for both of the scale excerises. Also, I need to be able to play every E in first position, every F, and so on. The last to excercises are already helping me to learn the notes on the fretboard better.

All in all, I had a great time. It was a blast to get out and get some direction to what I was working on. I like Andy, we seem to have a lot in common. I think we'll be a good fit.

We are skipping next week, due to Halloween. I hope to check in at some point in between now and then with an update on where I am with the excercises for next lesson. We'll see, maybe I have enough direction now to keep on updating this guy ;-)

New direction

Since I haven't posted anything to this guy since February, I thought I might change the direction a bit. I have taken up guitar and my first lesson was last night. I hope to use this site to chronicle what I do in each lesson and what I've learned outside of lessons. Stuff like that.

If anyone likes, doesn't, whatever, feel free to let me know.

Louis

Napster and the recording industry.

Napster has been cracked

That was the headline. As many know, Napster has recently launched a subscription service to download legal copies of songs. Great, wonderful. Well, some guys have found a way to rip off the DRM (Digital Rights Management) and distribute the songs they get as many times as they want.

I realize that is illegal, but when is the RIAA going to get their head out of their ass long enough to find a way to use modern technology in a way that people like me want? I doubt if I will ever buy another CD, although I would like to be able to burn songs to a CD to listen to in the car if need be. If they would simply offer a way to get to music that is cost effective, they could quit spending the MILLIONS they currently do on DRM and lawsuits.

Oh well, /soapbox....

Internet radio

I used to love internet radio stations. They all played songs that I had never heard before, and would never have heard because they would not have made it on any infinite Clear Channel stations that shove total junk down the throats of America... (ok, saving that rant..deep breaths).

But now I have decided that those radio stations really are not as good as I once thought. About one thing can describe my musical tastes: varied. This morning I was listening to one of the heavy metal stations as I am want to do fairly often, and realized I was tired of hearing the same stuff over and over. These stations think they HAVE to be unique and stay in one exact genre. That's not what my ADHD inclined mind needs. I need varity. I swapped over to the "Party Shuffle" feature of my iTunes. In in the past few songs, I have heard Sevendust, Dream Theater, Hootie and the Blowfish, and Frank Sinatra!

Maybe I should attempt to start a station with a ecletic mix of music such as that. There are so many hurdles preventing that though. Copyright issues, ASCAP fees, etc. It's just not worth it. So I will go on listening to the stations until I get tired of the same sounds over and over, then swap over to my more varied mix. And I guess I will be happy about it.

Twain class for .NET

Hello all,

For my first posting, I'll put up a .NET class I just wrote that encapsulates the TWAIN functionality in Windows. I used a LOT of the work of someone that he posted on the codeproject.com.

The full source can be found here.
Have fun with it. Basically, instantiate the Twain object, call Init, then use Select to choose which TWAIN object you want to use. Make sure your application handles the Twain.ScanEvent event. This event is raised when a scan happens. Call the Acquire method to start that process. Once the inside the ScanEvent, you can call the TransferPictures and receive an array of System.Drawing.Image objects corresponding to the pics transferred from the source.

Laters....