Music Clinic with Willy Porter

Over the weekend my son and I attended a music clinic with Willy Porter at Cascio music. I've been a fan of ever since I found some of his music. Unconditional is a great song.

I was amazed at all the sounds he was able to generate alone, by himself. It definitely brought back my yearnings to learn to play the guitar. But alas, I don't think it's for me.

It was interesting to hear how some songs progressed and tips on playing. My son was very interested, which is great. I'd rather he spent more time on music than just playing video games.

New Personal Monitor - Simmons DA200S

I've been wanting to get an amplifier for the drum set so that I don't always have to wear headphones and I can rock out especially when I have the house to myself.

I haven't had much luck hooking up the drums to the stereo. I'm currently getting quite a buzz, and not a good type of buzz when hooking up to the stereo. So I started looking at options for a personal monitor.

Uncle Bob's pushed a keyboard amp. Cascio the Roland PM10 or PM30 and Guitar Center the Simmons. I did a little research and found a lot of options out there from PA to Keyboard to PMs for drums. They all vary in price obviously.

It came to a point where I just wanted to try something and see what I thought. While I would like to have JBL Eon G2, that's not realistic with my budget. Since Guitar Center had a sale going and they told me I could return it within 30 days if I didn't like it, I figured I might as well give it a shot.

The DA200s was a little bigger than I expected. It's heavy, but I carried to the car by myself. I took it home and hooked it up. I would have liked a few more controls and I didn't get a manual. But it did sound pretty good. I thought I might have popped an ear drum at one point with a snare hit.

Overall I like it. It's nice not having headphones and being able to listen a little better. The downside is now I want stereo. Having it come from one side isn't that great. Behind or upfront would be good but that doesn't jive with my current drum location.

I still might give the stereo another try. I have some large tower speakers I might be able to find a spot for and they might actually be okay for bass.

Enter Sandman

I started working on Enter Sandman the other day. The song is a lot of fun and rocks. So it's a lot of fun. I don't think it's as tecnically dificult as the slower song Creep. But it is very busy in parts. I got some parts down pretty good. It's fun to see it come together.

I found the sheet music on the Web awhile ago. But it looks overly complicated. I don't really understand why it seems some sheet music uses one note position for the snare, while others use different positions. I ended up just playing around, using a combination of the sheet music, Rock Band tab and the Rock Band game itself.

The Rock Band practice area is actually really nice in that you can pick various sections of the song and practice them at various speeds. Unfortunately there isn't a one-to-one correlation between what notes they show and the actual drum/cymbal to play--which makes it a little difficult. But it sure helped learning the song.

I need to try recording some of my playing. I know it's still not good, but I need to do it. If nothing else to show my progress over the next months or years. :)

I've had fun going off on a tangent and trying to learn a couple songs. I think I learned a lot of different things, trying to put it all together. But I need to get back to focusing on fundamentals and practice. I might alternate between practicing songs and fundamentals.