Owner: I Dunno - What D'you Think? URL:http://www.dave-keir.com/wordpress/ Join Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:33:13 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Dave Keir's News and Views. Acoustic Guitar Songs On Fingerstyle Guitar. Gigs, Recordings, Guitars, Technique, Theory And Independent Musicianship. Site statistics:Click here
Noodling with scales 2008-03-04 02:42:40 How many useful scales are there – or how many would be of interest to me? Modes are one set of scales that seem to get an inordinate amount of attention from fingerstyle guitar players (and others) these days. I guess it’s their folky and archaic sound world. Arabic and other eastern scales have [...]
Noodling with harmony 2008-02-28 09:37:42 The guitar seems to have a tonal centre around G major meaning the further you go to the dominant and sub-dominant sides from there, the tougher it becomes to play. (I’m talking acoustic fingerstyle guitar as distinct from, say Jazz, particularly played on electric.) There is a jump in difficulty when you reach B major [...]
Modal chords! 2008-02-25 02:43:05 Now this is a term that crops up quite often on internet forums and even printed publications. I’ve even seen tables constructed in Microsoft Excel correlating chords
to modes. Modes are cool and their use as a basis for melodies will provide exciting possibilities particularly if the desire is to evoke a “folky” or [...] Read more:Modal
Another shameless plug! 2008-02-14 13:54:00 I’ve just been told by a friend at Soundclick about a new widget I can use all over the place. It looks cool, seems to work, and I might just port it over to my main site, my MySpace page and a anywhere else I can plonk it without anybody noticing! I think the streamed [...]
Causing Offence With A Song 2008-02-08 05:32:44 I have thought about this quite a lot. In the UK last year (or the year before) there was a theatre play in that was closed due to a particular group of people being offended by the content and demonstrating outside the theatre where it was being staged in order to get the play closed [...]
Payplay.fm widget 2008-01-12 12:52:04 I’ve just discovered it at a place selling my songs:
Dave Keir
Isn’t that cool?
I’m waiting for the first $0.88 to roll in.
I’m still waiting… Read more:widget
A Pickup On My OM-18V… 2008-01-12 12:47:23 … was installed at the same time as the aforementioned nut job, above. So far, and after only a quick audition in the store, it is all I expected it to be: like an acoustic guitar with a pick-up on it.
Let me be clear: the sound of an acoustic guitar with a pick-up, of [...] Read more:Pickup
My OM-18V nut job… 2008-01-08 09:09:43 …is done.
Just to recap (and to save me the bother of including a hyperlink) I suspected the string slots in the nut of this guitar had been cut so that the bottom and top strings were uncomfortably near the edge of the fingerboard, especially at the first five frets, or so. I had convinced [...]
Dilettantism 2008-01-03 15:01:53 From www.dictionary.com:
dil·et·tante
-noun
1. a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.
The part-time Independent Musician’s true character? Further investigation reveals:
des·ul·to·ry
-adjective
1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful.
I would have to face the fact that, taking all [...]
Have a merry… ah… 2007-12-24 05:52:18 You know what I mean. If Santa is your anticipated benefactor tomorrow, may he be as generous to you as I suspect he is going to be to me. He always does me proud.
Eat, drink, and be merry. And be safe.
(Original) Guitar Notation and Tabs 2008-03-18 09:25:14 I have had a fun weekend with my favourite notation program writing out the guitar parts for some songs. I have been meaning to get down to this for some time and I’ve been postponing it “until tomorrow” for weeks. But I’ve been afforded some kick-back time while recuperation from a rather savage attack of [...] Read more:Original
, Guitar
Noodling with words 2008-03-25 04:52:46 As I wander from internet forum to bulletin board and back again, I come across certain topics that come up repeatedly like the sunrise. One of these is a question about the relative priority of music or lyrics when it comes to songwriting. If I pipe up and post a reply it is usually a [...]
Care and Feeding of Guitars! 2008-03-28 07:55:09 Guitar care is a preoccupation among many acoustic guitar players - at least amateur ones. A lot of pros seem to take satisfaction from treating their guitars with a certain amount of careless disdain. On the other hand, there is a section of the guitar buying public that, in truth, are more collectors of guitars [...] Read more:Feeding
, Guitars
Tonight a session! 2008-04-04 03:14:57 I’m going to pop along to Stonehaven Folk Club tonight to see some friends and play a few songs. Stonehaven is my favourite club hereabouts. Nice folks and some good singers and players.
The only down side of session
s is that they are like song circles where everybody gets to play one song in turn. My [...] Read more:Tonight
Podcasts - and YouTube? 2008-04-03 08:24:50 These are areas of self-promotion that send a shiver up my spine – and not in a pleasant way. But I guess I should get (back) down to it. Independent musicians mostly need any tool they can lay their hands on.
I have one experience of podcasting, though. I had signed up to an OMD (Online [...] Read more:Podcasts
, YouTube
Noodling with form 2008-04-10 13:57:10 One of the effects of my listening to so much classical music – particularly symphonies – is that I appear to have developed an ear for forms such as rondo, sonata, minuets, etc. Out of curiosity, I’ve also read a little about the historical development of these forms. Even more curiously, I’ve been pondering how [...]
Books 2008-04-13 05:03:31 Whatcha reading right now?
I go through phases. I get pulled in opposite directions: I spend half my time feeling guilty because I’m not reading enough, and the other half of my time feeling guilty because my time would be better spent (for example) practicing guitar instead of wasting it reading. Tough old life.
When I’m [...] Read more:Books
Tomorrow’s gig… 2008-04-17 15:15:37 … is at The Rolling Hills Folk Club in Melrose in the Scottish borders.
See ya there!
The Zone 2008-04-22 09:46:29 A recent thread on an internet forum got me thinking. The original poster criticised guitar players who concentrated too much on technique and not enough about putting their heart into it. Good point. Perhaps it’s a lack of confidence in playing accurately that causes some players to become a bit mechanical in their execution of [...]
Free will? 2008-04-26 03:52:15 Of all the topics that philosophers ring their hands over, this is the one that interests me the most. That is to say, I’m fascinated by the question of the existence of “free will”. Don’t worry, I’m not about to expound the arguments for or against its existence - I would not presume the philosophical [...]
The nakedness of ambition 2008-05-07 14:20:59 Well it’s good to have aspirations and goals and seek to improve your lot. But I have to say I’m more than a little ambivalent about the world view held by the ambitious type - those who proclaim a singularity of purpose and clarity of vision that (they say) are prerequisites to success. I think [...]
Hand Percussion! 2008-05-15 05:08:03 In the early days of my project studio I had the whimsical idea that my songs would be enhanced by liberal application of hand percussion. So I went round music stores and bought all sorts of shakers and rattles and cowbells, triangles, a tambourine, a cabaasa, brushes, and several items whose names now escape me. [...]
Wherefrom the songs? 2008-05-25 02:49:57 Sometimes I’m asked at gigs and catches me off guard. It’s always a difficult question to answer succinctly to a stranger, and causes me to stutter and stammer incoherently. “I’ve always done it”, is as lame a reason as it is true.
But to me it’s all rather obvious since it’s an internal life that [...] Read more:songs
Uneasy Listening - Would you like to be kept informed? 2008-06-01 04:55:07 Hi folks!
The pre-production of my forthcoming CD Uneasy Listening
is nearing completion! But there is still some work to do. If you would like to be kept up to date with the progress and be pointed to a place where you can download free pre-mastered mixes of the songs as they progress, please complete the [...]
Songwriting and “Inspiration” 2008-06-11 04:33:07 What is the nature of the faculty for inventing music?
When I think about “inspiration” - that white heat of spontaneous creativity - which may last moments only, I realise that there is no analytic thought involved. It comes as a priori knowledge of what is musically right and fitting as it is being played [...] Read more:Songwriting
, Inspiration
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