I was part of the local crew for Status Quo on Sunday. That was a right laugh!!!!! Got free food and beer and helped set up Francis Rossi's rig. Holy shit he's got a lot of stuff. Three Marshall 4 x 12's (white ones) with two valve heads (can't remember which model they were), a fridge-sized rack FX, and two Vox AC30's for a different sound. We had to put them behind the Marshalls and point the speakers upstage so they coulldn't be seen, because of their contract with Marshall. Then there was all the fake cabs with lights in the speakers that went all the way along the back of the stage, stacked two high. Posers... lol

Greg M - My tattoo isn't anything silly - just a celtic band round my right arm. It looks like it may have been a false alarm about the insect bite though - the swelling's gone down and it looks fine. Oh, the relief...

Clarky - No worries man. Have you heard the new Deftones album? It's fuckin' brilliant. What do you think of Metallica's new album?

Clarky - That guitar looks sooooooooooo cool!!! Worth the wait, I bet. And what a long wait it was...

Mr. Nick - You know I was saying I might not be back at ACM in September because of monetary problems? Well, they're all sorted. I'll be there, doing a degree in something I love more than life itself. A huge weight has been lifted. See you in September, man!!!!!!!

My finals have started. I just finished my first exam - Music Business Studies. Not the most fun subject, but it's out of the way now. However, I do have another two weeks of exams, so I won't be in here for a while. Not that it was an amazingly regular ocurrance anyway...

NM

Yo guys and gals!!!!!!!!!! Well I've finished my finals and I've just about recovered from Thursday night's "post exam celebration". My God, that was a heavy night. An ace time was had by all, and to top it off we managed to get barred from no less than three pubs in Guildford as a result of our drunken unruly behaviour. Rock and roll baby!!!!

Clarky - I'm back in Hastings now, so we might have a wait a bit longer for this jam - either until I've made enough money to pay off my phone bill and get the train, or until September when I'm back in Guildford. Whatever comes around first, I guess... How's the new baby?

There's only three decent American beers/lagers: Budweiser, MGD and Michelob. They're not wondeful for getting hammered, but they're very refreshing when you come home from the gym or something. However, it's impossible to beat a cold pint of K. 1664 - you know when the outside of the glass goes all frosty? Mmmmmmmmmm...

trutina - I'm sure there are a few great beers in America, but unfortunately none of them seem to make it over the pond to England!!!! Incidentally, does Duff actually exist? I've wondered about that for ages... lol

Clarky - No probs man - your career/life comes before jamming with little ol' me!!!!

JSC1 - I must have missed that post, but surely you can't seriously think you suck? Not being as good as you'd like is one thing (every true artist has a never ending desire to keep improving...), but being shite is entirely another. And believe me dude you fuckin' rip!!! Chin up, matey, or I'm coming over there to jam and then you'll see how good you are... lol

NM

Anybody got a Cornford MK50 head and matching cab that they don't want anymore, for whatever reason? Let me know...

JSC1 - Do you mean in terms of improvisation or composing? If it's composing then you could try studying theory a bit more, which I know you have been doing recently, and look for something totally new that you can play around with until you find something that really grabs your ears. In terms of improvisation, check out some other styles of music and some other instruments. Check out some piano players, trumpet players, horn players, even un-pitched intruments like drums - they can inspire you to work on rhythm and things like that. I'm sure you've heard all this before, but you've got a real talent that you shouldn't waste... Another option is something I remember reading on Steve Vai's site shortly after "The Ultra Zone" was released. He said he played over the basic arpeggios in "Windows To The Soul" for about 15 hours a day for three months. He went on to say that after a while he got bored of the sound, but he kept doing it and eventually he got to this place where everything he did was totally new, totally fresh. He called this place the "Ultra Zone", which was probably where he got the name for the album... So I guess if you just stick at it something will come - it worked for Steve Vai and he ain't a bad player... lol... Good luck, bro!!! :)

JSC1 - Do you mean in terms of improvisation or composing? If it's composing then you could try studying theory a bit more, which I know you have been doing recently, and look for something totally new that you can play around with until you find something that really grabs your ears. In terms of improvisation, check out some other styles of music and some other instruments. Check out some piano players, trumpet players, horn players, even un-pitched intruments like drums - they can inspire you to work on rhythm and things like that. I'm sure you've heard all this before, but you've got a real talent that you shouldn't waste... Another option is something I remember reading on Steve Vai's site shortly after "The Ultra Zone" was released. He said he played over the basic arpeggios in "Windows To The Soul" for about 15 hours a day for three months. He went on to say that after a while he got bored of the sound, but he kept doing it and eventually he got to this place where everything he did was totally new, totally fresh. He called this place the "Ultra Zone", which was probably where he got the name for the album... So I guess if you just stick at it something will come - it worked for Steve Vai and he ain't a bad player... lol... Good luck, bro!!! :)

trutina - No, I actually meant Duff beer - Homer Simpson's favourite tipple. More of that wondeful Duff...

JSC1 - Also, I'd like to recommend some Japanese Koto music. Pick up a CD of that stuff - it'll blow your mind.

Clarky - Yeah, done for the summer now. I go back on September 6th/7th, sometime around there...

Horny girlfriends are a bit great aren't they?

I'll agree with JSC1 here - Paul GIlbert for G3!!!!! Not Pat Metheny; he's far too atonal for my liking. And Brian May isn't much of an improvisor which could be bad on a G3...

AVARICE - What noise does a toroise make?

Oh man, I'd love to see Yngwie, Joe, and Steve on G3 - that'd totallykick ass!!!!!!!!! Too bad it won't come to England though...

tapper 5 - The chromatic exercises Rich was talking about are great, but there's a whole new level you can take them to. The trouble is, when you play chromatic scales up and then down and that's all you do then the muscle memory in your left hand is such that your second finger is used to being hammered on only after the first finger and it only wants to pull of to the first finger, and so on. This can be solved in a couple of ways but here's the easiest one: Take Rich's chromatic exercise but play it starting at the same fret on each string (so it becomes strictly an exercise rather than a scale):

--------------------------------------------------------1 2 3 4----------
------------------------------------------1 2 3 4--------------------
---------------------------------1 2 3 4-----------------------------
-------------------- 1 2 3 4 ----------------------------------------
----------- 1 2 3 4 -------------------------------------------------
--1 2 3 4 ----------------------------------------------------------

When you get to the top string move up a fret, until you've covered the enitre neck.

Now, there are 24 fingering permutations for this exercise, eg. 1 3 2 4, 1 3 4 2, 1 4 2 3, 1 4 3 2, etc. etc. Play all 24 every day and your left hand should soon improve dramatically. There's a whole bunch more that I know, and if you send me an e-mail then I'll give you the tab for them, but I hope this helps for now!!!!!!

greg - Yeah, you should man it really works. One thing I do with it is increase the bpm on the metronome by 5 daily.

tapper 5 - You're welcome, dude!!!! Anytime!!!!

ovation - Well then it's up to you to make it interesting... lol... But I know what you mean. I just get through the tediom by thinking about how much better I'll be able to play at the end of it all!!!!

Clarky - I don't think you should get an Evo 6; I don't really like Mitsubishi... lol... I think you should, er, buy another guitar and fit Evos to that one!!!!!!!! He he...

Why does everyone practice sitting down? Isn't that a really bad idea? Your reach is gonna be affected when you stand due to the diference in heights (unless you wear your axe like a bra)... It's more compfortable for sure but you aren't gonna do a gig siting on your bed are you? If you've got a really hard part you're working on for a gig and you nail it whilst you're sitting, nail it standing coz that's most likely how it'll be performed. Just a thought...

Stu Clone - Now way?! Now that's dedication...

I hate cancelling gigs. My band hasn't gigged since April (serious drought) and we had a gig booked for wednesday but our drummer went and broke his fucking leg at work. What a tit. Tried to get a dep, but seeing as we're a progressive band they couldn't learn the songs well enough in time. Sucks ass, man.

I agree with Chris - I don't know what's happened to PhryDom, but Naty's post got me concerned...

Matt - That sucks dick, man. People like that should be torn apart. They probably weren't even musicians themselves so they'd have no idea how attached you can get to your instruments...

My top 5 changes from day to day, but here's what it is today:

1) Paul Gilbert 2) Steve Vai 3) John Petrucci 4) Eric Johnson 5) John Norum

Go on, kill me for not having Joe in my top 5 every day... lol

Jelly Man - Have you ever cut your fingers doing all that Chopin? lol..... I seriously need to check out more "classical" music. I really love J. S. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart (Bach especially) but only really because they're the most famous ones I guess. Whilist I was doing my A Level we studied Monteverdi's Vespers and they blew me away. We looked at a bit of Britten and a couple of other composers in a similar vein who's names escape me but, although I keep meaning to, I've never gone all out and really got into "classical" music to the extent that I'd be able to make a comment as thorough as yours. But I'd really like to, dammit!!!!!!

Simon Manzer - Is Example 7 wrong or is the last little figure actually supposed to be a Gmin(b9) arpeggio?

Anyone wanna come to a party tonight? My house. Even Avarice is invited... lol... There's a barbeque so we get to cook and eat a few of his farm-yard friends...

Man, Lydian Dominant is such a fucking cool scale!!!!!!!!!