SlowerHand

I got my MYP certificate (which should make studying abroad a bit easier, as this is supposed to show I'm as good as a native English speaker), and as a 'reward' my parents gave me a Boss ME-20 multi-effects pedal. I totally friggin love it. The sounds are beautiful, and very varied. The OD/DS pedal can have Overdrive, Blues, Distortion, Metal, Fuzz or Compressor. The MOD pedal can have Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo or Rotary, and the DELAY has a 0-99 ms delay, 100-700 ms delay or Reverb. And there's an expression pedal. Finally I can seriously play along to Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) and all the funky Red Hot Chili Peppers' stuff. And the cool thing is, you can save combinations of pedal settings, so I can switch between a heavy metal set and a softer set simply by pressing a button. I think I'm happy that I don't have all these pedals like John Frusciante does: http://www.guitarplayer.com/pop-up.aspx?content_id =23160&section_code=3 Simplicity is almost always key. And if I really need something extra I'll play around with it Garageband.

I absolutely totally love this thing. It seems to allow me to really tap into what seems to be a continous stream of universal creativity; not just tap into it but really use it to the max. I can't say it's orgasmic, but it's the greatest musical experience I have achieved so far. I guess I'll record a sort of improvised song one of these days. Hopefully it'll sound as good as it feels.

Too bad my friends aren't into the kind of musical expression that I'm so in love with. Using the wah pedal in a way that is so subtle you barely notice it, but you'd notice it if it were gone all of a sudden, or having a modulation effect that goes all over the place and you have no real control over it but you try to make the best of it (which often gives a much more expressive guitar part than without that obstacle), that's really great. But my friends are kind of plain. Simplicity is key. But trying to make the biggest, most complicated sound with as few effects as possible can be amazing.

Oh well. At least I'm in a band with good friends of mine that have great musical talent and the same ambitions.

Aside from music my life has ups and downs, but it seems that the ups are so up I feel wonderful. A bit tired from school, but beautiful things seem to be happening. Or at least, I start to see the beauty in so many things all of a sudden. But I won't bore you with that right now. I'm in a really creative mood. 

• make a series of vidtuts on guitar

• make a series of tuts on how to write a song

• ditto on how to record

Simply put, let more people learn about making music. People have got to stop uploading copyright music. I'll make them write their own copyright music. 

And besides that, DON'T FUCK UP SCHOOL THIS YEAR!

I confess. I used to be a downloader too. But a few years ago I understood. I felt what happens to an artist when his works are stolen.

I am into drawing. I draw a lot. I paint. I do freelance animation. A few years ago I posted a drawing on a personal website. It wasn't that good. It was a typical wannabe-manga drawing, the kind that seems to flood the art-variant of UG, deviantART. I had completely forgotten about the piece, until after about half a year I saw it used on a manga-fan website. I thought wait, isn't that plagiarism? I have a piece that's so similar! So I looked it up and it turned that those SOBs used my work, without my consent! And the worst thing was, it looked good! My drawing made the header (and background of some pages) of that website look so stylish, it made everything they sold (books, DVDs, dolls and whatnot) look attractive. So they made money with my work!

The connection with music? Downloaders don't make money with the music they download, but the musicians don't get the money they deserve after putting all that effort in their music.

I wonder what would happen if *fill-in-a-copyright-controlling-organization-here * would steal something from a downloader, one object for every illegally downloaded song... That would be cool!

On another note, there are plenty of beginning musicians that don't have a record label and just put their music up for free, for the world to listen to it. Some experienced musicians put music up for free. The Prodigy has done it with one (though unfinished, pretty cool) song. John Frusciante took it a little further and put multiple free albums on his website. It would be cool if more artists and bands would put music up for free download on their websites. "I'll give you some music for free if you pay for my other music."

I'm new here. I've been playing guitar for a year (and a few weeks now, :P) I started out playing on probably the crappiest electric guitar on the planet, which broke after a months of usage. For another few months I didn't have an electric guitar, so I thought maybe should use that for honing my acoustic skills. For another few months now I have been playing guitar on my Fender Stratocaster (Mexican, but this one has incredible sustain for some reason...) with a Marshall AVT20.

I record all my songs in Garageband on my iMac. Usually I put a mic against my amp but lately I've come to really appreciate the simplicity of Garageband's amp simulation, and with a little equalizing you wouldn't hear the difference between GB or AVT. :P

I've been lurking around UG as Guest for quite some time, but last night I thought I would finally give it a go and register. I got four replies in one minute. Amazing.

I'll go browse UG for a while now, and bring that Profile completeness thingy up to at least yellow if I can.