If you haven't read the Sound Central Music Report for the 2013 Festival. Check it out:
http://soundcentralfestival.com/274579/news/scf-reports

It is a very thorough report. Detailing the events. Most of the performers. The statistics. People from out of town. News agencies that covered it. These people are trying really hard and they deserve a spot in our hearts where we keep "what's happening" in Music.  

Scales

To me, It's not about how well a beginner plays at first. It's about their developing understanding about how music is put together. If you understand what a scale is and why it is set up the way it is it makes music easy and logical. If a person is given understanding of scales the root 4,5,7,9 makes perfect sense quickly. A student could have an epiphany of understanding in weeks instead of years. Of course, we all still have to practice for years to get any good at it but we will know exactly why we are doing it. Of course, just robotically playing scales won't do much good without the understanding. It is that core understanding and phrasing that I consider most important. I felt held back for years just playing music that was put in front of me without really understanding the how and why of the relationship between the notes. The day I really learned scales on the piano it was simple and it will never be complicated again.

News: http://soundcentralfestival.com/ is up and running

Great news. I don't know how it was done but they are back. http://soundcentralfestival.com/ is up and they have not been idle. During the recent quiet time they run a contest to write and record a new national anthem. Hold on to your socks. It's a young woman singing a rap song denouncing war. Only in Central Asia.

They say the festival is on. It's usually in October. I would hope for a little more explanation and news but I am just glad to see them back.

Girls and young women shredding guitar

What is going on? If you haven't spent a few hours checking out youtube video's lately you better have a look. There are a lot of girls and young women between five and fifteen years old that can shred guitar like a jaded old rocker. There is a few boys that can do it too but it seems to me the boys are not at the level of the girls.

Here's a couple:
http://youtu.be/P4W4vzDRcY8
http://youtu.be/tgzJ1jCpTZs

There are lots more. I suspect that before the end of the decade the typical age of a working guitar player will be under 21. What are they feeding these children? How can an eight year old play Ozzy Osbourne almost as good as the man himself? Why do girls and young women want to play the most scorching hot classic rock there is? Clearly, they are Rockers. Nobody but a Rocker would risk being that far out of date. I tell people all the time that the only time I have anything to do with trends is when I am setting them. These young ladies are the embodiment of that sentiment.

Time will tell but it looks like interesting times ahead.

Jeff

Disabled list grows, :(

It was a rough year. 8 collaboration sites went down: wemusic.veenue.com, koblo.com, ultimateband.com, trackbeast.com, sawubona-musicjam.com, digitracs.com, thounds.com, fuseboard.com, .

We had a couple of marriages: riffworks.com and sonomawireworks.com tied the knot. Either domain works now. Congrats!

Also, oneloudr.com and notethrower.com made it legal. best wishes! ;)

We got one back, yes! openmusicfactory.com is alive and well. Great to have you back on the main list.

We had 4 domains leave the disabled list for new genres: musicollaborate.com is a blog. nzjams.com is a job search site. rifftrader.com is a professional housewife site. and splicemusic.com is an archive. Farewell and good luck in the new genres.

We have a new listing: studiotraxx.com , good luck. Last but not least we made it back to page 5 on a generic google search. We have a ways to go. say la vee.

http://www.mybeatz.com/

Welcome mybeatz.com

It looks fresh and new. Good luck.

Kompoz.com Relaunch

Hi everyone,

It seems like only days ago this new year started and it's a third done. I haven't even gone through the main list yet. I got a nice email from Kompoz. they have been doing a lot of upgrades and it sounds exciting. Compatibility seems to be order of the day. Lots of file formats. Friendly to many sound editors. Working hard on latency issues worldwide. Keep up the good work.

Music Festival Kabul

I just looked up the website for the sound central music festival in Kabul. The site is down. With the peace keeping forces moving out it gives me cause for concern. Not that there is a thing I can do about it but I has given me a lot of hope for the area. I hope it's a maintenance thing but there is nothing new since last year. If you find anything let us know.

Regrets and the Bucket List

There has been a lot of talk about these so called bucket lists lately. Things that you must include on your bucket list. I think the point has been missed.  Perhaps appropriate and inappropriate regrets makes more sense. I should have nailed that man or woman? A terrible inappropriate regret. How about travel? Must we see every site with our own eyes? I'm not crazy about traveling. For myself, I like to have some reason to go. I want to retire in a place where me and my buddies work on custom cars all day and have rock/blues jam sessions all night. That is a place want to see.

I think a regret for me would be never owning a Gibson Les Paul. I have been shopping for years. I know a lot about them. The finish, the choice of pickups, accessories. If I had $4k-$20k sitting cold in a bank it probably wouldn't be an issue. I know I will probably only have one. So I entertain myself by trying to get the best value I can. It's getting close. 

I saw a youtube video the other day. This eight year old girl was shredding a guitar better than Eddie Van Halen and I almost gave up playing. Then I saw an older youtube of her's and I realized I play about as well as this child when she was about seven. Not a whole lot more encouraging. But this thought of quitting has disturbed me. Why would I do such a thing? Why would I even think of it? I didn't start to play to compete with her. I have done my own thing with music every day since I started. I have been taught almost nothing. I have had little contact with musicians over the years. My interest must literally sustain itself and that's OK. 

I seems to come back to the old expression that says it's not the destination, it's the journey. Now the journey is a big question I will dig into at a future post because there is a lot of places you don't need to go. Put some thought into where you want to go. I believe you will find it's as much of a philosophical journey as physical travel. The Americans call it the pursuit of happiness. 

Hi Everyone,

I was just doing a quick search and I found new collaboration sites.
http://wemusic.veenue.com/ It seems to be full online collaboration.

http://www.ohmstudio.com/ Another fully online collaboration site.

http://www.gigin.com/
http://soundslates-app.com/
http://futucraft.com/ This one says it's for use with an ipad, interesting. :)

This was just a quick update, I'll do spring cleaning in the spring. :)

Multi-effector, alternative hookups.

Hi everyone,

It's been a while but things are moving ahead. I have started working out with a drummer and I am getting the motivation to move forward with new collaboration. My new multi-effector arrived and is working well.

It being ordinarily a rack mount PA device, I found it short of a few accessories in/outs that I require for my digital recording efforts. I tried several combinations of hookups. I tried using the effects loop on an amplifier. Not so good, it was OK for live PA but it was too noisy for recording. So I tried making a loop from a spare output on my board to a input channel on the board. It was quieter but I lost much of the dynamic range. I thought about what to do for a few weeks and it occurred to me that I am always using headphones jacks for line outs, I wonder if I could use two line outs for a headphone jack. I was a little concerned, I didn't want to hurt anything. However, I went forward. I turned everything down planning to turn volumes up gradually. It worked as well as I could have hoped for. Very quiet, good stereo response. using the main/master output on my board I was able to balance left/right and the volume. I put that signal into Peavey headphone distribution system called a PD-4. I have all the clean stereo outputs I can use. The headphones will have the same signal as will be fed to the audio program on the computer. I am able to change the sound 3200 different ways just by turning a knob. It's perfect for jamming.

I'll let you know how it works for recording when I do a little more of it.

Cheers, :)