Makin' Noise

Today marks the unofficial start of spring break. We have classes on Friday, but hey, it's Friday. We had a nice and easy quiz in physio today, which was a good change of pace from the ownage I've been receiving lately with tests and quizzes. I even stayed for a lecture today. I kind of forgot what sitting through a real lecture felt like, instead of just watching screencasts online. Actually, I'm really glad I sat through the lecture because our current physio professor is an effective lecturer in real life, but for some reason I just can't follow her when I watch online. It might have something to do with the fact that I set the play speed to 2x, but that's kind of what I've grown accustomed to. I get awful memory retention doing this, though. I'm still not sure if it's worth the few minutes I save per lecture doing it this way. It got me through most of first semester all right, so I'm guessing it couldn't be all bad.

Ted, Shrey, Zaf, Geoff, and I had a little jam session after school. The four of them comprise a pseudo-band called Stridor. That has to be one of the coolest band-sounding medical terms ever. I'm employing their services to record a full-band version of the song I played at Evening of the Arts in January. We stalled a few times during practice with our ADHD and forgetting chords and lyrics, but we made some good progress. Musically, I think our song sounds superior to the song we're parodying (Rockstar by Nickelback) since the original didn't have much flair and was carried entirely by the vocals and lyrics. I've learned that singing through amps takes some getting used to. It's a lot easier to sing out of tune for some reason. At least, for me it was. It's also harder to sing in tune when your vocal cords are strained, for reasons that escape me. We're going to record the song for real after spring break. I can't wait to hear/see how this all turns out. Getting the audio down will probably be the easiest part. I started putting together a schedule of sorts for the music video, and it looks like shooting all the pieces of the video is going to be one hellish job. Splicing them all together and syncing the video with audio is going to be another crazy feat. Slow and steady, though, right?

I thought it was cool how good my Stridor buddies sounded when they were simply jamming. It's like the music just flows out of them effortlessly. I need to learn how to improvise that easily. I think I'm too stuck on overused chord progressions, and I rely too much on the structures of existing songs. The plus side is that I've gotten much better this past year at quickly picking up "mainstream" songs and singing while playing. For example, I used not be able to get Petty's "Last Dance of Mary Jane" or Matchbox Twenty's "Push" for the life of me. There was just something in those songs that kept throwing me. So I didn't even attempt those songs for a while, but when I tried them again this year, something just clicked. That's always a good feeling. I really want to get an electric guitar now. There are so many things you can do with an electric that aren't quite so feasible with an acoustic, and I feel like I'm missing out on a whole new spectrum of exploration. Alas, I am a student, and I have bills up the wazoo and no income. If I do get an electric, it probably won't be until the summer since the last thing I need right now is more distractions. I almost wouldn't mind trading in my XBox for a guitar. I mean, a real guitar, not a plastic Guiter Hero guitar. That would totally rock. But what would be even better is an XBox AND an electric guitar. That would insanely rock. I figure if I don't eat for a few months, I can save up enough money for a nice guitar and amp. It probably won't be enough to pay for my subsequent hospitalization and feeding tubes, but as long as I've got music, and if I've got my friends, who could ask for anything more? Who could ask for anything m-o-o-o-rre?