For the past month or so I’ve been putting a bit of effort into learning how to play and sing at the same time. My brain is still struggling to fully separate the 2 tasks so I’m working on some pretty simple stuff for now.
I had been working on a couple of songs with the intention of doing an open mic night sometime in January. Yesterday I had an epiphany and realized that Social Distortion’s Ball and Chain would be a very easy one to tackle so I spent a bit of time working it out.
The chorus still throws me a bit and I keep forgetting the lyrics in the 3rd verse but I went ahead and shot a quick video this morning if you care to see. I might actually play this at an open mic tonight.

Here’s another take I did at lunch.
I’m still struggling with the timing/phrasing of the line “Never to return again” in the chorus. And there are some other flubs but I’ll keep working on it.

-Kit

We had an ultrasound this morning and all signs indicate a healthy baby girl. Although perhaps with a touch of evil based off the wicked grin in one of the still shots .
I think I can safely speak for both of us in saying that we are ecstatic.
We already have a likely candidate for a name (definite 1st name and probably middle name) but we have decided to hold off on revealing the name for now.

Here are some ultrasound pics for now.

I posted some pics of my Luna Phoenix Artist Series acoustic yesterday on a guitar forum and a few people had asked how it sounds. Since sound is very hard to explain I decided to record a few clips and post them there. So I might as well post them here as well.

I shot these this morning and was in a bit of a drug-induced haze from some anti-inflamatory medication prescribed to me yesterday making it a bit hard to properly focus. My playing definitely gets more sloppy towards the end but its never perfect anyway.

First up a bit of amateurish finger-picking.

Followed by a some flatpicking.

A bit of Pink Floyd and Green Day

And last a couple of bluesy tunes. At this point I’m really having trouble focusing and my playing is definitely getting more sloppy than usual.

I’m getting a bit of fret buzz on the 6th string so I’ll see if I can fix it with a truss rod adjustment later.

My guitar instructor is one of the few that actually holds recitals (twice a year). And from what I’ve seen so far I don’t think anyone plays to their full potential at a recital. Between the nerves and having to perform with basically no warm up its a recipe for failure. But I endure because I know it will ultimately make me more confident in my playing.

Today was the 2009 Fall Recital for Combia Guitar Studio and since I recently purchased a Zoom Q3 video camera I decided it would be the perfect place to test it out. As if the recital itself isn’t nerve racking enough on its own.

This was also Shay’s first recital and she participated in the classical portion which took place early in the day.
I was suckered into accompanying her on 1 piece. She’s mic’ed and I’m not so you really can’t hear me but my guitar sure looks nice.

Next Shay did La Malaguena. Unfortunately she seems to have moved herself away from the mic and the gain on the camera wasn’t set high enough to pick it up clearly so you’ll have to really crank the volume to hear it.

Overall Shay did really well for her first recital. Much better than I did on my first.

After that we went off to kill time at the mall since my portion of the recital didn’t start until 7:30. During this time the temperature dropped quite a bit and the recital was held in an old carriage house turned church which gets rather chilly.
Like always I was one of the last people to perform in my group so I got to sit around for an hour. By the time I got up to perform I was completely cold. Both figuratively and literally as my hands had basically become fleshcicles by this point.
I actually played a bit plugged into the bass amp and had to start over. This was a bit of a blessing as it gave me a chance to warm up a little bit and shake out some of the nerves. Although there were still plenty of nerves that would prevent me from playing anywhere near flawless but considering the circumstances I’m basically pleased with how I did.

Both my pieces were from the Blues You Can Use book (great book by the way). In both cases I had some pretty major foibles but this time I didn’t stress over it too much and was able to keep going without getting too flustered.

First up was Getting Funky

Followed by Lazy Day Blues

OK, that’s not entirely true.

When we moved into the new house we had agreed to turn the front living room into our music room. The goal was to create a space that was functional and inspirational. A great place to kick back with a few friends but also conducive to picking just picking up an instrument and jamming.

The first step was to repaint the room. When we moved in the room was white on white with a floral wallpaper border. It didn’t really scream us. We had picked out the color palette prior to moving and within a couple of weeks of moving we got started painting.
The new color scheme made a world of difference but now we had an even bigger problem. Our existing furniture didn’t really fit in with my vision of how the room should feel.

One day I decided that I needed a nice bench that was large enough to allow 2 people to sit and play guitar. While searching ETSY I came across Lunar Lounge Design which not only had a bench that looked ideally suited for my needs but other furniture that also meshed well with my vision. A quick consultation with Shay and my order was placed.

The construction time ended up being a bit longer than I had anticipated and while there were times I felt the space would never be complete the end result has proved to be well worth the wait. With the furniture now in place I would say the room is about 85% complete.

I got everything assembled and set up last night and snapped some pictures before bed. The lighting definitely wasn’t ideal and I’ll probably snap some more this afternoon but I’m happy enough with the current batch to go ahead and share what I have.
So, without further ado… on with the picture show.

Looking back towards the stairwell.

The bench that started it all (and a painting in need of proper hanging). Its the perfect height for guitar playing.

The new acoustic currently stands alone.

The good old Ikea shelf.

And last but not least…
Jimi’s corner.

If I get some good shots this afternoon I’ll add those as well.

As to the missing 15%, well pretty minor stuff overall.

• A bit of touching up on the paint
• More curtains - we’ll be doing a cool dual layer motif over the big picture window
• 2 more paintings. Hopefully I can persuade Shay to do 2 more music related ones.
• A Djembre to round out the percussion section