“I Miss You” by Shean Cleofas and Lenny Nabor

I remember some time around 2012 when I arranged this song for songwriter Lenny Nabor:

This version of Lenny Nabor’s “I Miss You” was interpreted by Shean Cleofas with arrangement by yours truly. I thought something that sounded like “Everything But the Girl” would suit the song well.

If there would be one thing I’d change in this present recording would be the dynamics. The piano overpowers everything else. I’d also make some changes in the overall mix, should I be given the opportunity to do so. So, Lenny, if you’re reading this, I hope you give me a chance to mix it. I just need a copy of the vocal track.

Apparently, Lenny has plans of working with me again on another song. I’m about to make a sample arrangement of a few bars for that new song. Let’s wait and see (and hear) what would happen next.

The Key to Understanding 12 Bar Blues is in Lance Vallis’ “Blues Guitar 101”

One of the ways of understanding how many songs work in today’s contemporary context is knowing what exactly is a 12-bar blues. The latest project I was involved in is a GuitarZoom course called “Blues Guitar 101” by Lance Vallis. This new course features the basics of playing a 12-bar-blues, the form of the 12-bar blues, and a variety of ways of how to play both melodic parts/solos and rhythmic accompaniment.

Since I’m the one who had the task of transcribing most of the stuff that Mr. Vallis plays throughout the video, I do have some form of bias with regard to my opinion. It’s a very good blues course that features a lot of material that demonstrates Mr. Vallis’ prowess in improvising blues lines. He also offers a number of useful licks and phrases that you can instantly use in many blues jam situations.

If you want to get into the blues right away, I would suggest getting this course by clicking on the “Blues Guitar 101” graphic above. After mastering the various concepts presented, I suggest moving on to Steve Stine’s 96 Blues Licks.

Steve Stine’s 42 Days to Blazing Guitar Solos

About a month ago, I started working on what was once called Steve Stine’s “Essential Techniques for Guitar”. This is a compendium of pure guitar technique, teaching you the “how” of lead guitar soloing. After weeks of grueling transcription and completing the sheet music, GuitarZoom has released what is now called “42 Days to Blazing Guitar Solos”.

If you are at least an intermediate electric guitar player want to do everything from nailing famous guitar to creating your own solos from scratch, I suggest going to the link below:

Other than working on this course, I just completed transcribing another blues course and I’m working on a number of things simultaneously. Therefore, I can say I’m busier than a bee. I guess that’s it for now. I hope that over the next 42 days, you’ve transformed yourself into a guitar hero under Steve Stine’s tutelage.

A Little Update to My Life’s Story – A Summer in Review

I haven’t written for so long that it feels like this blog has become “dusty” and “moldy”. Apparently, I do have a lot of things to write about. I was so entangled with a lot of things that it’s only at this moment of time that I was able to write.

To list them all down, here are some significant things that have happened since the last entry:

1. A trip to Anawangin Cove.
2. A surprise birthday bash from the UCCP-MCCD Ministry.
3. Conducting a private crash course in music theory, composition and songwriting for a musically inclined Court of Appeals associate justice and his sons.
4. My first time preaching a sermon.
5. The formation of a new band.

Of course, there are other things that are bound to happen over the next few weeks, and I do hope I get the time to write about the stuff I’ve mentioned along with others in a timely fashion. So, I guess it’s time for me to return to finishing sheet music for an upcoming GuitarZoom course. I feel as though Dan’s already breathing down my neck.

*UPDATE: As of 6/19/2013, transcriptions for “Essential Techniques for Guitar” by Steve Stine have been completed. The course will be available in the market really soon.

Steve Stine’s Songfire Now Available

GuitarZoom, one of my long-term employers, has another very useful course for anybody who’s interested in learning new songs on the guitar in a fast and intelligent way. This new course is called Songfire. Written by GuitarZoom’s guitarist-in-residence and professor of modern guitar at North Dakota State University, Steve Stine, This new course offers a no-nonsense approach that could enable any guitar beginner into hearing how most songs work and then eventually learn them in the process.

Now, for those who think they can become instant virtuoso players with this course, you are mistaken. This course is NOT about gaining virtuoso technique in an instant (it takes years of hard work and practice to gain that). This course is more about being able to play many of the songs you hear and enjoy on your guitar in a fast way. This course is not about being able to play your favorite songs note by note, but it is more about being able to understand the underlying harmonic structure (chord progressions, etc.) based on what you hear. Upon finishing the course, you’d be able to listen actively to many pop and rock songs and be able to play through its chord progression in a matter of minutes.

Okay, maybe some will be disappointed that virtuoso guitarist Steve Stine released a non-virtuoso course. Well, that is not the point of Songfire. Songfire’s intent is to give learners the ability to hear music as a whole and be able to at least play a semblance of it, following along the chord progression WITHOUT reading notation or tab. B ear in mind that seemingly simple, sort of entry-level topics like those in Songfire could easily lead any beginning guitarist to be stimulated into getting deeper into the workings of music, eventually figuring out what most of us would consider virtuoso technique. The positive and pleasurable effects of being to successfully learn a new song can always lead to bigger things, musically speaking.

If you want to get access to the course, just click on the Songfire image above. As usual, sheet music and text by none other than yours truly.

Tuning and Piano Maintenance

I own a number of keyboard instruments, one of these is a beloved old, locally made upright piano left to my care by my mom. She bought it for my sister around 1987 and it has been in a state of deterioration until 2012 when I had decided to have the piano reconditioned. After having it reconditioned, it became our keyboard practice instrument. From October to April, the piano’s tuning drifted to a about 50 cents lower than what it should be. My good friend, Kuya Cesar Wycoco, recommended that I call and hire master piano technician, Leonardo Wayan a.k.a. Kuya Nards, to get it into shape.

In contrast to the somewhat reserved and sophisticated Kuya Cesar, Kuya Nards had an air of flamboyance and an astounding level of confidence surrounding him. This is because he really knew his stuff well. He was loud but very entertaining while he worked. He had warned me that given the quality of the upright piano I have (which is somewhat mediocre given its built and post-flooded state), that it would be a challenge getting it to equal temperament at A = 440 Hz. However, he had managed to get it to that tuning, and so the piano sounded wonderful afterwards.

The good thing about hiring Mr. Wayan was that he really knew pianos. He did not mince his words when he said that he was surprised that the piano was already reconditioned when he first saw it. Believe me, it was far worse before he had touched the piano. At the very least, the money I spent last 2012 for piano repairs had at least turned the piano into something workable. Mr. Wayan, being seasoned piano technician for many hotels around the metro, claimed he could have done a much better job at reconditioning the piano than the people I had previously hired.

I got more than a bang for my buck by hiring Kuya Nards. He was a thousand pesos cheaper than the guys who worked on my piano before, he offered me amazing piano tips, was very honest in his dealings, and he even went on to provide a tuning wrench for free.

As part of a self-maintenance plan, he left me a 6-mm square socket wrench and some “Shoes Glue” so that I can perform tuning myself. This morning, I found myself tuning the piano because the upper register had drifted to a few cents lower. My suspicions were confirmed when I measured the tuning of A4 against a chromatic tuner and it registered around 432 Hz. I decided then to tune the piano to A = 442 Hz to solve the problem.

I used the socket wrench that Kuya Nards gave me to do most of the work. Because I didn’t have any rubber mutes, I used a thumb pick fixed to my right index finger to pluck each individual string as I tuned. I started out with A4 and then tuned A5 based on my 442-Hz A4, and then tuned an octave’s worth of keys based on the sound of 4ths and 5ths. Afterwards I tuned the rest of the keys.

I am quite happy with what I was able to accomplish. Maybe in a few more weeks of hammering away at the keys, it’s gonna drift lower again, so I expect to tune the piano again myself about two weeks from now. Maybe I might ask Kuya Nards to take me in as an apprentice. Hmm, now that’s a thought worth considering. Maybe afterwards I might offer a piano tuning service. But perhaps not at this time. If I gain more experience tuning pianos, then I might consider doing that professionally. Kuya Nards said that typically hotels would commission guys like him to get a piano tuned every week, so I’m not at all surprised that I had to tune the piano myself today.

If you’d like to get in touch with Kuya Nards to get your piano back into shape, leave a message in the comments section, and I’ll send you a private message regarding his contact details.

 

Dealing with the Six-String Bass Guitar

The electric bass guitar certainly has a very interesting history. If it were a person, you would know that one of its ancestors was the orchestral double bass and from the other side is the electric guitar. Most people would know a bass guitar to be a four-stringed instrument, but as bass players wanted to extend the range of their instruments, instruments with more than four strings have been developed, the five-stringed version with the low B being very popular. However, I have chosen to go one string further with a six-string bass.

I started playing a four-string bass when I was a teen and then I went up to five, and then more recently the six-string bass. While there are those who hate the six-string bass by being too much to handle, I personally love the instruments flexibility and range. I’m assuming people didn’t realize that the six-string bass was supposed to make people’s lives easier. If you’re surprised that I’m saying that, try playing a two-octave arpeggio over a four string. I’m quite sure that it’s a stretch. On a six-string bass, you can play the same arpeggio over just a span of six frets. If I use the four-string technique on the six-string, I could cover three octaves.

The way I chose my tuning is a matter of convenience. For a while I was playing my six-string bass in the standard fashion: all fourths from B to C. It was wonderful at first. But being a guitarist as well, the C at the 1st string can sometimes be off putting. I could manage with that C well, but I wanted my guitar technique to translate into my bass playing. This is why I decided to tune my bass like a baritone guitar (an octave lower of course) and so the tuning is (from 6th to 1st string) is B, E, A, D, F#, B. It’s a step higher than the Guitarron Mexicano. The great thing about this tuning is that I could use my guitar techniques, one of the most important is the CAGED system. I could also use certain techniques I’ve learned from fingerstyle guitar i.e. classical/flamenco-style tremolo, barre chords, etc. Rather than putting energy into learning techniques specific to the standard six-string bass tuning, I’d like to concentrate more on writing and making music and so the baritone guitar tuning helps a lot by saving up my neurons for something else. It’s just more efficient for me that way.

Given the size of the neck, the six-string bass guitar can be unwieldy. Thus I am not surprised why John Myung wants his six-string bass guitar to have a neck width comparable to just a five-string. At this point, I really can’t have a choice on that matter. It’s rather difficult to find a six-string bass guitar in the Philippines unless you have one crafted for yourself, so I’m very fortunate to have found one at a budget price. All in all, the six-string bass guitar has been of great help for my music.

Steve Stine’s “CAGED Made Simple” Now Available

Every serious guitarist wants mastery over the instrument wherein one would just look at the fretboard and find every note required to make a solo sound great instantly. Of course such a feat requires practice, but the new GuitarZoom course called “CAGED Made Simple” by Steve Stine helps achieve just that and more.

“CAGED Made Simple” teaches you how to take advantage of the five basic chord shapes to visualize the fretboard better, leading you to do a number of things such as learning songs faster, playing chords differently, and even soloing better. The best part of the course is that it’s taught by Steve Stine, professor of modern guitar at North Dakota State University. Sure thing you can find a number of guitar virtuosos teach CAGED at YouTube, but Steve explains things complex musical concepts in such a way that even little children would have no trouble learning it.

And so, if you want to give your guitar playing an upgrade, just click on the logo below:

 

P.S. Here’s a  little bit of shameless self-promotion this time. If you think Steve’s awesome in this course, trying checking out…ahem…the sheet music (transcribed by none other than yours truly). It contains note-for-note transcriptions of Steve’s improvisations. Just saying….

How to Prepare a Project and Record Audio in a DAW

Hello dear readers. It’s Mark A. Galang again in another installment of audio production tutorials. This tutorial was written in compliance to the peer review assignment requirement of the Berklee Course “Introduction to Music Production” being hosted by Coursera. I do hope that you all find this tutorial to be informative.

This tutorial features the way how I prepare a project in my DAW for recording. It also gives some insight into how I compose and record music. I use Cakewalk Sonar X1 as my DAW software. Let’s get started.

1. Sequencing the Drums

Before I actually create a project in Sonar, I usually write drum parts, orchestral parts, etc. using Sibelius 6. In this case, I just wrote the drum part for this project.

2. Exporting to MIDI

After writing the drum part in Sibelius, I would then save my work and then export it as a MIDI file to the folder of my choosing.

3. Creating a New Project

After opening Sonar X1, I make use of an atypical method of creating a project. I close the project creation wizard and then just drag the MIDI file I created into Sonar. Sonar will automatically open the MIDI file as a project.

4. Creating an Instrument Track

Once the MIDI file has opened, I would then create an instrument track that would play back the MIDI data in the project. In this case, I’m using a VST instrument called EZDrummer. An instrument track is a combination of a MIDI and Audio track. The data displayed is MIDI but the playback comes from an audio source, usually a software instrument.

5. Transferring MIDI data to Instrument Track

Instead of assigning EZDrummer as the output for my MIDI track, I just simply drag the MIDI data into the instrument track and then delete the resulting empty MIDI track. The instrument track can read MIDI data anyway so I have no further use for the empty MIDI track.

6. Creating an Audio Track

I would then create an audio track next by right clicking on the empty space where the channels are supposed to be in Track View and then selecting the “Insert Audio Track” command.

7. Labeling Audio Track and Setting Up for Recording

After creating the audio track, I would then label the audio track. In this instance, I’m recording a bass guitar track so I simply label it “Bass”. Afterwards, I select the appropriate input source for my audio track. In this case, my bass is connected to the left instrument input of my audio interface and so I select the left one in my DAW. If I select it this way, I will be able to record my bass part in mono.

8. Saving as a Project File

Because Sonar opened my project as a MIDI file, it cannot save audio data yet. I would then save the project as a “Normal” CWP (Cakewalk Project) file with the “Copy All Audio With Project” option ticked so that I can assign the project and audio data folders for easier file management.

9. Arming the Audio Track for Recording

Before I begin recording, I then click on the red button in my audio track so that it would be “armed” for recording. Once the audio track is armed, I check my instrument’s recording levels on my audio interface and on the DAW. I am now ready to record my bass parts.

10. Setting up Metronome/Click and Countoff

Before I start recording, I check my metronome/click and then see if I have the correct settings. I prefer using an audio click rather than MIDI and I set up the record count in to just “1”. Since the time signature in my project is 7/8 with a tempo of 100 bpm (in quarter notes), I expect to hear seven fast clicks before the DAW starts recording my audio.

11. Recording an Audio Track

Once the levels are set and the audio track is armed, I start recording by pressing “R” on my computer keyboard. I count along to the count-in clicks (one, two, three, four, five, six, sev) and then start playing my bass parts. Once I’m done recording, I press the space bar to stop.

12. Cloning an Audio Track for a Second Take

Because I need to have a couple of recorded options, I record a number of takes. To do this, I just clone the audio channel where my bass is recorded. To do this, I just right-click on my audio track and select the option “Clone Track”. Sonar will then duplicate the audio track in its entirety.

13. Setting up Cloned Audio Track for a Second Take

The cloned audio track contains all of the data from the previous audio track, including recorded audio. Therefore, I would delete the recorded audio from the cloned track in order to empty it so I can begin recording a second take. To lessen distractions, I would then mute the original audio track before I record my second take.

14. Recording a Second Take

Once my cloned audio track is ready, I would then record a second take following the steps mentioned a while ago.

After completing all of these steps, I think the entire effort went well. I was able to set up a project and record an audio track. Upon reviewing the project, I think that I should have saved the project immediately as a normal DAW project before setting up the audio track so that I wouldn’t run into a problem later should the application crash. Some of the steps I took to create the DAW project are atypical. However, this fits my usual workflow which involves composing and notating music first before recording audio.

For those who are interested, here’s the track I recorded for this particular tutorial:

I hope that you all have enjoyed reading and learning about recording audio in a DAW through this post. Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you. If you have any feedback, comments, or constructive criticism, please feel free to let me know as I would love to learn new things as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Cesar Wycoco

This man right here is one of the most fascinating people I’ve met:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Cesar Wycoco, a real renaissance man or “Ilustrado”. He speaks around six different languages, educated for diplomatic service (he earned his M.A. in Political Science from the University of Hawaii and has a graduate degree in French from the University of Nice), and has a good deal of experience working in the U.S. Navy. What probably is much more significant is the fact that he is a self-taught piano virtuoso and composer that has spent time playing gigs in cruise ships and in various places. I am very fortunate to have been given an opportunity to work with this man whose talent and wisdom I have been trying a lot to learn from.

Mark Galang (left) and Cesar Wycoco (right)

I started working with him in the last quarter of 2011 as a music transcriber for his album entitled “Cesar plays Wycoco”. I was introduced to him through Mariza Esteban, the owner of MSE Musical Services (the establishment where my son is currently studying violin). After that project, I continue to provide engraving and transcription work for his newer compositions.

People like Mr. Wycoco defy convention. You would expect that most pianists of his caliber to have a conservatory-level education. The fact is that he doesn’t. I can’t help but find that common thing between him and me, and that is a passion for music. He probably broke people’s expectations when he became a musician rather than a diplomat; I broke expectations when I got involved into music rather than healthcare. Sometimes I can’t help but think that if you have been called into music, you really can’t help but go do it no matter what.

If you look into Kuya Cesar’s history as a musician, I could see some parallels between him and Frederic Chopin. Both men are essentially self-taught pianists and composers. Both have had experience playing in France and elsewhere. Kuya Cesar even has a Chopinesque style in both his playing and composing. You can’t really help but be amazed every time you hear him play. He just can’t help but let music ooze out of his soul.

If you’d like to know more about Kuya Cesar and his musical activities, read more about him at http://www.himig.com.ph/people/438-cesar-wycoco?composer=true. Better yet, drop by the Makati Shangri-La Hotel every Monday to Friday just right about lunch time to hear him play. For the meantime, here’s a video of Kuya Cesar playing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the Les Miserables musical: