Suguay Productions

A repair guy for where I live came by to look at a problem I turned in to the office. We got to talking about music. I play guitar and have one or two sitting out for ease of use. It was great. We got to talk about the different recording issues we’ve both run into with some of the stuff on the computer. We’re neither one big operations. We just thought it’d be great to be able to record our music. We talked about different guitar things and pianos and such and I had a great time. He couldn’t fix the problem that day so we scheduled for him to come back the next week.

The next week was Friday, I was the last stop for the repair guy and we got to talking again.

We broke out the guitars and started some playing. I mostly play classical style stuff. I’m trying to learn flamenco, slowly. I know a few popular things, I can read music and chord diagrams so I can strum play a lot of stuff. I haven’t really been working on learning a lot of songs though. This guy new several more well known songs off the top of his head and he plays a blues style stuff that I’d like to figure out how to play. I want to figure out slide as well. *sigh*

I had a great time playing music with the repair guy. I learned something interesting. I have always been modest and apologetic about my playing. I am mostly self taught, though, I read music. I’m not very good at playing by ear. My music theory is very limited. I run into these people that either have all the theory or are phenominal players that have learned by ear and I don’t  figure I can compete.

Well, I can’t. However; it is not because I am not good. I am very good at playing what I know. I don’t know a lot of songs because I am thorough and single minded when it comes to learning a song. I play classical style guitar with a fair bit of finger work. When start a new song I will practise it for several times in a row. When I sit down to play/practise I will play the songs I know already first to keep them fresh and then I will play the song I am working on several times. Then I go back and play the familiar songs again and then the new song. I will do this over and over until I get to where I can play all the familiar songs and the new song without any notational reference. 

The really cool thing about getting to play music with the repair guy is, he was just as impressed with what I can play and I was with what he could play. How cool is that.

I am currently not the most versed or versitile guitar player and that’s ok. Maybe some day. And maybe now that I know this about playing music, I might find in me the need or desire to learn some of those other songs, and maybe even the ability.  It’s so cool what you can learn Playing Music.

Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.

I would like to submit a proposal. Our universe, the one we live in, is music. It is the result of some far off distant symphony. A picture created by the notes and phrases of some amazingly exotic instruments. At times it is the raucous equivalent of a heavy metal song and at others it is the quiet dulcet tones of a new age song.

I don’t offer this idea up just out of poetry. I offer it out of evidence. Lets start with music. For how many centuries have composers used music to tell a story. Whether an Opera with words that help to explain the story or a symphony that in it’s change of tone from movement to movement paints a picture of the tale. It fills not only with the basics of what is happening, music also manages to convey atmosphere and emotion, even better than the best writers. It, like much to the annoyance of one recording engineer I know, it even manages to convey color. It is amazing how it does it. I once told some one that I wanted to learn to make art that was a musical as music is visual. 

Don’t believe me? Have you ever listened to the 1812 Overture. Listened to the build up before the battle and the intense battle scene and then the lull and then a battle scene? The next time you hear it listen for it. It’s all there. Much as there is a story in most music. Fabulous pictures. Why do you think most visual productions include background music.

I think this theory has merit in the scientific world as well. For many years scientist have been working on a theory of everything. The Unified Field Theory and such. As part of that they have been working on something called SuperString Theory. The idea that we get these wide variations in quantum particles based off of the vibrations of the quantum strings. They have for many years been dealing with the evidence that this theory is most elegant and complete when acknowledging the existence of 10 dimensions. There is another theory that uses 11 dimensions call the M-Theory or something close. Everything, all our current physics theories seem to roll up and unify themselves in these higher dimensions. So what to the idea that we a just a symphony being performed in another, higher dimension from our own.

Such for the wanderings and musings of my mind. 

Cheers

Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.

Most of the time I go about my life taking care of the things that need taking care of and getting stuff done. I’m very bad about the ‘stop and smell the roses’ concept. In addition to them making me sick…. Oh, I digress. So I go about my business and then forget to do the things I really like to do or whatever.

A good example of this for me is music. I like music a lot. I generally prefer music to tv. Many times if my tv is one, it’s on one of the music choice channels. I have an eclectic collection of music. And some of what I’ve got is really good for setting a mood or feeling. Some is just good stuff. I have caught myself listing to my ipod shuffle and thinking, ‘wow, I’ve got some good stuff. I should listen to it more.’ Really, I’ve thought that. I’ve put something on to listen to and realised how much I enjoyed it and wondered why I don’t put that on more often. 

Some of the music I really enjoy listening to is a certain type of guitar music. Hey, I play, I have a bias. I like the Gipsy/Flamenco/classical/spanish guitar type of music. Yes. Many years ago. Ok about 20. I say a music video by the group Gipsy Kings. I was hooked from then on. I still have the cassette of the first album from then. Yep it’s got “Bombaleo” on it. For many years I would see that they were going to have a show and I would think how I would like to see them and then I would think how the show was probably sold out or I might decided that due to circumstances it just wouldn’t be feasible. So I never went to see them. Until this week.

Yes, I waited 20 years to see the Gipsy Kings. Silly, and true. I was not disappointed though. I didn’t regret the price of the ticket or the time out or any of that. I so enjoyed myself. I had an awesome seat and I was truly content. I realised that if I were to put on their music, or similar, every evening when I got home and sit down for a few minutes to listen to them and relax, I would be so content, I would get nothing else done at all. 

 

Cheers

 

Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.

So I started this site out telling you all about the different softwares I have been trying on web stuff. I did ok for a while. I have to confess, I’ve gotten off track. There are several of the packages I need to go back to and do more testing and tweaking to really have a better assessment of how I feel about them.

After I did that for a bit I added The Blog! to have a place to add random thoughts, comments and observations. I’ve done a bit better with that. As you can see. I’m even updating that one tonight.

Still I have veered away somewhat from some of the original stuff. I hope you don’t mind too much. I haven’t been doing a lot of fiddling with the programs lately. 

What I have been doing lately has been

a lot of reading. For 3 or 4 weeks I was killing at least 2 books a week. I enjoyed it. I’ve lost momentum on that because the two books I am currently reading are a little more challenging in their content and how they are written. They don’t really qualify for me as a quick read. I read “Equal Rights” by Terry Pratchet and that was a quick read. As was “Twilight” and of course I had to read the rest of that series.

I’ve read a few classic sci-fi authors recently. I read Robert Heinlein’s “For Us the Living”.  That was interesting. I have read his novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and really liked it so thought I’d try another of his. I found this one really interesting when looking at it in relation to our current social and economic situation. Some parts of it are a bit of a wade through. Still some of the concepts are really interesting. I also read “Prelude to Foundation” by Asimov. I read it because I intend to read the “Foundation Trilogy”. I figured I should read in the right order. It was longer the the next three put together. We’ll see how they go. I’ve read some of the Robot novels by Asimov and liked them. 

Oh, right now I’m reading “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne and “Visions” by Michio Kaku. Verne is just not a fast read. I found that over the summer with “Journey to the Center of the Earth”. “Visions” has it’s moments. I’m over half through it. It starts with computers and has moved into biology. The biology part has held my interest a little bit more than the computers did. Weird since my field of work is computers. Oh well.

Next up on my things to do that I may note on here, I have to load some software on a laptop before I load the test servers at work. I’ve loaded this software once before with a guide next to me telling me what to do next. I’m going to try to fly solo on this one. It will be interesting. Once that software is loaded, I will be using some data that I have to learn better how to utilize the application. It should be quite a robust project.

In addition I have more reading to do. I have stacks of books to read on a variety of topics and  genres. I have several other things I’ll be working on as well. 

So that’s what’s up lately and why some of the software sections haven’t had recent updates. I’ll get back to some of them. I still have plans to make changes to this template and add some other features so there will be additional info on my Joomla! experience. Just keep checking back, or send an email.

Cheers

Editor

Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.