Perfect mix of art and science

September 19, 2007
Singer/Songwriter Jonathon Coulton came through Dallas last night as part of his nationwide tour. He's built his audience as an independent, largely through the internet, and thus tends to play to geeks like me, with geek-friendly songs such as "Code Monkey", "The Future Soon", and "Mandelbrot Set". Just about all his songs have a wry, intelligent sense of humor, but as we experienced at the live show, there is a sort of hidden thread of emotion to the songs that resonates even deeper. After you get past the unusual lyrics, universal themes of love and loneliness are revealed.

Opening Set
Thinking that a) a geek might actually start a show on time, and b) it was a weeknight after all, we arrived promptly at 8:00 so as not to miss a single morsel. Paul and Storm, the openers, took the stage around 9:15, to a packed house at Club Dada. I was previously unfamiliar with this act, but apparently they have had some success on the Bob and Tom show, which doesn't play in Dallas except perhaps over the internet. Though I'm sure they have been at this much longer than Coulton, they were the perfect warm-up for him, as they got us all in the laughing mood starting with their opening meta-song, "Opening Band." They played several other humorous songs, and didn't fail to celebrate the holiday with audience participation.

Main Act
After a brief recess, Johnathon Coulton took the stage solo. Early on, he played "IKEA" (yes, a song about a furniture store). He went on to play "I crush everything," about a giant sea creature and his search for love with his all-too-powerful tentacles. He soon satisfied the über-geeks with "The Future Now," a song about how he is going to be enhanced in the future, and woo the girl to whom he sings with all his imperfections removed. He followed up with "SkullCrusher Mountain," a song about an evil genius showing his new girlfriend around the lair.
Somewhere in there was "I Feel Fantastic," a song about the perfection of pharmaceuticals in the future, with some really funny lines, and "Tom Cruise Crazy" and "Code Monkey". He also played "You Ruined Everything," about having a new baby, "Creepy Doll," and "Mr. Fancy Pants," for which he had purchased a key-tar beat box to play live. He closed with "Mandelbrot Set" about fractals, and "Re: Your Brains" about your local office-mate turned zombie, though again the metaphorical undertones were apparent, and resonant to cube-dwellers everywhere.

Encore
Though it was a weekday, and though it had all started way later than I expected, and though it was nearing midnight and I was tired, it ended all too soon. Encores were "First of May" (nsfw), and "Sweet Caroline". Jonathon stayed around afterward to sign albums and such, though I prefer to buy online the songs I like.

After Guitar Hero II

In June of 2002, the Motley Fool wrote an article about Guitar Center warning investors of potential problems with its $18-per share price being too high for that stock at the time. They were concerned about P/E ratios and whatnot. By June of 2007, they were singing a different tune, claiming that $63 per share was too cheap for them to sell out. What is responsible for the turnaround? In my mind, and as mentioned in the latter article, it has a lot to do with Guitar Hero (which Guitar Center sponsored). This game has reignited interest in real guitar playing, and at the same time, for me at least, it expanded my tastes in rock music to a whole set of metal bands to which I had never given much of a listen.

Like many others, I dusted off my old acoustic and resumed strumming away. However, this time around, mere rhythm-guitar open-string chords and basic strum patterns were not enough. Having finished hard mode in GHII, I felt confident, or at least compelled, to try to play lead lines, shred some frets, bend some strings, and slide up and down the fretboard with full distortion. I need to rock, and to do that, a trip to the aforementioned Guitar Center where I plunked down $250 for the Strat Pack. p.s., if you just splurged your life savings into GTRC stock based on the last paragraph, don't worry, Musician's Friend is a wholly owned subsidiary. As a disclosure, I don't own any GTRC or Activision stock.

So now that you have your shiny new electric, the trick is, how do you play it? Many people recommend guitar lessons, and I certainly agree. I intend to take some myself any time now. But if you and ornery, intelligent, adventurous, introverted, independent person like me, you will want to do some self-teaching on your own. In any event, it is useful to have more than one source of information about guitar learning, so even if you do take lessons, the instructor should encourage you to learn on your own. If they do not, find a different instructor.

Here, then, are my recommendations for free online learning. Firstly, fire up iTunes or otherwise tune in to 1.fm and listen to some blues. If you live in the D/FW area, you are in luck, because the new station called Lonestar 92.5 is a commercial-free radio station that plays a lot of blues, country, rock, and other music with great instrumental solos, mainly guitar. It might as well be called the guitar hero station. Incidentally, Lonestar are also sponsored by Guitar Center. While you are soaking up some good blues, go learn the easy blues scale. This scale can be played anywhere on the fret, and then you can play just about any notes up and down this scale in a swing beat, and it will sound great. For rank beginners, I suggest first checking out these excellent absolute beginner guitar articles. Be sure to look around on that site and this one even if you are a little more advanced. For geeks like me, the information is offered in a very digestible format. If you get really serious about this stuff, you can go to this solo guitar site which has information about practice schedules, etc.

However, whenever you get to the point of learning about modes, go to this modes theory page. It is all laid out very logically and clearly, with no mystical mumbo-jumbo. Did you know, for example, that minor A is just a mode of major C? I didn't. Including that one, there are seven modes in all, but the CAGED method only teaches you five, and treats minor keys as a separate topic. Granted, two of the modes overlap so much that they use the same exact fingerings, but still, the theory is incomplete without knowing about all seven modes, and it seems kind of random.

So, did you dust off your old guitar/buy a new one after you picked up GHII? Did you start listening to different music, and/or gain an appreciation for guitar solos?

Squier Fender Strat switches and knobs

I just got a new Fender Strat made by Squier, from Guitar Center. It was part of the Strat Pack. This is a standard Fender Stratocaster design, but it is made in Indonesia to encourage fair labor standards. Just kidding, it's for the low cost. A decent American-made Fender will set you back over $1000, but a Hecho en Mexico model is somewhat less, and then these are an entry-level option for essentially the same design, but made in Indonesia. I am just getting started in electric guitar, so I opted for the low-priced model. The Strat Pack, for $250, included the guitar, 15-watt practice amp, strap, bag, picks, whammy, tuner, and an extra set of strings, along with an ultra-beginner "fender method" guitar-playing book. What it did not include, however, was instructions on how to use the dang thing. I don't mean play it, because coming from an acoustic guitar I was familiar with the concept of frets, chords, and strumming. What I mean is, what do all those damn knobs and buttons do? There was no instruction along those lines in the Strat Pack. So, after literally hours of searching the internet, I was able to find the answer, and have reproduced it here. The Squier Strat mimics the Standard Stratocaster found here, which site also has wiring diagrams and whatnot in case you need those.

Pickups
Starting with the basics, the standard strat design has three single-coil pickups. These are labeled number 6 in the diagram. The topmost one is the neck pickup, the middle one is just called the middle one, and the bottom one is the bridge pickup. The switch, labeled 5 in the diagram, has five positions available. By switching it to the top position (closest to the neck), this activates the neck pickup only, so that any sound picked up by the other two pickups is not sent to the amp. The next click on the switch turns on both the neck pickup and the middle pickup. The third position activates just the middle pickup. The fourth position activates the middle and bridge pickups, and finally the fifth position activates just the bridge pickup.

Hum
Since they are single-coil pickups, there is a natural 60hz hum that will occur whenever any single pickup is selected. Special humbucker coils are available which are wound in two different directions and cancel out each others' hum. Short of that, most Stratocasters have the middle pickup wired in the reverse direction from the other two, and whenever you select position two or four, the hum is cancelled out.

Tone
Meanwhile, the tone knobs also work in conjunction with the pickups, and consequently are affected by the pickup selector switch. The tone knob labeled 3 in the diagram works with the neck pickup only, so it is only active when the switch is in the first or second position. The other tone knob labeled 2 in the diagram will adjust the tone for the middle and bridge pickups. Having the tone turned up to 10 will bring out all the rich, clean tones from the pickups, but turning them down will mute the sounds somewhat. Experiment with these knobs to get the sound you are looking for. Naturally when the pickup selector switch is not selecting the appropriate pickup, the corresponding tone knob does nothing.

Volume
The knob labeled 4 in the diagram is for volume. Set this in the middle and adjust the amp accordingly, so that you can turn volume up or down directly from the Strat body.

Whammy
Screw the whammy bar into the hole in the bridge, labeled 11 in the diagram, made for that purpose. Don't screw it in too tight or it will damage the bridge. Leave it one turn from tight, so it will fall by itself when you let go of it. To use the whammy, press down or pull up on it. This will bend all notes that are currently ringing out either down or up, respectively.

Amp
The FrontMan 15 amp which comes with the upgraded strat pack is suitable for a practice amp, which means it's plenty loud for old fogies like me. The cord connects from the output jack, labeled 1 in the diagram, to the input jack on the amp. The amp has two main modes, selectable by a pushbutton on the front. It has treble and bass adjustments, too, but the dirty/clean sound is the most radical difference. Out, you get a clean sound; in you get something like the effect of a distortion pedal, great for that "Iron Man" powerchord sound. When out, the volume control works, when in, the gain and dirty volume work together for varying levels of distortion/loudness. The highest gain is the dirtiest sound, and of course the regular volume does not work in this mode, but the other volume controls that.

Rounding out the diagram
The remaining parts of the diagram are: 7, frets, 8, neck, 9, keys, and 10, headstock. Number 1 is where you connect the amp to the guitar, by plugging in the included cord. To adjust the tuning of each string, turn the keys in one direction or the other to get a higher or lower pitch until it is in tune. The included tuner helps with this for standard tuning. To play a note, strum the string(s) you want to sound, with your fingers in between the appropriate fret bars. Rarely, you will actually want to put your finger on the fret bar. Now go take some lessons.