Keeping the momentum going!

Well... Last post I mentioned about the app that I wrote in under 2 weeks and submitted to the app store.  It turns out that once you get the ball rolling, it is mighty hard to stop.  Which basically means that in December 2014, I ended up writing not ONE, but TWO apps and submitted to the app stores.

After I had finished development on BlissBank, I was on a high.  Intellectually and energy wise, I felt like I was crackling and needed to keep those creative juices flowing.  So even as I finished hitting the submit buttons on the app store, I was starting to create the framework for another app - MusicKata.

MusicKata is closer to my own heart, as it combines my passion for music and programming.  I have always struggled with practicing the songs I want to learn on guitar, especially complex fingerstyle or classical pieces.  Once someone said to me - "Wow, you must have spent HOURS practising that piece!".  To tell the truth, I hadn't a clue how many hours I had spent on it.  I guessed maybe 20 or 30 hours, but I thought it would have been good to know an accurate figure.

That is why I wrote MusicKata.  'Kata' is the Japanese word for a form or a practice routine, and I thought it would be apt for this app which helps you to track your practice time over many pieces, as well as help you with that practice via providing a steady metronome for scale exercises etc.

The other thing that I thought I would like to know is an exact measure of how much I have improved over those practice sessions.  I thought that it would be nice if I could go back in time to hear just how bad I was at certain sections back in the early days - if only to reassure myself that I *was* getting ahead now.

So, MusicKata has the ability to record short snippets and store them against the piece, so that you can review them later.

Hopefully this app will be ready on the app stores in January 2015.  I feel elated to have accomplished so much, yet a little mentally fatigued after an intense month of programming.  I am not sure if there will be a third app issuing forth in the near future.

Learning the Shakuhachi

Many years ago, I had read the graphic novel "Usagi Yojimbo" by Stan Sakai.  It is a story about an anthropomorphic rabbit called Miyamoto Usagi and his travels and adventures around ancient Japan.

In one of those adventures, Usagi comes across a Komuso monk ("monk of emptiness") who played the Shakuhachi flute.  From that moment on, I was fascinated with this instrument.  In the story, the monk explains to Usagi that the flute was a way of meditating, and trying to copy the music of nature.

I had been thinking of getting one of these, but when I researched online, I noticed that the best flutemakers around charged approximately $2000 up to $5000 for a hand made flute.  But a couple of weeks ago, I was doing another search and I came across Perry Yung's website, where he explains more about the flutes, and also where he sells a range of flutes from beginner 'Earth' models for around $150 right up to the high end ones, that take a year to make and are worth $2000+.

I decided to order an Earth model from Perry, and he was great during the initial contact and enquiry.  He even made a short demo video for me of the Earth model flute that he had.  I decided to go ahead, and Perry finished binding the flute for me, as well as applying a coat of traditional lacquer to protect it.

It arrived earlier this week, and I was as excited as a kid at Christmas.

This is a 1.8 flute, and tuned to 'C'.  The flute plays the pentatonic scale, and by breath control, you can achieve two octaves.

One thing I've discovered, is that it is not easy to play the Shakuhachi.  There is a lot of work to do with positioning the flute, as well as my breathing, in order to get the proper sound.  After about 10 minutes of playing, I am quite light headed and giddy from the breathing, which I think is a GOOD thing, because I've noticed recently that my sedentary work style has lead to very shallow breathing and a general level of unfitness.

Perry included a great CD and booklet with the flute, which will hopefully help me along my journey.  This is an instrument best taught by a teacher, but alas there are none in Darwin, so I will have to soldier through with Youtube videos and the book/CD set.

Modifying My Strat

Now for something a little different - a photo essay about a recent electronics upgrade I did to my Fender USA Stratocaster this week,

Basically, I think someone slammed another guitar into my volume knob at a gig or something, and the knob got jammed tight.  I actually stripped the knurls on the inside of the volume knob trying to turn it, and the knob just fell off.

While looking for replacement pots online, I came across the Emerson 'drop in' kit for quickly converting your Strat to have a Blender pot instead of a second tone pot.  I thought "Why Not?" and spent the AUD$90 odd dollars to grab one off eBay.

My Strat is just a USA Standard one, with Lollar "Dirty Blonde" pickups that I installed a couple of years ago.  It is also wired in the "Eric Johnson" style, with no tone control on the middle pickup.

For those who don't know - the Blender pot essentially allows you to gradually 'blend' in either the neck or the bridge pickup in with the other pickups.  So, YES, you CAN have all three pickups at once if you like, or just the bridge AND neck if you wanted to.

Basically, the second tone pot is the 'blend' pot.  When you have the bridge or bridge+middle pickup selected, it controls how much of the neck pickup is added to the selection.  Conversely, when you have the neck or neck+middle pickup selected, it controls how much bridge pickup is added in.

Seeing as I am a software guy, not hardware, I thought I would get some hired help to install this kit.

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Now it was time to look at the plans, and to think about how we would go about the whole installation process...

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Once the pickguard was off, it was time to dismantle the components, such as the pots, input jack, and to desolder some of the old pickup wires before re-soldering the new ones on...

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This kit lives up to it's namesake.  It is quite literally a 'drop in' replacement for the original pots.  We only needed to desolder the 3 pickup leads, the input jack leads, and the two ground wires attached to the pickup cavity and trem claw.

Once the new kit was in, it was a simple task to resolder those on again.  At times it was a bit stressful handling hot soldering irons around the guitar finish, but we managed to do it.

I DID manage to forget soldering on the ground lead to the trem claw, but that was easily resolved.

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Then it was time to put everything back together again.  Remember the stripped Volume knob issue?  I got Spidey to wrap some plumbers tape around the Volume knob shaft so that the stripped knob could grab on tightly.

Job Is DONE !!!

While the strings were off, I decided to give the frets a bit of a dressing and polishing...

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I wrote a full review of the kit over at ToneCrowd.com.

Hana (Flower)

Guitarist/Composer Masaaki Kishibe

A week ago, I had never heard of Masaake Kishibe.  Then I saw a 'for sale' thread on the Acoustic Guitar Forum of someone selling a beautiful Charis acoustic guitar, and on the sale thread, the seller posted a video of himself playing a hauntingly beautiful tune to demonstrate the tone of the guitar.

I was immediately captivated, and found out that the tune was called 'Hana', which means 'Flower' in Japanese, and it was written by Japanese composer Masaaki Kichibe.

Needless to say, I researched Sensei Kishibe thoroughly, and discovered that he is still living and playing in Japan, and wrote some very beautiful and melodic pieces for the guitar.

His pieces are actually quite technically simple, however the difficulty is in reproducing the whimsical melodies contained within the song smoothly.  The tempo of his songs are quite slow, yet there is a sense of 'stretching and compressing' the timing to provide the subtle inflections to really bring out the melody and tell a story.

I had only spent a few hours learning 'Hana' before recording it, but I wanted to challenge myself again to see if I could still do what I started last year.  I am already learning a second song by Sensei Kishibe, but this one here is one of my all time favourites.