Thursday, October 31, 2013

THIS ISNT WORKING

Location

Tattoo Design

I have been researching many tattoo designs and most of them have underlining meanings. Plants usually symbolize the persons willingness to grow, butterflies symbolize the free spirit of the wearer, names symbolize commitment to a person and Swasticas symbolize how youre a horrible person

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

I have been researching the history of tattoos and have found the earliest documented tattoo artiest dated back to 1846! A german immagrant wanted to make some easy money so he tattooed some Civil War soliders. But amature tattoo artiests have been around forever. Some cultured cut through the skin and rubbed dye in the wound. Fun!

Friday, September 27, 2013

Actually Learning Songs

So I got a good score on the Keystones and my mother gave me a $100 towards my bass guitar. Suddenly, I had enough money to buy my pie-in-the-sky instrument. One weekend later, I was bringing my beautiful instrument home, whom I dubbed Kasey. I got her home and started to play. I then found another problem. I suck. I have to learn some songs off some loser doing a cover on YouTube because I can't read bass clef, or read tabs. Teaching yourself is hard because you're building a building on a swamp. Since this isn't my first instrument, I have developed my ear enough to reconize how much I need to work on it. Because I play the sax, the pinky isn't used all that much so my pinky finger is weaker than my others. Another one of my problems is I can't find a style of playing I connect with. Finger style (the most common style of playing) is too backround for my taste. I am an attention seeker so that style doesn't appeal to me. There is no way I'm using a pick because that frankly sounds silly. Which brings me to slap. Slap bass is loud, in your face but hard to play fast. You basically hit the string with your thumb or pull the string away from you (plucking). This style also gives you the most buzz. I am pretty good with plucking, but I get too much buzz slapping with my thumb. All these facts bring me to my current style. Called "Hooking" its like slap but without the thumb. When I get better, I will add the thumb. Now to pick a song to cover! I know for a fact I am playing " Bad to the bone " by George Thorgood, but thats an easy song. A filler, if you will. I want to pick a song that challenges me. Red Hot Chili Peppers it is! This band was often dismissed as a typical LA drug users who craved attention, but they are so much more than that. Their bass player, Flea, was the best slap bass player of all time. He is fast, funky and gifted. He wrote bass lines that are loud but harmonous at the same time. And really hard. Really really hard. I will probably pick "Slow Cheetah" which is way easier to play than "Black Eyed Blonde". Now to actually learn the song........

Friday, September 13, 2013

The BASSic Beginnings

I enjoy playing music in general. Playing the sax is quite fun, but it feels limited. I picked up the piano a few years back but that feels too classical for my taste. Cue the bass. I tried to play the guitar in sixith grade, but I did not like the playing style. I like invidual notes, not power chords. Granted, with the guitar you can play indiviual notes. But on the bass guitar is much easier to do this, due to the larger strings and the larger space inbetween the strings. I got the idea to play from one of my favorite musicians, Flea. Flea is a bass player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and one of the best bassists of all time, in my opinion. My jaw hangs open everytime I hear him slapping on the strings of a lucky bass. I realized that the bass was what I want to play, very badly. I purchased my $70 dollar non-named brand bass around Januarary from Amazon. I am still plunking out notes on that horrible God forsaken instrument to this day. The style I want to play, called slapping and popping, is not possible on the bass I bought. This is not possible because it is an acoustic and was made in some sweat shop in China. So now I am not buying anything until I get my $200 Ibanez electric bass.