I dunno - what d'you think?I dunno - what d'you think?A blog by Dave Keir, independent musician, acoustic guitar player and songwriter. Articles
Uneasy Listening - Would you like to be kept informed?
2008-06-01 11:55:00 Hi folks! The pre-production of my forthcoming CD Uneasy Listening is nearing completion! But there is still some work to do. If you would like to be kept up to date with the progress and be pointed to a place where you can download free pre-mastered mixes of the songs as they progress, please complete the ...
Wherefrom the songs?
2008-05-25 09:49:00 Sometimes I?m asked at gigs and catches me off guard. It?s always a difficult question to answer succinctly to a stranger, and causes me to stutter and stammer incoherently. ?I?ve always done it?, is as lame a reason as it is true. But to me it?s all rather obvious since it?s an internal life that ... More About: Songs
Hand Percussion!
2008-05-15 12:08:00 In the early days of my project studio I had the whimsical idea that my songs would be enhanced by liberal application of hand percussion. So I went round music stores and bought all sorts of shakers and rattles and cowbells, triangles, a tambourine, a cabaasa, brushes, and several items whose names now escape me. ... More About: Percussion , Hand
The nakedness of ambition
2008-05-07 21:20:00 Well it’s good to have aspirations and goals and seek to improve your lot. But I have to say I’m more than a little ambivalent about the world view held by the ambitious type - those who proclaim a singularity of purpose and clarity of vision that (they say) are prerequisites to success. I think ... More About: Nakedness , Ambition
Free will?
2008-04-26 10:52:00 Of all the topics that philosophers ring their hands over, this is the one that interests me the most. That is to say, I?m fascinated by the question of the existence of ?free will?. Don?t worry, I?m not about to expound the arguments for or against its existence - I would not presume the philosophical ... More About: Free , Free will
The Zone
2008-04-22 16:46:00 A recent thread on an internet forum got me thinking. The original poster criticised guitar players who concentrated too much on technique and not enough about putting their heart into it. Good point. Perhaps it?s a lack of confidence in playing accurately that causes some players to become a bit mechanical in their execution of ... More About: Zone
Tomorrow?s gig?
2008-04-17 22:15:00 … is at The Rolling Hills Folk Club in Melrose in the Scottish borders. See ya there! More About: Tomorrow
Books
2008-04-13 12:03:00 Whatcha reading right now? I go through phases. I get pulled in opposite directions: I spend half my time feeling guilty because I’m not reading enough, and the other half of my time feeling guilty because my time would be better spent (for example) practicing guitar instead of wasting it reading. Tough old life. When I’m in the neutral zone between these apposing guilt-feelings I normally have a few books on my bedside table of different types. Probably a science fiction novel, or something by JG Ballard; something on philosophy; maybe a popular science book on cosmology or quantum physics; a novel by someone I’ve heard about on the radio; perhaps a more academic book on some aspect of music… One aspect about reading books has always puzzled me is how little I’ve read is actually retained by my feeble brain . This became evident to me when I’ve tried to recall detail of stuff I’ve read in non-fictional books. Granted that I’m not studying these books in a way a stu... More About: Books
Noodling with form
2008-04-10 20:57:00 One of the effects of my listening to so much classical music – particularly symphonies – is that I appear to have developed an ear for forms such as rondo, sonata, minuets, etc. Out of curiosity, I’ve also read a little about the historical development of these forms. Even more curiously, I’ve been pondering how they might be exploited in my writing. For example, I’ve been noodling around for a couple of years (yup, a couple of years) with an extended tune that includes a verse and a refrain. The interesting feature for me is that it moves pretty seamlessly from the minor tonality in the verse to the major in the refrain. Now, with a little bit of imagination – or flight of fancy - this combination could be construed or reinterpreted as a “sonata exposition”! A school form of the sonata may be written down as follows: ||:a b:|| development ||a b’|| Where a and b are “themes”, and the “development” is (using guitar-player speak) a sort of written down impr... More About: Form
Tonight a session!
2008-04-04 10:14:00 I?m going to pop along to Stonehaven Folk Club tonight to see some friends and play a few songs. Stonehaven is my favourite club hereabouts. Nice folks and some good singers and players. The only down side of sessions is that they are like song circles where everybody gets to play one song in turn. My ... More About: Tonight
Podcasts - and YouTube?
2008-04-03 15:24:00 These are areas of self-promotion that send a shiver up my spine ? and not in a pleasant way. But I guess I should get (back) down to it. Independent musicians mostly need any tool they can lay their hands on. I have one experience of podcasting, though. I had signed up to an OMD (Online ... More About: Youtube , Podcasts
Care and Feeding of Guitars!
2008-03-28 13:55:00 Guitar care is a preoccupation among many acoustic guitar players - at least amateur ones. A lot of pros seem to take satisfaction from treating their guitars with a certain amount of careless disdain. On the other hand, there is a section of the guitar buying public that, in truth, are more collectors of guitars ... More About: Care , Feeding , Guitars
Noodling with words
2008-03-25 10:52:00 As I wander from internet forum to bulletin board and back again, I come across certain topics that come up repeatedly like the sunrise. One of these is a question about the relative priority of music or lyrics when it comes to songwriting. If I pipe up and post a reply it is usually a ... More About: Words
(Original) Guitar Notation and Tabs
2008-03-18 15:25:00 I have had a fun weekend with my favourite notation program writing out the guitar parts for some songs. I have been meaning to get down to this for some time and I?ve been postponing it ?until tomorrow? for weeks. But I’ve been afforded some kick-back time while recuperation from a rather savage attack of ... More About: Guitar , Original , Tabs
Noodling with scales
2008-03-04 09:42:00 How many useful scales are there ? or how many would be of interest to me? Modes are one set of scales that seem to get an inordinate amount of attention from fingerstyle guitar players (and others) these days. I guess it?s their folky and archaic sound world. Arabic and other eastern scales have ... More About: Scales
Noodling with harmony
2008-02-28 16:37:00 The guitar seems to have a tonal centre around G major meaning the further you go to the dominant and sub-dominant sides from there, the tougher it becomes to play. (I?m talking acoustic fingerstyle guitar as distinct from, say Jazz, particularly played on electric.) There is a jump in difficulty when you reach B major ... More About: Harmony
Modal chords!
2008-02-25 09:43:00 Now this is a term that crops up quite often on internet forums and even printed publications. I’ve even seen tables constructed in Microsoft Excel correlating chords to modes. Modes are cool and their use as a basis for melodies will provide exciting possibilities particularly if the desire is to evoke a ?folky? or ... More About: Chords
Another shameless plug!
2008-02-14 20:54:00 I’ve just been told by a friend at Soundclick about a new widget I can use all over the place. It looks cool, seems to work, and I might just port it over to my main site, my MySpace page and a anywhere else I can plonk it without anybody noticing! I think the streamed ... More About: Plug
Causing Offence With A Song
2008-02-08 12:32:00 I have thought about this quite a lot. In the UK last year (or the year before) there was a theatre play in that was closed due to a particular group of people being offended by the content and demonstrating outside the theatre where it was being staged in order to get the play closed ... More About: Song
Payplay.fm widget
2008-01-12 19:52:00 I’ve just discovered it at a place selling my songs: Dave Keir Isn’t that cool? I’m waiting for the first $0.88 to roll in. I’m still waiting… More About: Widget
A Pickup On My OM-18V?
2008-01-12 19:47:00 ? was installed at the same time as the aforementioned nut job, above. So far, and after only a quick audition in the store, it is all I expected it to be: like an acoustic guitar with a pick-up on it. Let me be clear: the sound of an acoustic guitar with a pick-up, of ... More About: Pickup
My OM-18V nut job?
2008-01-08 16:09:00 ?is done. Just to recap (and to save me the bother of including a hyperlink) I suspected the string slots in the nut of this guitar had been cut so that the bottom and top strings were uncomfortably near the edge of the fingerboard, especially at the first five frets, or so. I had convinced ...
Dilettantism
2008-01-03 22:01:00 From www.dictionary.com: dilettante -noun 1. a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler. The part-time Independent Musician’s true character? Further investigation reveals: desultory -adjective 1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful. I would have to face the fact that, taking all ... More About: Dile
Have a merry? ah?
2007-12-24 12:52:00 You know what I mean. If Santa is your anticipated benefactor tomorrow, may he be as generous to you as I suspect he is going to be to me. He always does me proud. Eat, drink, and be merry. And be safe. More About: Merry
You will have noticed?
2007-12-24 12:51:00 … the changing look of my blog - sometimes on an hourly basis. Well, I have updated the platform software (Wordpress) and have taken the opportunity to mess around with some of the different themes that are available. I hope you are not finding it too confusing. If you like - or don’t like - ...
Mahogany v. Rosewood
2007-12-19 12:29:00 Yeah, well. Much has been written. For the uninitiated we’re talkin’ guitar tonewoods here. I have two guitars (well, two that are being regularly played) which are identical apart from some cosmetics and the woods comprising the backs and sides; to whit: one has mahogany back and sides, the other rosewood. Do they sound very ... More About: Mahogany
Diminshed 7th Chords
2007-12-11 08:42:00 These mongrel chords are the Crewe Junction of the harmonic world. You can come from many places to them and depart from them to many more. But they worry me insofar as I suspect they could be used to cover up a multitude of sins. They strike me as potentially lazy solutions to musical problems. ... More About: Chords , Chord
On the use of early fragments
2007-12-06 11:22:00 I’ve writ elsewhere (all over the world wide web) that I picked up the guitar at an age too early to learn anything proper like an extant piece of music. I was simply interested in making twanging and snapping sounds. I had no loftier ambition than to disturb the peace in our home. It’s true ... More About: Early
Mississippi John Hurt
2007-12-04 11:28:00 I owe him a lot. After I had picked up which fingers went where as regards fingerpicking I got a book published by Oak Publications (long gone now, I think) containing the notation (this was before the days of tablature) of this man’s tunes. And I learned and practiced just about every damn’ one. Even ... More About: Mississippi , Hurt , John , John Hurt , Missi
Chord voicings and ?broken? chords
More articles from this author:2007-11-26 16:38:00 For a couple of months, I will mostly be learning and figuring out chord voicings. It strikes me as dumb and lazy to imprison myself with the root-at-the-bottom cliches that seem to be the foundation of the vast majority of my songs. Certainly, when I have used alternaltive voicing in the past it has been ... More About: Chords , Broken , Chord 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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