akrish

So I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I had extravagant plans for this holiday break, but I’ve never really made clear what exactly I wanted to do. Saying that break is about half way done, I figured I’m not too late to actually do this. Plus I think it’ll actually inspire me to get to work because I haven’t exactly been as productive as I’d like. Really quickly, what I wanted to do was, build a good back-end for this company that I’m starting with a couple of friends, play a lot of guitar, run a lot, and of course spend time with my high school friends and my family. Of these, I think the things I’ve only actually feel accomplished in the guitar-playing and the socializing aspects. Of course I’m really happy about this and I’m more enthusiastic about music than I think I’ve ever been before, but I do want to get some of my work done.

My brother and I are always talking about how we can never get any work done when we’re at home and I probably should have realized this and not planned so much for the break, but for some reason I thought I’d be a lot more motivated than I actually am. It’s strange because last year I used to come home to finish my problem sets and get all of my serious work done (I had a harder to working in the dorms than at home) but this year it’s exactly the opposite. I find that I’m really productive when I’m at school but am exactly the opposite at home. Granted this state of affairs is better; I probably shouldn’t find it hard to work when I’m at school right?  Be that as it may, I’d like to get a little bit of my work done and it just isn’t happening; there are way to many distractions at home.

Actually I find that I don’t really have the motivation to do anything when I’m home. I pretty much sit around, play guitar, and watch tv (often at the same time). I also sleep a LOT (like 12 hours a day… seriously). I haven’t really been running because I’m waking up too late. I always seem to have plans for lunch or something, and I pretty much wake up just to make it to lunch so there isn’t time to run before that. Running later in the day is almost impossible and I don’t even try anymore. So this break is definitely a break. I’ve completely unwound from the stressed and pressures of finals and will soon begin to prepare myself for another intense semester (probably by sleeping and playing guitar. Go figure).

The one thing I have been doing a lot (that I’m really happy about) is practicing clarinet. I really want to get into wind ensemble next year and that’s really motivating me to prepare my audition. I’m definitely noticing improvement, and incidentally so is my mom who often listens to me practice. I’ve got a couple more weeks to perfect this Concerto I’m working on and I’m pretty confident that I’ll have a successful audition.

So I have two more weeks before school starts and I’m hopeful that I’ll get into a groove with running, working and music now that most of my friends have gone back to school and my parents are back to work.

Another month has come and gone. Wow time really flies when you’re at school and have tons of work to do every day. I spent a decent amount of time listening to music, but not much of it was really new.

I’ve been listening to a lot of “plain-old” rock the likes of Dead Poetic, Lorene Drive, Chasing Victory, along with some other stuff like Muse, The Mars Volta.
I also found out that a lot of the bands I used to listen to have been coming out with new albums so I’ve been listening to some of that too. In list form we have:

• Thrice – The Alchemy Index: Volume 1 & 2: Fire & Water – this is actually very different from older Thrice stuff (which I’ve been enjoying for a couple of years now, but also very good. I really like the “water” part of the album which is really nice and mellow)
• Thursday – Kill the House Lights – This albums all right, I really liked their older work, but recently they’ve been starting to slip in my eyes. I’ve been listening to it a bit mostly because I hoped this album would be like the old albums.
• Jimmy Eat World – Chase This Light – I’m starting to like Jimmy Eat World a lot more, I’ve only listened to this album a couple of times since I got it, but it sounds pretty good. I should probably listen to it a bit more.
• Coheed and Cambria – Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV: Volume 2: No World For Tomorrow – Coheed and Cambria continue to amaze me with creative and new work. I really enjoy all of the albums that I have of theirs and in particular like almost all of the songs on this one.
• Brand New – I have a couple of their albums and like all of them. These guys are probably my favorite band right now.
•   The Mars Volta – Amputechture – I’ve had this for awhile but never really listened to it. One of my friends played some Mars Volta in his car recently and I decided I’d give them another shot. I actually really like the songs on this album, even though they are a little out there.

Despite not having a lot of free time, I’ve been trying to play as much guitar as possible (which unfortunately hasn’t been much). I’ve shifted even more into the world of acoustic guitar and barely played my electric this month. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

• Acoustic Alchemy – The Wind of Change – a short little song that sounds really good when they play it. It sounds ok when I play it but it wasn’t too hard to learn. It’s also really fun to play.
• Acoustic Alchemy – The Alchemist – this is a fun, kinda fast song that I’ve started to learn. It’s harder that songs I’m typically ready for but I’m working on it.
• Andy McKee – Rylynn – If you haven’t seen/heard of Andy McKee please check this out. He’s absolutely amazing and Rylynn is a really awesome song. It’s ridiculously hard, but I’ve been making some steady progress and have the beginning parts of it down.

I’ve also been freestyling/jamming with one of my friends a lot. He ends up playing the electric and I’ll play some stuff on the acoustic. I find this a lot more fun than just playing by myself so hopefully we’ll keep doing that.

On a really random music note, I started listening to mainstream rap a bit this month. Yes it’s very uncharacteristic for me and recently I haven’t been listening as much, but I found a couple of songs to be pretty catchy.

Anyway, that’s the November Music Recap

I didn’t do this for September but my music hasn’t been changing that frequently (mostly due to school). Here’s the recap:

Albums Chiodos – Bone Palace Ballet

Daphne Loves Derby – Good Night, Witness Light

Brand New – The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

Brand New – Deja Entendu

Brand New – Your Favorite Weapon

Scary Kids Scaring Kids – Scary Kids Scaring Kids

Nural – Weight of the World

What I’m playing

Coheed and Cambria – Always and Never

Dashboard Confessional – The Good Fight

And some other songs that I can’t think of off the top of my head. I’ve also been spending a lot more time just free-styling rather than playing songs. It’s a good way for me to be creative and it’s also moving me in the right direction toward writing my own songs.

Unfortunately I haven’t had too much time to play guitar, but I’ve started using music as a way for me to relax which I’m really happy about.

A quick summary of my musical interests in August

What I’m Listening to (Albums):

Paramore – Riot

Mae – The Everglow

Lorene Drive – Romantic Wealth

Saetia – A Retrospective

Bring Me the Horizon – Count Your Blessings

Circle Takes the Square – As the Roots Undo

Daphne Loves Derby

Dashboard Confessional – A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar

What I’m playing (Acoustic):

Jimmy Eat World – Hear You Me

Taking Back Sunday – New American Classic

Dashboard Confessional – Standard Lines, This Old Wound

Daphne Loves Derby – Hopeless Love, Come Winter, Midnight Highway

Three Doors Down – Here Without You, Away From the Sun

What I’m playing (Electric):

John Petrucci – Glasgow Kiss (some of it), Wishful Thinking

Joe Satriani – Love Thing

As I Lay Dying – Confined

I’ve been playing a lot more acoustic guitar recently. I think it’s because my acoustic is on a stand right next to my desk, while my electric is in it’s case hidden away in the corner. At any rate, I’ve started playing and singing a lot more; it doesn’t sound that great but I’ve noticed improvement.

I just got the new Chiodos album today; September looks like it’ll be another good month for music!

Last.fm, a London based company that started a couple of years ago (I think), has pretty much revolutionized music for a lot of youngsters. Their website is essentially a social networking web application organized around music and the music people listen to.

Last.fm records and stores information about all the music that you listen to on your computer or portable music device and makes that information available online to other users. They use pretty interesting software to interface with a variety of media libraries and devices, and they’re constantly extending to support others. The “last.fm” application interfaces with your last.fm account and encompasses all of the “scrobbling” (collecting of song data). It also allows the user to listen to tailored radio stations that play only the music that the user is looking for. I’ve found that their radio stations work just as well as Pandora.

On top of all these interesting music features, their website provides all the standard social networking stuff. They have hundreds (maybe thousands) of groups, forums, messaging, public posting, profiles, blogging, and pretty much everything you could want in a social networking website. What’s interesting is that I think they’ve really thought through the social networking side of things and done it really well (at least a lot better than myspace). You don’t see a lot of flaming in discussion threads, and there’s very little vulgar content, but they still do a great job of connecting people with each other. They’ve clearly done something right on the social networking side of things.

I’ve read a couple of articles about social networking, and I know some of the common pitfalls and whatnot, but I haven’t been able to figure out how Last.fm works so nicely. Almost all content is universally readable and writable, and their user base is mostly teenagers who are usually the problem demography in social networks. What’s more, they don’t have any noticeable moderation of content. Everything seems to just work.

Moving away from the technical side of things, Last.fm really has some useful tools. They provide event listings (mostly concerts) that allow users to physically meet each other and socialize. They also have a really useful “related artist” feature that lists other artists that are musically similar to a given artist. I almost always use this feature to browse for new music that I may want to get. There are a lot more interesting things that Last.fm offers, but I can’t say I’m a very active user (apart from listening to a lot of music), so I don’t really know much about them.

I’ve used Last.fm for a couple of years now, and I’ve watched them grow steadily, adding features and increasing membership. They’ve done a good job, adding features that relate to their core goal rather than expanding into other sectors (which I think a lot of growing companies tend to do). All this time, they’ve been very successful. I highly recommend their service to anyone who listens to a lot of music.