Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Music and Melody 音樂和旋律 (中文翻譯) - Robben Ford

"我在彈奏時並不用所謂的“Licks (樂句), 也從沒有作下來學一堆Licks,或從專輯裡抓樂句,對我,音樂它是一個”聆聽的經驗“

音樂的本身是從人的經驗而來;人的快樂,悲傷等等的各種情緒。而音樂之所以成為音樂,技術上的層面需要和情感結合起來的。

人們往往容易因技巧高超的彈奏而感到興奮,但那總是有極限的,比起彈奏的技巧和方法,跟重要的是你所要表達的是什麼。所以當我聽見自己彈奏的是旋律,它不是由licks 樂句堆砌出來的。

我越來越被藍調音樂吸引的原因也是這樣,藍調吉他手和藍調歌手,儘管他們使用的媒介不同,但音樂的根本,情感意向的表達是一樣的。因為如此,從某些方面來說藍調吉他是種很簡單的音樂,當了解這個道理後你可以延伸去其他的音樂風格像是Jazz, Classical 等等,無論多麼的複雜。

像爵士音樂,和聲與與技巧都有它們的重要性,然而真正能讓彈奏言之有物的是發自內心的有感情的“旋律。"

我在把某些地方省略翻譯了( 實在是有點難翻),不過希望我有傳達出Robben Ford 要講的訊息。

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Robben Ford 的官方網址

Thanks for reading.
Till next time

Friday, September 24, 2010

Music and Melody 音樂和旋律 - Robben Ford

最近在一卷Robben Ford 的教學DVD裡聽到了一段訪問,其中他對音樂和藍調的很多想法說的讓我很有共鳴,所以今天想跟大家分享一下。

先上原文
For me I don't really play too many licks. I never sat down and learn a bunch of licks or took licks of records, you know, writing it out, transcribing whatever like that. For me music has always been a real audio experience .

You listen to music. Music is something that comes into your ear from the air, created by the people but its intangible in itself and that in which inspires music it self is also intangible. It's the emotion aspect of it. Music comes from people. People experiences, people's joy, people sadness, whatever, you know.

Music and melody
The aspect of being music, you have to really attach the technical aspects of playing music to your emotions. Music is just like language. You learn how to speak by hearing and practicing all the time and you have a great need to learn how to speak , cus everyone else is speaking around you, and you have to learn how to speak. It was that important to you. So I kind of see music as the same way. It comes from that kind of need to communicate.

Everybody gets very excited by people who are amazing wizard in their instruments, but only it goes so far you know, and what's really important is that you are saying something as opposed to just playing something. So for me I hear what I am playing as melody. It's not “licks”. There is little bit of it in there, but one of the reasons I am drown more and more to the blues all the time is because it's such a vocal music and the blues guitar players are playing the guitars from the same place that blues singers singing. It's identical. Theres no difference. The medium is different but the emotion, the intent, all those things are the same.

That's why blues guitar is kind of simple, cus it comes from a vocal palace. You keep that and go out from there to more sophisticated music forms, Jazz, Classical music and what ties those things together; the emotions; the sophistication of those more complex musical form is melody. It's a song, so it's actually a singing thing. You know it's the beauty of melody. In Jazz obviously harmony became very important, techniques has always been very important as well, but nonetheless the thing that make it really works is that if there is some kind of heartfelt, melodic quality to it. I've always loved the melody players.

以上是我在看DVD時聽寫下來, 在Robben Ford “Back to the blues” 可以有他更完整的訪談。在下篇裡我會把一些段落翻譯出來。Stay tuned:)

Thanks for reading.
Till next time

Monday, September 20, 2010

新作品- Devil's Blues魔鬼的藍調,In Memory of 回憶

嗨!大家好在streetvoice 與豆瓣上有新歌了:)

Devil's Blues魔鬼的藍調 - 這首歌的inspiration 是來自Led Zeppelin 的“Since I've been loving you” ( 可能那時候在街上常彈這首歌:) 我喜歡裡面藍調的影子;有點類似12 bar blues 的段落without the common chord changes. The last part also makes me think of devil's scream in infernos, hence the name I guess.

In Memory of 回憶– 很久以前半夜弄的一首簡單的Demo, 我希望給人的感覺就是“平淡的回憶過去種種”有時間的話我想再錄一次with better programming and playing :P
但不知道還有沒有那時的感覺。

如果你有任何的想法或意見的話,都歡迎你跟我分享。謝謝 :)

PS 昨天跟Dan ( 之前出現在我blog 錄了Devils blues 人聲版, It's what I've heard in my head all the time and much more, very very cool :) 現在加緊把整首歌重新編排中! ! very exciting stuff!

Thanks for reading.
Till next time.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

SAE 錄音學校

在Hamilton結束了我的大學生涯後,不久我也搬上了Auckland, 那時心裡打算去唸錄音工程( Sound and Audio engineering ), 原因很簡單,因為我想以後如果要做錄音室吉他手的話,學會錄音的基本應該蠻重要的。那時選的學校就是SAE – (Sound and Audio Engineering, 它是一間全球認可的學校,在世界各地也有許多分校) 為了存學費,開始了我泡麵加打工的日子,哈哈。

每次有人問我在SAE 學到了什麼我都這樣回答“ I've learned that I like playing music more than sound engineering. ( 彈音樂還是比當錄音師有意思)我還記得在做第一個錄音作業Live to 2 tracks, 只要同學有需要幫忙彈吉他的我都會自告奮勇,結果最後自己的作品還差點錄不完,因為一直抱這”yeah I wanna record my music as much as I can” 的心態所以在真正學習錄音工程時就有點馬虎了, 現在想想有點可惜。不過也是自己個性。。

平心而論,在SAE的確學到不少東西,可是其實如果你真的有心的話,很多Sound Engineering 的理論知識網上都不難找,而其實在這種領域,我相信最好的學習方法就是通過實地操作,有時覺得如果那時把打工存的錢拿來買錄音器材什麼的應該是比較好的投資:

SAE 的網站- http://www.sae.edu/en-us/news_overview/1652/News

SAE_Institute_Logo

Thanks for reading.
Till next time.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Street Voice & 豆瓣

嗨 大家好 :)

最近在Street Voice豆瓣這倆個音樂網站申請了帳號,以後一些新舊音樂作品都會放那。

現在已經有三首Demo上傳上去了。簡單的給大家說一下我的想法和動機:)

Ocean of Blackness 黑海– 關於前陣子的漏油事件,那時每天聽到幾千幾萬加侖的原油滲入海里而人們卻無力阻止,Its really frustrating and this song was kind of inspired by that theme.

WANT痴迷- 本Idea的是關於一個人過度的迷戀事物的感覺, “得不到就要毀掉“..

Back Alley 後街- 我想給人單獨穿過暗街的感覺,我心裡想到情節是可能要去某個地方但已經遲到了,所以抄了近路走後街, 黑暗中好像有人在暗暗的窺探...
The feeling that you get when you feel like someone is hiding in the dark and waiting to jump on you..

第一個solo是用了 Slide Wah
後來則是只用了手指。

這些demo 裡除了鼓外,吉他,貝斯及其他的聲音都是我彈的。最大的感想就是鼓/Rhythm section 的編排很不容易,以前弄樂團demo idea時可能就隨便找一個loop, now the approach I took is more towards completing those ideas. 雖然慢了許多可是我覺得是個蠻好的訓練。現在我在搞一個Alternative/Rock/Blues version of the “Imperial March” from Star Wars星際大戰的帝國進行曲, 應該會蠻不一樣的:P

PS 在寫這些Demo時其實心裡是想著人聲的Melody。 Maybe one day some of these can be turned into band music. Let's wait and see.

Thanks for reading
Till next time.

Monday, September 6, 2010

我的音樂教材&一些心得

自學吉他在幾年下來,手邊也累積了不少的教材和吉他雜誌。今天把一些我覺得不錯的推薦給大家

1.Blues Solo Guitar – 印像中我第一次買的電吉他教材就是這本,裡面有五十首由淺入深,各種風格的藍調吉他。我練習他的方法,基本上在Pentatonic Scale – 你有多熟悉五聲音階?
提到過了。 ( I am on the solo no47, three more to go! Lol )

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2. Ross Bolton, Funk Guitar – 很好的Funk 吉他入門書, 我一共從頭到尾練習了三遍。先學會所有的Pattern, 第二次跟著節拍器click on every beat, 再來是click on only 2, 4. 每次也都會錄下來聽自己彈奏的感覺。

3. Tomo Fujita – Accelerate your guitar playing & More accelerate your guitar playing  只看書名可能會以為這是本教速彈的吉他書(加速你的吉他彈奏?)其實不是:) 我蠻推薦這個系列的,尤其是它關於節奏的部分會把你的基礎打的很穩。 

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4. Supersonic guitar grooves - 在上海書城買的,那時候這個吉他專櫃的書大概只有一倆本是在講節奏吉他的( guess it kind of reflects what most guitarists are into :P ) 它除了有各種風格的練習之外也提供了真的鼓和貝斯做的背景音樂,我常常跟著音樂錄下我的彈奏,看看我能跟原曲有多接近。也讓我有機會去練習調出不同樂風的吉他音色。建議大家可以找找類似的教材。

DSCN4046

5. Guitar Techniques magazine – 我差不多有四十幾本,那時候每個月都很期待它的到來。不過現在自己比較知道想要學的方向, 所以也很久沒買新的。不過還是一本很棒的吉他雜誌。

其他還有很多零零碎碎的東西,

DSCN4043

( Jazz guitar theory, Sight reading for guitars, real book, Latin guitar etc etc ) 但你知道嗎?最好的教材就是CD, 尤其是現在有網絡, (Youtube, Wikipedia etc ) 要找什麼音樂幾乎都不是問題,而在自學的過程中,感想是我從聽裡學到的東西比任何音樂教材教給我的還要多,You got to keep an open mind and open ears!


PS 至於現在好像很紅的地獄吉他系列,有一個有趣的經驗,在上海彈琴時有位吉他手跑來跟我聊天, 問要怎麼練才能彈我這種Style, 問他平常彈的東西,他說是地獄吉他,我就開玩笑的跟他說,第一步就是放下那本書,然後去找喜歡的音樂,坐下來好好聽聽。不過後來他又回去“地獄吉他”了,個人覺得除非是想要彈很極端的風格,那裡面的東西其實有點太機械化了。某些程度上可能也反映出可能很多的亞洲吉他手很勤勞,但比較不去“想”。 After all playing music is supposed to be fun right :) 當然能拿捏好平衡是最好的。

Thanks for reading
Till next time

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Blue Noize Competition 藍調吉他比賽

Attention注意! Guitar Noize
http://www.guitarnoize.com/ 現在有一個對世界開放的吉他比賽

Just Go download the backing track from the website and record a video of you jamming along to the backing track and upload on youtube. More details here

這是我的參賽視頻:) 我準備在街上表演時再錄一次!



動作要快因為還有一個禮拜(九月十三)就截止了。 Get in there guys :)

Thanks for reading
Till next time