Grandfather’s Clock Rock Version

The real Rock arrangement version was made by Japanese Guitarist named Sakata.

I couldn’t play exactly like Sakata so I trimmed down and changed several parts of the arrangement into easier note in order for me to play it.

Sakata’s arangements consists of advanced scaling, picking and tapping techniques that currently still out of my reach.

ps : the original song is a very slow song.

Deepening music theory

Deepening music theory

Background
It’s been more than 10 years after I decided to choose guitar as my musical instrument. I’ve been playing intermittently for these years learning by myself without any strong foundation of music theory.

In the past 2 years here in Japan, I’ve done around 10 shows (including guitar solo and with the band). Suddenly I’m not only play for myself but for the audience too, And suddenly I felt that I need to deepen my musical theory comprehension, hence I wrote this article.

Modern Music Scale Modes

To make things simple I will use C major scale as an example, so the note will go like this

c  d  e  f   g  a  b

or

do re mi fa sol la ti

if you remember the basic music class then you will know that the major interval is

w w h w w w h

and the minor is

w h w w h w w

(w is whole step and h is half step)

so here we go

1.Ionian mode A.K.A Major scale
c d e f g a b

2.Dorian mode

d e f g a b c

3.Phrygian mode
e f g a b c d

4.Lydian mode
f g a b c d e

5.Mixolydian mode
g a b c d e f

6.Aeolian mode A.K.A Minor scale
a b c d e f g

7.Locrian mode
b c d e f g a

can you see the pattern here ?

1. c d e f g a b
2. d e f g a b c
3. e f g a b c d
4. f g a b c d e
5. g a b c d e f
6. a b c d e f g
7. b c d e f g a

for the interval it will go like this

1. w w h w w w h
2. w h w w w h w
3. h w w w h w w
4. w w w h w w h
5. w w h w w h w
6. w h w w h w w
7. h w w h w w w

(note that from b to c and e to f are always half step)

now let’s call 1 as 1st degree and so on

interesting observation

1st degree is major scale and 6th degree is minor scale so every major note from 1st degree will resonance with minor note from 6th degree

for example C major will resonance with A minor because A is the 6th degree in C major

c d e f g a b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

since we know 1st and 6th degree are important, let’s see more, 3rd and 7th degree mode is the only mode that start with half step, so if you combine them together.

1 6 3 7 –> this is the most used verse pattern ever in pop and or rock song

my music teacher once said that you only need to know C F and G to make a song. I finally understand what he want to said because F and G are 4th and 5th degree of C major

I found out that every 4th and 5th degree from a note will make a wonderful chorus chord.

since we know that 1 3 4 5 6 7 are important note. where is the 2nd ? well it turned out that the second degree note of every scale is the most unimportant note.

There is alot more to cover but for now I will end this article at this point.

Holy Orders Overture

Holy Orders – Guilty Gear 2 Overture version.

Heavy Metal Symphony Orchestra Version

World Cosplay Summit 2009 Nagoya

World Cosplay Summit Opening was held yesterday August 1st, 2009. I went there to see the show ^_^

Well, it’s not organized like I thought it should be but anyway I enjoyed my moment there. Here are several pics I got (some of them from friend’s camera) and some more from another friend’s camera that I haven’t got yet

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030307&id=1059661199&l=27c1ea35c6

After spending from 10.00 Am to 23.50 PM out side, when I looked at my pedometer, it said I already walked more than 30.000 steps. Awesome, but I’m so tired so I need a lot of rest

Meet Again

After stopped playing electric guitar for about 2.5 years. Here I came back again to unleash my devil side on my guitar ^_^

title : meet again
genre : Instrumental Hard Rock
by : daisuke ishiwatari
version : isuka
theme of : justice

Canon Acoustic

it’s been a while since I recorded my guitar playing. getting a bit rusty but anyway this is Canon done on acoustic tapping style.

The original fingering arrangement are made by guitarist named Trace Bundy. I tried to do the cover.

Big dog

This is one of the biggest dog I saw in Japan here. Most of the dog that I saw in Japan is quite tiny. but this one is the big boy ^_^.

capoeira and jiujitsu

I haven’t get enough exercise or workout for quite a long time. And yesterday there is capoeira try-out and I say to myself “hey, this might be a good chance for me to do some workout”. And it is.

since the event itself targeted heavily for brazilian. so I invited one of my brazilian friend there so someone could interpret what the instructor said in the class.

I’ve known capoeira quite a while ago since the movie “only the strong” starring marc dacascoss (I don’t know to spell his name LoL). the movie is quite good and I always been a fan of martial arts (even though I don’t do martial arts)

so my capoeira knowledge has been added. at least now I know the right theory of doing jinga (the basic dance step from capoeira). why did I choose the word dance if you ask me. well that’s because capoeira is basicly a martial arts wrapped in a form of dance.

the session is supposed to be 2 hours long but my friend got a jiujitsu class so we just joined the capoeira for about 1 hour.

after that I went to the jiujitsu gym and seeing they training etc. quite fun actually. one man there actually ask me if I want to do the exercise. but because I felt tired and the peoples there are quite scary in some extent so I decided only to watch it.

the class is brazilian jiujitsu (made popular by royce gracie from the gracie family). in the early days of UFC (ultimate fighting championship). some unknown guy named royce gracie with his brazilian jiujitsu beat almost everyone in the arena and made him the first legend born from UFC. but jiujitsu (almost the same as judo ) emphasize the ground technique. well I’m the one who always prefer the standing technique martial arts such as karate or kickboxing. so I dont get enough motivation to learn the jiujitsu when I was there.

so there it was. brazilian martial arts filled my weekend this time.

Blassreiter review

When I went to Bic Camera ( the biggest electronic chain shop in japan ) months ago. I saw a dvd commercial on the anime called Blassreiter. Normally I wouldn’t care about another “hard to spell” anime’s name but something drawan my attention. That is the mechanical designer of this anime is the same people that deliver metal gear solid. So that was giving me the urge to see this anime, I mean I love mecha and this anime came from the people that design metal gear rex and ray.

But Alas, after few days passed I forgot the titles (thanks to the hard to remember titles *sigh) and last week (months after I saw the commercial the first time) when I went back to Bic Camera, I saw a figure on the toys section ( I love mecha plastic model so I always went there everytime I had the chance). Hence I remember the title is Blassreiter.

anyway here is my thought since I like the anime and mecha design.

Pro :

• Cool mixture between Mecha and Tokusatsu (japanese super hero like kamen rider)
• Reminded me of the anime Gungrave that I really like (the story, especially toward the end)
• A beatiful combination of Macross / Front mission like mecha and morphing super hero
• nice 3d effects

Con :

• I found some inconsistencies for the history time-line in the anime (personal opinion)

OK and then for some SPOILERS :

I’ll type the spoilers in white so for those who wanted to read can drag and select them with mouse to read them.

• they spent the first 7 episodes to tell a story about a guy who we all would think is the main character and suddenly kill him. I mean when a main character dies, usually it was only the matter of time before he came back alive. but not this time. he’s dead. so the story of first 7 episodes just like a prologue.
• almost all of the important key characters die in the end
• the final boss is defeated not using a force, which made me dissapointed

funny pic

this is gotta be the weirdest picture that I took this year.

let’s see the point of interest here (click the picture to see it bigger).

• an old guy riding a harley davidson motor-cycle (checked)
• the problem is he riding it on reverse (checked)
• not only that he also had a dog on top of the harley wearing little helmet and sunglasses (checked)
• the great thing is the dog’s sunglasses is COOLER than his (checked)
• as to make things more interesting, the background is some japanese preparing a festival which includes people with full make up and dress on top of horses (checked).