We/I fired our singer. I called her Monday and explained the situation to her. To my surprise, she was understanding.

Yesterday, I got a postcard from her assuring me that she understood why we had to let her go and thanked me again for the time she had in the band.

I also quit smoking and I haven’t smoked in two weeks, now. Not the occasional cigarette, not the “I can smoke when I’m not at home” policy - just a clean break. This does provide some extra stress but I feel better, I taste better, I smell better. It also means I’m more irritable and less likely to compromise.

So when I make arrangements for a temporary singer and someone starts second-guessing the arrangement that I made, I am no longer compromising. And since I’m somewhat convinced that I am part of the problem, I’m seriously considering removing part of the problem.

I don’t feel elated. However, I’m convinced that this is what I have to do if I don’t want to go yelling at people. Which I don’t.

Saturday, the inlaws helped my put my studio together (amongst other things). Today, I finished most of the job and the result is below. It still needs an actual computer (which is on my list and which I will buy once I’m more up-and-runny so I can figure out which one I want.

LTR: two folding chairs (matching the carpet tiles), cover of the Pod XT Flightcase, office/lounge chair, computer keyboard I, external soundcard Tascam, TFT screen I and II, desklight, organisers, a TV for dubbing movies etc, lots of nifty and useful stuff neatly organised into crates, a Samsom Q7 mic and to the far left, cases and covers of various instruments and sizes.

FRONT: Mixing desk, 12 channels, with foldback and main out. In front of that, keyboard II and mouse II and in front of that, the Pod XT, riddled with useful stuff like extra strings, extra cables and duct tape.

There’s two keyboards since that way, I can control the PC from where my Pod XT is lying. Missing in this picture is my Yamaha Keytar which Joop has on a loan.

And since they have all been very nice girls, here is a picture of the Axe family!

LTR: Spanish nylon string, Jackson Fusion EX, Jackson SL-1 CS, Hamer 5-string bass, original Venezuelan Handcrafted quatro, Fender somethingth anniversary acoustic guitar and trying to back out of the picture is the 1/2 sized strat. Not in this picture: the white Jackson Fusion SS which is being turned into a JackAx.

Life’s been rather hectic, the last few weeks. I’ll divide the past few weeks in multiple topics so you can skip the not so interesting parts of my life and get on with the exciting ones.

I was supposed to keep a studio diary for the Street Team and eventually the rest of the world, but I never really got around to writing it. So I’m writing it on my blog now.

Day 1: Hanging around.

At 8 AM, Joop rang the doorbell. I had been awake for 1,5 hours already since I forgot to turn off the alarm clock. We unloaded his car into my garage and drove off to Rotterdam. Of course, we were early. You should’ve made that bet ;)

Hans of Excess Studios arrived shortly after. He let us in, showed me where the Mesa Boogie Mark III was and I just basically unpacked in the guitar room while Hans and Joop went for some coffee. Rogier who would be our sound engineer arrived shortly after, followed by Kace only a few minutes later. Maybe Kace was even earlier than Rogier - that’s the problem with not writing these things down right away.

Day 1 was basically rather boring. Me and Joop hung around, got lunch, hung around some more, tried do make intelligent remarks about tuning drums. By the time we went home, Kace had just gotten started on the first song. Joop wasn’t feeling well and it would turn out his liver wasn’t doing too well and he got a stomach infection. I got the same stomach infection a week later …

Day 2: Swinging the axe.

The second day, I arrived at 10 AM sharp. Well, maybe five minutes later. I came in, had a few smokes, finished the breakfast I had bought in a gas station and strapped on the guitar. Today, I would help Kace groove on Little Girl and Endgame. Especially the groove on Little Girl is important. So I played Little Girl for hours on end before we got lunch. After lunch, we played Endgame, Endgame, Endgame and, oh, Endgame. Also, we played Endgame but mostly Endgame. Kace was finished around 5 PM, after which we tore his drumkit down and ordered food. This all took another few hours and I think it was around 8 when we finally starting setting up the guitar. Man, setting up a guitar in a studio takes considerably more time than I imagined. I left around 11 but we still hand’t set everything up. So much choices and only a few that would really work for me.

Day 3:Chopping and shredding

Day 3 saw me putting my chops on tape. I spent the entire day recording songs. All guitar parts were doubled, so I had to at least play every part twice. I had an arrangement in my head for Little Girl which worked out really really wonderful. That song also had me record three tracks instead of the usual two for the chorus. Paradox was probably the most demanding ones where the chops-with-triplets really took a lot out of me. Matching the chops to Kace’s drumming (which was slightly ahead of time) was really tiring. I had to leave another song for day 4. In the meantime, Rene had arrived and we had a lot of fun in between recording. Joop called in sick so I had to pick up Carmen who wanted to witness at least one day of recording.

Day 4: It’s a wrap

After picking up Carmen, I drove on to Rotterdam. I was getting really tired working days that saw me waking up at 7 in the morning and crashing into bed at midnight. I was looking forward to wrapping my riffs today and not having to record another song after that. I finished recording the last song around 2 PM and then it was Rene’s turn. But not after we got some food! Kace had also arrived in the meantime. He had some really sad news and I sat with him while the others went and got lunch. After lunch, Rene started recording his lines and I must admit that he did a rather kick-ass job. He nailed the rest of the songs well before the deadline, leaving us with 4 completely recorded songs. Not a very bad thing, considering the professional level and attitude displayed by Rogier; “Nope, again, again, too slow, again, too fast, again, slightly ahead of time, again, inconsistent, too slow, almost right, again, again, that’s the one!” This, I swear, is the short version.

Kace left early, but Rene and Carmen and me left at around 10 PM. While driving home, I was almost sad it was over.

Our first day in the studio … Here are some pictures to keep your eyes satisfied! (more…)

Our forthcoming album will be entitetled “Paradox” and will contain the following 4 tracks:

- Paradox
- Endgame
- Little Girl
- Seductilence

I somehow didn’t get the list right last time I listed the songs we were going to record. I’m sorry ’bout that!

As you may well have picked up, within two weeks I’ll be spending a week in a studio to record an EP with my band, Transentience. The songs we’ll be recording are the following.

1. Paradox
2. Little Girl
3. Seductilence
4. Ease your mind

While we usually only play with one guitarist, yours truly, I’ve taken this opportunity to add another rhythm guitar. While in some parts this guitar will only be a double of my usual chops and for which I won’t have to do anything special, there will also be additional rhythm parts which I’m working out right now. In a lot of parts, I play broken chords. A normal chord consists of 3 or 4 notes. On guitar, when playing a full chord, each note is played at least once and a lot of notes are played twice. Let’s look at a Dm, for example. This consists of a D (obviously), ends with an A (also obviously) and has a flat third added in the form of an F to make it minor. A D major would take a full third, i.e. F#, to complete the chord.

On guitar, a D consists of (from high E to low E)

1. A
2. F
3. D
4. A
5. D
6. A 

or, alternatively when struck as an open chord,

1. F
2. D
3. A
4. D
5. A
6. F

When played as an open chord, the low E string mostly gets muted or not played at all.

In metal, however, a lot of people, including me, don’t actually play the complete chord but play a D5 which simply consists of a D and A, making it fit over both minor and major progressions.

For the fullness of a chord, however, I will be playing all the minor chords but over 2 guitars. I’ll be playing a D5 on one guitar, which is my usual take, and a different chord consisting of F and D. When mixed properly, you should hear the emphasis on the D, with the A and F both present, completing the chord.

In Little Girl, there’s a chord progression which goes E/C/A. If I’m not mistaken, the keyboard basically plays an inversion of B/E/G, a regular C/E/G, rounded off by an A/C/E chord. To keep the doomy vibe provided by these chord changes, I play all chords on the guitar with the low E. I play a regular E/D and then E/C followed by E/A. I’m currently experimenting by filling in the “missing notes” with a second guitar, playing A/E, B/E and E/C. This is basically almost an inversion of the other chords but so far, it sounds great. I’ll have to wait and see what the opinions of the others are since we won’t be having another rehearsal for two weeks.

It takes some work to rewrite all the parts, but I’m sure I’ll work it out! It’s gonna be worth it. Definitely. Amen.

No, I’m not leaving Transentience :) This post was triggered by Lori’s “Crafting melodic guitar solos 101” post. In there, she describes how she works on her solo’s.

I’m definitely not blessed with even half the technique and skill Lori has, so my own solo writing is a lot more limited. I don’t actually like to play a lot of solo’s and I’m not into shredding for the shredding. Whenever I write a solo, I feel the need to write a “song within a song”, something that is able to tell something that is related to the song. That is why my solo’s more often resemble a line a violin might play in an orchestra rather than trying to cram as much notes into the solo as possible.

I will not necessarily stay withing the confines that are laid down by the vocal melodies. Often, I will lay down a completely new melody and work around that. For people who’ve heard the solo’s on “For Hope is Still There” and “Little Girl” (to be featured on our upcoming EP), that’s the kind of lines I love to write.

Often, when planning a solo, I’ll listen to the song and play the solo in my head. Even more often, the solo will pop into my head spontaneously. From there on, it’s actually recreating the song in my head on guitar. Since I have limited musical hearing, that sometimes poses a problem since I’ll have to search around on the neck to find the right note. I sometimes also have notes in my head that I can’t play, simply because they’re too far apart or I’ll be having a particular arpeggio in my head and I’m really no good with arpeggio’s.

Which is why I also sometimes wish I had a prodigy solo player that would play whatever it was I told him to play. But we all know prodigies don’t work that way :)

As a budding musician, you very often get asked “if you could pick anyone in the world, who would you want to play with” …

Having been a metalhead for little under 25 years and being in a symphonic metal band, I am often tempted to confirm the image and say things like “Steve Vai” or “Nightwish” but in all reality, for over 25 years, there’s only one person in the whole world that I would give up a lot for to be on stage with and it’s Bruce Springsteen. I’m also pretty certain that the previous sentence is grammatically correct but it could have been formed better.

A few minutes ago, I realised I had never even looked up a Springsteen video on Youtube. Don’t ask me why, I just never have. I think I’ve looked up every possible keyword on Youtube by now, but the boss somehow never came up. So, I did tonight and the skill of the man blew me away as it does most every time I play one of his records or watch one of his videos.

The first video that came up is what I think to be everything that Bruce is about. It’s him, playing an acoustic guitar somewhere on the streets of Denmark. Just like that, without amplification, stagehands, bodyguards or towels.

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So, next time someone wants to know who I want to be on stage with, it’s going to be Bruce. Just so you know.

It’s not metal, it’s more nerdpop (retro game sounds) but it still is very cool and I like this one an immense lot.

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