8/6/20

I’ve decided to share my musical inspiration notebook from my college years, one entry at a time. Some entries are carbon copies right from my notebook, others have current reflections added into the original entries, marked with italics.

Please use a discerning gaze when reading these claims, which deserve critical examination. This documentation represents a snapshot of my internal landscape at a certain point in time in my life during my collegiate career.

1.

Seeds of a Mental Construct:
My short time with Vector literally changed my entire perspective on reality and colored my subconscious. In 24 hours of “intense” periods of training, I was firmly enough enough rooted and wired efficiently enough to begin selling a product that I previously knew nothing about. Through a mix of listening and conscious interaction and practice, I was able to develop a strongly magnetized mental construct. I even dreamed of CutCo knives.
Maddie familiarized us to the product and the company. She taught us all about the sales approach, the marketing approach, had us practice from the manual, and gave us hands on experience cutting food.
I can utilize this approach to build my own musical and mental constructs. At this point, it is a scientific process; I am just trying things out, but with a cocktail of integrative practices and perspectives, I can develop and cultivate my musical intuition and my hearing-mind.
Perhaps instead of attempting to digest the entire of field of music, instead I could gear this first perspective towards digesting new tunes and material.

• For new tunes, I can familiarize myself to it through listening to a variety of versions of the song.
• Dissect the chord changes and read them aloud
• Play the melody with the recording
• Play the chords with the recording
• Establish a flow of scales with looper
• Play with triads through changes
• Play with seventh arpeggios through the changes.

Paving, excavating, polishing, building

This is a culmination of all I know. Each one of these bullets have infinite ways to open endless possibilities; is is a 3-day, 5 hour-a-day block of experience.

Each bullet should be practiced and thoroughly appreciated; there is no rush, but there is.

Hands-on playing can be balanced with critical (attentive) listening.

This approach can be geared towards classical materials as well.

I steep in exercise to promote growth.
I play as a listener.
When anger arises, I observe it and diffuse it by tracing and acknowledging its roots. For every anger, there exists a construct for translating, transmuting, and transforming emotion into motivation and understanding.

Current Gear

Here are a few pieces that make up my current home studio. Affiliate links help me out, and this is the equipment I actually use. Check it out!

Orange Super Crush 100 – https://amzn.to/3YbPhWo

Orange Crush20RT practice amp – https://amzn.to/40d2noY

Orange Crush Bass 25 practice amp – https://amzn.to/3UnXVzQ

Orange Crush Bass 100 – https://amzn.to/4fkT9LL

Orange Dual Footswitch  – https://amzn.to/48jmHXI

Yamaha THR 5 Practice Amp – https://amzn.to/40AYWJ5

Guitars

Jackson JS11 Metallic Red – https://amzn.to/3YF9rcY

Ibanez 5-string Soundgear – https://amzn.to/3BRZoYQ

PRS SE Custom 24-08 – https://amzn.to/4eVwA0b

Interface

Scarlet 18i20 – https://amzn.to/4eXGMVY

Audio Technica Headphones M30x – https://amzn.to/3BVwFT4

AKG Headphones K52 – https://amzn.to/40d3Qvu

Mics

Shure Sm27 – https://amzn.to/3BUTypH

Sennheiser e835 – https://amzn.to/4hkL2Re

Midi Controllers

Mpk Mini – https://amzn.to/3AcZ4n1

Metronome

Korg TM series – https://amzn.to/4fcoXlG

Books

Real Book 6^th Edition – https://amzn.to/3YyDNxA