#27, Power Chords

Swarovski Window, Waikiki, Hawaii, October ‘07, artistic view.

I am trying to use several guitar power chords in my music composition I am trying to write for the next video. Things sound quite good, there is something in those power chords, so few notes, but they can really get you! An acoustic guitar handles those chords, but later many other instruments repeat versions of those chords.
I am probably going to shoot some scenes with moving subjects for the next video. As you know, getting good quality video with moving scenes is not the simplest thing to do. You always end up with some residual "jerkiness" that can be difficult to watch. So you either use a 60p professional video gear ($), or try to figure out how to minimize this unwanted effect. Need to refresh my memory on that subject. A good book, with all basic video related subjects, is the Digital Video Handbook. I keep it in my car all the time, and if I need to find something, this is where I can go. There are much heavier, thicker and more advanced video books around. I am going to talk about those at some other time.
Three new subscription magazines arrived: Outdoor Photography, Popular Photography, and Keeplinger’s Personal Finance. Now I need to sit down and spend some time reading them. In the photo magazines, I usually go the last pages where ads with new equipment are, to check if prices are any lower than say several months ago. On video cameras, that usually is true, buying always the latest model as soon as it is released is not always the best thing to do. There are always some bugs in both hardware and software, as well, and it is better to leave those to others to debug. As an example, on my last Canon camera I purchased from a large electronics store, a display problem appeared only after few hours of use, the day after I started to use it. The display would go blank, and nothing could be done about it. Had to exchange quickly, since then there were no issues.

Books: Arlen Roth, Complete Acoustic Guitar, Schirmer Trade Books, ISBN 0-8256-7271-6.
Rikky Rooksby, Chord Master, How to choose and play the right guitar chords, http://www.backbeatbooks.com, ISBN 0-87930-766-8.
Tom Ang, Digital Video Handbook, Equipment, techniques, projects, editing, http://www.dk.com, ISBN 0-7566-0942-9.

#26, Music for Untitled

Need More Light, Santa Clara, California, September ‘07, artistic view.

Not long time ago I bought my first music mp3 files from Amazon.com, and downloaded them. Those were Justin Timberlake’s What Goes Around…/…Comes Around and My Love. The Amazon.com transaction was smooth, no issues, song descriptions are clear, reviews usually useful, and the search is also working fine. And most important, no DRM. In the past I bought something from Apple but the DRM pretty much prevented it from listening to it in any reasonable way. Things have changed since then, I know, but I did not go back yet.
Spent some time going over Sarah McLachlan’s I Will Remember You sheet music, pp. 149-53, while drinking coffee and eating fried chicken strips and rice pilaf dinner at a restaurant one late evening. Have to conclude that the piano part is relatively simple. If I could only sing like her! Regular, not decaf, in case you wonder.
Replied to email from Jewel, not private though. I am officially entered into a T-shirt drawing contest now promoting her new single. Hope I get the right size!
The next video for YouTube has no title yet, and only some vague ideas about the subject. The music is being written, three pieces finished, one more today, then intro and coda in the next two days or so. Now I am breaking my own rule about not talking about something not yet released!

For breakfast: cooked edamame, Japanese wakame seaweed salad with sesame seeds, roasted eel, multi-grain bread, hot jasmine tea. Yummy!
And a quick look at Barron’s financial pages and Yahoo finance. Gold went down so much in the last few days.

Sheet music: Pop/Rock Piano Hits for Dummies by Robbie Gennet, a Hal Leonard book, ISBN: 1-4234-0775-X, http://www.halleonard.com.

CD listening to: Amarantine by Enya, http://www.repriserecords.com, using Audacity.

Jewel’s web site: http://www.jeweljk.com
Barron’s web site: http://www.barrons.com

#25, So Maxwellian (You Don't Have To Be)

Street Rose, San Francisco, California, September ‘07, artistic view.

Wrote a song, this is where we are with it. Wrote it early in the morning, about 3:00 am, I hope you find it interesting. If you are confused about a title, that's good, because it tells me that it is working. Would like to get some comments, ranging from - this is definitely going to be #1 hit, through - go to bed, get some sleep, to - what the hell is this? Some ideas about music are floating over my head, but not much written so far. Once I start writing, most likely some words would have to be changed or moved around. So, I'm waiting for your opinions.


So Maxwellian (You Don't Have To Be)

Lyric and music © 2008 by Vatsek Music.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The weekend is coming, TGIF,
Gonna have some good time, close in the bay.
The boat leaving in four,
You're not here, I'm going alone.

You don't have to be so maxwellian,
Just try to carry on.
'Cause tomorrow is coming again,
Still in love, hope still in love.

The weather's stormy, the Ocean's rough,
Seagulls are singing, my boat rocking.
(music riff) stopping by,
Having some fun.

You don't have to be so maxwellian,
Just try to carry on.
'Cause tomorrow is coming again,
Still in love, hope still in love.

Back at the shore,
Looking around, till you're found.
Everything will be all right,
In the nick of time.

You don't have to be so maxwellian,
Just try to carry on.
'Cause tomorrow is coming again,
I'm still in love, hope still in love.

Still in love, hope still in love.
Yes, still in love...

#24, One Year on YouTube

Do Not Lose Your Head Over It, Could Be Anywhere, US, ‘07, artistic view.

An official date on my YouTube page clearly states that a year passed since I joined a YouTube site. Actually, although technically true, I did not submit anything for the first 2-3 months and recently I did take over a 2 month break from video making, but not from commenting and rating. So, it is a little bit less than a year. Is there a single word that would characterize this first year? I believe it would be – SLOW. Yes, I expected things to move much faster judging by the initial meteoric rise of some YouTube "stars", since then shinning a bit dimmer. Things are changing, for the better or for the worse? Not sure. Time will tell.
Things that used to bother me and still bother, that have not been resolved on YouTube: quality of video and audio on YouTube compared to my originals. HD format is still not supported, and audio is pretty bad. They both get you when you are shooting in HD and composing music for the videos, as I do. I must say that I am not convinced things are radically going to improve. Other video sharing sites offer those features, but with a very tiny crowd to watch. Basically there is no solution at this moment!
I managed to get over 150 subscribers, several I kind of know well. Over 400 subscriptions, some of them quite good. I dropped some of the subscriptions, those that became boring, and making essentially the same kind of videos over and over again. Some things are changing independent of my work, probably due to the very random nature of submitting videos by users, and rather difficult way to find good and interesting videos from a huge number of submissions. How many good videos can you find using "Search" button? And those recommended by others may not be of interest to me!
Still plan to make videos, perhaps one every two weeks. I do plan to improve my music composing skills. The first song is hovering over my head, with some theme ideas, can I maybe find somebody to sing it? Perhaps a YouTube member?

Reading now: 101 Songwriting Wrongs And How To Right Them by Pat and Pete Luboff, ISBN-10: 1-58297-480-2.

Listening to: CD that came with Melody, How To Write Great Tunes by Rikky Rooksby, ISBN: 0-879308-19-2.

Just clicked on my name on YouTube page. The error message says: User Vatsek Not Found! Great, you must have seen several similar messages on your pages as well. Happy 1st to me!

#23, Three New Videos

Time To Get Up, Santa Clara, California, April ‘08, artistic view.

Yes, I know. I did not write anything for a while, and my goal of writing at least twice a week goes up in smoke. And the goal of submitting a video per week is also unrealistic. I spend quite a bit of time shooting, about a day with preparations, travel, finding something interesting and shooting on location. It is good that in the Bay Area everything is not too far away, usually within 1-2 hours of driving. Editing, as you well know, can be pretty slow depending on your approach. I have, depending on the video length, 30-50 clips to edit. Every single one is tweaked till it looks good and makes sense, and is not out of line with the major theme for that part of video. Still using iMovie, but it is obvious and almost mandatory to switch to something better, simply because many other people on YouTube already switched to much more advanced, and expensive, video editing software. Those with iMovies are simply going to fall behind. Actually I was thinking a bit about the future on YouTube, and since good videos are expensive to make, and require fairly expensive equipment, there is probably not much room for people with small budgets, and cameras built into their laptops. Sad but true. The higher video quality, HD especially, is going to be expensive and not viable to many people making videos today. Do you agree with me?
My last three videos come from Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Mt. Hamilton near San Jose, CA. They look quite good, I believe. I seem to like recording natural sounds more and more, even very basic sounds, ocean, passing cars, and splashed water. The stereo mike I am using is picking up lots of sounds from different direction, even me breathing - not necessarily what I want. A good stereo shotgun will be tried very soon, maybe even on the next video.
Composing music is something I am enjoying more and more and plenty of music books are scattered around my place for easy reference. Today I was listening to the score from Serenity by David Newman. Also today started to read Gabriel Yared's The English Patient by Heather Laing, ISBN-10: 0-8108-5910-6, which is a film score guide. Let me say the Hollywod Studio Symphony sounds good!

PS. First year on YouTube summary as promised - tomorrow.