as long as I'm talking about music

Sorry this post kinda rambles- I've tried to organize it the best I can, but my brain doesn't' seem to be working right now.

Look, life is full of emotions. Some are pleasant; some aren't. That's how life works.   In Moses 6:55 it says "...and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good." Music is the same way. For those who aren't familiar with western music, there are seven standard scales to which most music is written. (I am not including the blues scale or pentatonic scales.) Three of those seven are "minor", which means they convey an overall sad emotion. While that can easily be explained mathematically, I believe there is an another reason for that- sometimes people want to express sad feelings. We see it all the time in visual arts, especially with the impressionists. But for some reason, people have this belief that music should only be happy. It's as if the only musical modes that should exist are the Ionian, Lydian and Mixolydian. It's as if people don't want to accept the fact that life is sometimes Aeolian or Dorian, and even a little Phrygian. (I like that way of putting it. I think that was cleaver.) Say what you want, but as far as I'm concerned, art, in all of it's mediums, is nothing more that an expression of emotion, and sometimes that needs to be a negative emotion.

I think this kind of spreads from a larger stigma, that all negative emotions are wrong and sinful. I can't tell you how many times I have hear someone accuse a depressed person of being depressed over sin. I have been told myself to "just be happy." When my cousins killed themselves, I wasn't happy about a damn thing. The world sucked. Life sucked. When my grandpa died of cancer, I wasn't sure what to think. I'm not the only person who feels this way. It's normal, and perfectly acceptable. Wallowing in misery is not the same as feeling sad, and if someone wants to write a song as a way to cope with his or her feelings, than let them do it.

There is a difference between music that wallows in misery, and music that expresses normal sadness. A lot of Metallica's music wallows in misery, and is in and of its self very angsty, which is why I don't like most of their music.

 Inversely, Megadeth has several songs that are sad, but don't cross the line. Dace Mustaine is a brilliant song writer, and a genius lyricist. He knows how to express emotions and thoughts perfectly. He also an a real knack for writign music that perfectly fits the lyrics he's written.  This coincides wonderfully with Marty Friedman's talent as a guitarist. I have listened to literally millions of musicians, and I don't feel that any of them can express emotion the way Marty can. He has a perfect blend of classical influence, mixed with eastern feel, and most importantly a good ear. He lives music. He is the perfect example of the marriage between the scales of classical with the feel of blues. These are a few that come to mind when I think of Megadeth songs that appropriately express sad emotions.
( I know most of my readers are classical buffs, but give these songs a listen. They're worth it.)

1) Addicted to Chaos.
This song was written by Dave Mustaine after he found out that his good friend, who had mentored him though drug rehab, had died of a drug overdose. This song's lyrics perfectly describe his transition from grief (All these normal people/ will I find another one?, I said I need you/ does that make me wrong? Am I a weak man/ are you feeling strong?) to the determination (Light shined on my path/ turned bad days into good Turned breakdown into blocks/ smashed 'em 'cuz I could) that typically follows this kind of loss. The overall tone of the song also fits perfectly with the tone of the lyrics, especially Marty Friedman's solo.

2) A Tout le Monde
This song, according to Dave Mustaine, was inspired by a dream he had where his mom came back to life for one night so that she could say goodbye to everyone. He said the lyrics describe how he felt losing her, and how he felt when he died (saved at the hospital.) He says the chorus is what he would say to everyone if he knew he was going to die. (The chorus translates to "To all the world/to all my friends: I love you all/I must leave."

3) In my Darkest Hour
This was inspired by the death of Cliff Burton, who had been Dave's band-mate back when Dave played for Metallica. The lyrics themselves are about his ex-girlfriend. I personally have found the lyrics to be very fitting for all the emotions I went through with my breakups with both Melinda and Laura.
(This song picks up speed an intensity halfway through, so my classical fans may not like it as much.)

4) I Though I Knew It All
When the crap hit the ceiling with Laura, and I realized our relationship wasn't going to last, I rode down to the boardwalk to gather my thoughts, and to have a quiet place to be when I called her to break up (which I wish I had just followed through with.) As I was there, this song came on my mp3 player. The lyrics just stuck into me, describing how I was feeling at that exact moment. I don't know the history behind this song, but I know what it means for me.


Basically, we shouldn't shun music that express sadness just because it's expresses sadness. There is a score of human emotions, so why not song emotions?

Drop-tuning is a cheat code

This graphic shows the standard tuning for the 4 pitches of a guitar.

For a 7-string guitar and 5-string bass, the extra string is tuned to a low b.

Any questions?

 apparently so. 

A few days ago, I was doing some research my my beautiful Jackson DK2M, when I came across a review. In it, the author said it was a good guitar, but it lacked the ability to play in drop-A tuning, and barely played well in drop-B tuning. The problem isn't the guitar- it's the dolt playing the guitar. Seriously, if you wanna be all "metal" and play super low like that, get a baritone guitar. Or, you can bet a 7-string guitar. There is only one reason to drop-tune a guitar: if you're voice can't sign high enough for standard tuning, and you're not man enough to use a capo. 

So many people who play metal automatically use drop-D tuning, which is standard tuning except the low E is tuned to D (D-A-D-G-B-e). Then to be even more "metal", they tune LOWER! First, it's drop-C, which is drop-D, then tune all strings down a step (C-G-C-F-A-d) then drop-B and drop-A. Where does it end? 

This reminds me of when I was in elementary school, and they said Weed was a gateway drug. First, Weed, then Crack, then Meth, ect. Well, drop-D is the gateway drug for guitars. Be smart- Don't start! Wanna play low? Get a 7-string.

Now, on the subject of drop-tuning for metal, STOP IT! The best metal guitarist don't do it, so why should you? No, KoRn is NOT good metal. Metallica is NOT good metal. Megadeth is good metal. 

Here's a list of good metal songs that are in Standard, 1/2 step and 1 step down tuning, the only acceptable tuning. 

 (Yes, I know these are all Megadeth songs. Get over it. Dave Mustaine is one of my guitar heroes. I don't know who told him he can sing, but he writes some dang good guitar riffs. )

Hanger 18

A tout le Monde

Ashes in your Mouth

Tornado of Souls

Good Morning/ Black Friday

Wake up Dead

Youthanasia

Foreclosure of a Dream

Kick the Chair

These Boots

This Day We Fight!

Endgame

Public Enemy Number 1

Shadowing

So, as a part of my pre-meds, I have to shadow a physician. Well, the YSA adviser Brother Livingston is an Emergency Doctor at Halifax Hospital. I was supposed to shadow him at the Trauma Unit, but when I got there he was in a different section of the ER. So, it started off kinda slow, he was going paperwork for the first hour and a half (and most of the time). After a while though, we went in to see an old lady. It's amazing how accepting people are of others when you just say "he's supposed to be here." All brother Livingston said about me was "He's a med student working with me today". That's it. And people were just completely accepting of it. Well, we saw about a dozen or so people, most of then were having chest pain. We had one guy who was drunk and having seizures, and one transfer from another hospital who had broken her C3-4 vertebrae in her neck. One of the last people who came in had been in earlier. He was suicidal, and had jumped from a moving car. They tried to Baker Act him earlier but couldn't.

It was really cool to see how much fun and how close everyone was. The ER is divided into sub-sections called PODS, and each pod has 12 rooms, with one doctor, one head nurse, one secretary and 4 nurses. Everyone was joking around and having fun. The Doctors lounge was so freaking nice. LCD tv, niiiiiiice furniture, free food and drinks. Best 10 minutes of the day.

...and the beat goes on

I had two interviews today. I feel they both went well.  The first one was with an ADT dealership. I was actually a few minutes late to the first interview, and the guy seemed annoyed. It was a two part interview- the first part was a group interview followed by individual interviews. The individual interview went very well.

The second one has an interesting story. It is a moving company called "Two men and a truck." I interviewed with them about a year ago, was offered a job, accepted it, and then over-slept and missed my first day. Well, I was riding past their location, and I figured I would give them a try. I filled out an application, and as I turned it in, the secretary asked me if I would like to do an interview right there since the manager was already doing interviews. I figured why not, maybe they had a new one- they didn't. Ben was still there; however, he seemed to not remember me at all. The interview went EXACTLY the same as last time, only this time I see myself being in Pre-Med of Med School.

We'll see how it goes. Haven't heard back yet.

Speaking of school, I started my application to BYU-Idaho yesterday. I am declaring my major as Psychology, emphasis in pre-medical and developmental. We'll see how long that lasts- I found out the most commonly accepted major for Med School applications is Physics, and that Physics majors score better on the MCAT than all other majors, including Biology. So, anyhoo, I've started the application. I have to send off for my transcripts from the Volusia County School Board, which should take about a week. I also need to find out what institute classes I've taken. And, I need to get some dough. I'm poor white boy from the Dirty D. Going off the BYU-I website, I should expect about 6-7 thousand in experiences per semester, so I need about 14k total. I can do that. There are a ton of scholarships out there.

Well, that's the news from Lake Woebegone. I'll let y'all know how the jobs news shapes up.

a one-liner to brighten your day:)

The name Pavlov rings a bell...

Responsibilities

First, I hate dyslexia. I joke around about it a lot, but it took me four tries to spell the title for this post. Thank you Google Chrome for eventually figuring out what I was trying to type.

So, I was called as a ward YSA rep a few months back. I didn't realize how much of an uphill battle I would be fighting when I accepted the calling. (From my dad during dinner- one of the reasons I don't like living with my parents, and I really have a strong disdain for my dad being my bishop.) The Stake Presidency here hasn't really put a lot of effort into the YSA program for years, and the program has really suffered for it. We have over 100 names on our roster for our ward's YSA, and only six show up regularly- Bri, Aneesa, The Twins, Valarie and me. (That's just the Daytona ward. There are others from the rest of the wards in our stake.)  Now, a lot of the names on the list probably don't live here anymore. We get a lot of people who move here for college, go inactive, move away and we never know. There are also a ton of people who live here, and either attend church but not activities, or they attend the singles ward in Orlando.

Those last two groups frustrate me the most. They complain that thew YSA program here isn't strong enough, but they do nothing to help it. It's like people who complain about the government but don't vote.  (Tangent: If you are eligible to vote but you don't, don't tell me how you feel about anything; as far as I'm concerned, you have no right to your opinion. If you actually cared, you'd vote, no matter how unsubstantial your vote may be.) Now as I was saying, there are YSA-aged kids in our stake who don't come to activities. I can think of at least 10 right now. It makes my calling so needlessly difficult when I invite a long-time friend to FHE, and he says he would rather go to Orlando's YSA because there are more people, but he'll start coming to the DeLand activities when we get more attendees.

Seriously?

After prayer and thought, I do feel that It is best for me to stay here until next March- I have made commitments to the regional YSA, and I will be on the committee for a huge YSA conference next March. So I am staying, but all of the other YSA are leaving

John, Jeff, Joey and Danny are all leaving on missions. Bri is heading out to BYU. Daysha and Aneesa are just moving to Utah. Valarie is moving to Arizona. The Twins (Jefferson and Perrin) are moving back to Idaho. Rosie is going to BYU-I. That leaves Shaun, Lakin, Christie, Siggy and me. Lakin and Siggy come from time to time, and Shaun only comes to institute.

Sometimes, I just don't know what to do.

90 Second video blog, pics and vids of my past few weeks.

Well, as I stated two posts ago, I am once again at home with my parents, which I am still not happy about. I am also still unemployed.

but that's enough depressing stuff.



I didn't include the bandshell at the opposite end of the boardwalk. They were holding the NCA/NDA championships, and it was way too loud.



These two are a hoot. They are very typical of twins, and they always trying to outdo each other. I love it. watch this video on youtube to find links to parts 2 and 3.




This is Jeff (the tall one) and John, the kid I mentioned a few posts ago. John is amazing- he has learned three types of juggling just by watching videos online. I could never do that. He also learned break dancing and guitar the same way. (Yes, that is Moonlight Sonata 3rd mvnt. in the background.)

 This is just the YSA chillin' with Tommy. 

 Puerto Ricans make for great desks apparently... 

 The Beach, again :)

 Boardwalk, right next to theBandshell

 My adorable niece Lydia, the product of Sarah and Mark 

 The first time I shot an arrow without an arm guard was also the first time I needed one. 

 I made a mistake. I decided to practice guitar when my skin was still wet from the shower. The result? Cracking calluses. 

I guess grammar isn't necessarily to sell insurance.