BlackenedJustice

Just an arpeggiator jam. 11 minutes long, but worth it. Recorded completely live, using solely the Arturia Minimoog V softsynth. My first jam of this kind, so sorry if it's not up to standard. Anyway, check it out! http://www.soundclick.com/bands/defa...?bandID=971592 Will post some real songs in the future, this was just an experiment.

Hey everyone, I've been lurking here for the past week or so and finally decided to join. I'm 15 years old (I'll be 16 tomorrow) and I live in Portugal. I've played piano/keyboards for almost 7 years, the first 4 of which I took classical piano lessons. About 3 years ago, I started playing guitar and discovering new music, and quickly lost my interest in the piano. I played almost solely guitar for 2 years, only playing piano like twice a month or something. However, I began to explore blues scales and progressions, so when I re-started playing I had some basis. I developed my guitar skills immensely during that time. Then I got into the 10th grade and met my now-bandmates. A great guitar player, who plays mostly blues rock: Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin; and a percussionist, who then had only had a a single try at regular drums. Even though I felt, and still feel, the guitar player isn't as good as I am, nor as versatile (he pretty much only plays blues/blues influenced stuff), since I also played the piano, I decided to go ahead and learn it seriously. Starting in April, I began my re-discovery of classical music. I still had a not-so-vague memory of some of my classical pieces, so I relearned some of Bach's 2-part Inventions and Preludes and Mozart's sonata in C major and finished reading a piece by Mussorgsky called Tear. I was then on an ELP love affair, so I decided to tackle Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. I learned the first 2 promenades, Gnome and Old Castle, which I'm still learning. Before I went on my classical rampage, I learned the introduction to Genesis' Firth of Fifth, which was a nice technical challenge early on. That's about it for sheet music. Now I'm learning some boogie-woogie riffs and 60s/70s stuff to play with the rest of the band. Mostly into The Doors right now, and having a blast. About jazz, I've always wanted to learn some jazz theory, so I could play it more easily. What I'm doing now is trying to write songs, which somehow always come out with a jazzy flavour. Other times I just sit at the piano, strike a chord and just let the music take me though a journey. A lot of jazzy stuff comes from this kind of improv too. Well, I guess exploration is the best way of learning, but still I'd like to learn some jazz basis. In the band, we mostly play Pink Floyd/The Doors/some adapted King Crimson stuff, with a jazzy flavour/Blues jams. Some times, we play some Hendrix or Zeppelin, and I either grab a guitar, a bass or just convince the others into playing a funky/jazzy version of the selected song. I still haven't presented my songs to them, although often I play bits of them and they get intrigued and ask me what I'm playing. I guess I play about 3 hours a day, when I can, which unfortunately is not everyday. I've stepped back from the guitar for awhile, because I need a better amp. So, that's my story over there. On to equipment: When I was taking piano lessons, I played only either a Yamaha DX-7 or a Roland D-50, I can't remember. Only in the last year of lessons, my parents got me a Roland HP103e for Christmas. I played that almost exclusively for about 2-3 years, and this year I connected both the D-50 and the HP103e with MIDI, using the weighted keybed on the HP103e to control the synth, routing the D-50's audio back into the HP103e internal speakers. It's not a very good controller, but it's alot better than the cheap plastic keys of the D-50. I use the D-50 mainly for some organ sounds and lead-sounds. The D-50 is a pain in the ass to edit patches with, and I've been craving a better sounding, more directly customizable keyboard for a while now. I've convinced my father to get me a Nord C2, when it comes out, and I think it will satisfy most of my needs for quite some time. List: Roland D-50; Yamaha DX-7, both are my father's and the DX-7 is currently with my older brother; Roland HP103e; on to guitar stuff: Gibson Les Paul Studio from 2006; an Ibanez old midi guitar, can't recall the name (also my father's); Line6 Spider III 75 W amp And I guess that's it. I hope you enjoyed the read and I hope I'll enjoy my stay. Also, please forgive my english, as it's not my mother language. Cheers