When software, hardware, and music collide.
Chet June 11th, 2007
My apologies for not having updated in a while. I thought I’d write a little post and explain the process of how I come up with a post. Maybe this will be helpful to some and maybe some faster bloggers out there can give a few tips.
For me, it takes a good deal time to create a post. I’ve just started using Audacity to record my sound examples. It’s a very intuitive and simple piece of open source software. Once I installed LAME to encode my files to mp3 it has worked very well for my purposes.
For those who are wondering(which I’m sure there are thousands of you) I’ve been using a Tascam US-122 interface, a Shure sm57 , myself, and usually a Tacoma DM-10 to bring you the audio samples you’ve so enjoyed. The notation is created first in Finale, exported as a .tiff, resized, and converted to .gif. It is not a quick process.
It seems to work well but I was wondering if any guitar bloggers out there have a faster system for creating a good post?
Faster blogger. Don’t know if that’s good or if I need to get a life!
I’d love to share anything! But, what do you mean when you say that it takes you a
good deal of time to do a post? Are you talking about post ideas and writing, or
about recording sound demos for your posts? Or maybe both? Also, what do
you mean by “great post”?
Not knowing just yet, I’ll venture to say that my blog is really important to me, in
terms of my goals for it. So, I treat it really like a job, and I try as much as possible
to get organized the same way you would at work. At any time, I’ve got a few dozen
posts in draft form that I can almost run with. Every time I get a post idea, I write
it down in a notebook and just write away without thought, then go back to it and
polish it, do any necessary research for it or a quick interview, get a picture, get
anything else that it needs, and run with it when it’s ready. So, this is how I am
able to post daily, which I think is important so that your audience comes to rely
on you and you can just keep things fresh and keep providing value.
And, there are bad days, when I am totally out of ideas, no drafts on paper,
nothing. So, I just brainstorm, think different, and come up with something of value,
even if it’s very tiny. As long as I think it is valuable to my audience. Lots of times
ideas come when I’m away from the computer, talking to people in different places,
getting some real world stuff.
The main thing though, is that you have to know exactly what your blog is about.
Having that defined very narrowly, you are able to know better what posts are
gonna be about, and help you brainstorm a bunch of them at a time, that way you
always have something down the pipeline. My thing with IG BLOG is
about giving people the inspiration to play guitar, to love the instrument, to stick
with it, to learn about life playing guitar, to love music and people who make music
with guitar, and to feel a sense of identification with all guitar players in the world,
be it Eric Clapton or a buddy who plays guitar. It’s about tapping that seed that
all of us guitar players have in common and watering it, really.
So, this gives me a way to think about post ideas and get busy brainstorming and
writing. There are many other things guitar-related besides what IG BLOG is about,
and tempting to cover in IG BLOG, but I will not touch them since they’re not
about what I’m doing with IG BLOG. This way the audience knows what to expect
and they know when they need to check out IG BLOG and when they need to
check another blog or source with a different perspective.
As for sound files, not every post I do requires one, so I don’t need to create
something for each post. When I do need one (for playalongs, or examples, or
anything else), the time I take can range from as little as 15 minutes to weeks!
I have two ways to record. One is I plug to a TASCAM DP-01 8-track digital
recorder, record tracks and mix, and send the mixed signal to my Mac for small
additional processing (like adding reverb and adjust EQ a bit) and for MP3
conversion. I have a BOSS DR-3 drum machine that acts as my drummer,
a bass guitar for bass, and an Alesys synth keyboard for any keys or sound effects.
The other way is I plug to an Mbox digital converter that goes to my Mac, and use
Garage Band to record and mix. I have Pro Tools in my Mac, but, really, Garage Band
is so easy to use and so fantastic in results. I also may use Garage Band for the
drum and bass loops instead of using my drum machine and myself for bass. Garage
Band also has great post processing tools. That’s really it.
Some times, when insipiration hits hard, I’ve done a playalong (rhythm guitar, bass,
drums, mixing, etc) in a couple of hours. Sometimes, I’ve taken weeks to get
something going simply because I don’t know what I want or I just can’t get to
the entire piece in one session.
So, that’s a little something about how I roll. I’d love to share more if you have more
specifics, and even help you figure out what you want to do in terms of ideas or
what your blog is about. Anything, I’m here. Use me and abuse me. That’s what
I am all about…
Laters,
IG
Wow, thanks for the in-depth response IG!
That’s what I was looking for. You’re right about the need to narrow the scope of the blog. For all my effort with this site I realize that it’s not the most cohesive of blogs in the world. In retrospect, I don’t think my question was about hardware or software(though that’s how I framed it), it was about finding the center of mass for the entire site. One of the first things that drew me in to IG Blog was your CAGED series. I liked the simplicity of the topic and how useful it could be to someone who actually took the time to learn it. Also I liked the continuity of the series as well. Someone could practice what was up and come back a week later for more coverage. Kind of like how real life lesson’s take place.
I think my forte as someone who’s taught a lot of people how to play guitar is (no surprise) teaching someone how to play guitar. It’s always rewarding for me to remember a student struggling with that confounded F chord as they’re breezing through the solo to “All Along the Watchtower” or playing a new Robben Ford lick.
I was thinking last night as a matter of fact on starting a series of posts that would take a “virtual student” from topics I cover in the first lesson through about a year of lessons. It would progress from buying that first guitar when you don’t even know what to look for, learning how to tune it, learning basic chord and strum patterns, blues scales, the 12 bar blues, and progress to bar chords, reading music, scale modes and theory etc. In essence they’d come here to “guit Help”!
Thanks for the advice because I was already thinking I needed to focus a little bit more on my expertise.
I’m a regular reader of IG blog and I think you really hit the mark on what you cover over there. Like I said, it’s not the implementation that’s slowing me down, but as you mentioned, once I find the heart of what I want to do here(which I did as of last night), the brainstorming and creation of quality content should come faster.
Talk to you soon IG,
Chet
You nailed it when you said you needed "to focus a little bit more on my expertise." That, AND personality and attitude. I think our challenge with blogging about guitar is that there’s so much stuff on the internet and it is hard to stand out among the crowd. I mean, you go to a search engine and type guitar lessons or guitar help and you get gazillions of folks with stuff, and they’re all basically saying the same things, many times with no personality. But, I believe that even when it’s that busy, there’s an opportunity to stand out from the crowd if you have a unique personality that comes across, good content that’s based on your experience (so you become credible), you post regularly, and you know what your goal is.
And, you know, it takes time to figure out what your blog is about. Even though I started with a general idea, it took a while to narrow it down and define it more. I mean, there are still aspects that I’m kinda fuzzy about, but, I just try them and write them and post them and take a risk and see what kind of response I get. The more you write and the more you see what you’re doing, you’ll come to realize what you’re all about, and you blog about that, and then things start happening and gelling.
I would say write and cover what’s in your heart, and go for it and see how it develops. Don’t try to do what other guitar bloggers are doing. Focus on your unique style of teaching guitar and telling stories that both teach and move people to play guitar and come back to you for tips/lessons. Maybe the concept is not so much about doing 100% lesson posts, but about also painting a picture for the audience of what it’s like to use a guitar teacher, and paint a cool picture of that experience so that your mission becomes to encourage players to get a teacher, whether it’s you locally or another teacher in another town, you know? Maybe it would be cool to take the virtual student idea a bit further and actually document an actual student’s life as a guitar student, so that there’s a realness to it. I’m just thinking out loud here.
Another thing to think about is knowing who your audience is and being mindful of that. For example, are you targeting your guitar students only and writing/posting for them, or are you targeting a more general audience while still addressing your own students. Based on that, then you know how to approach a post and you maximize its value to your audience.
I’ve been toying with the idea of profiling guitar teachers in IG BLOG, with the purpose of promoting the concept of taking lessons and putting real faces to guitar teachers and why they do what they do. Do you want to be profiled? I have an interview in the works with a guitar teacher I know from the Seattle area, and he’s been real busy and hasn’t been able to do the questionnaire (one similar to the one I did with author Tom Wheeler about his book on Fender Amps). Let me know, and I can email the questionnaire to you and see what you think. I think some of the questions may actually help you to put on paper some of the reasons why you are unique. Let me know.
IG
I’ve got a few ideas in the works. I was thinking of doing actual lessons for a real person as well. Maybe someone in town or even some one who surfs in and wants to sign up. Build on the material each week and document the progress online. For a more general audience I think I still want to move ahead with covering everything I would give a beginner from the ground up. That way anyone could join in at whatever post matches their playing level and follow right along. Or maybe I could start doing it from a few different levels. I’m working on and intro to the whole thing right now.
Thanks for the thoughts IG and send me the questionnaire whenever you get the chance. I’m fairly busy myself but I could find time for that.
Chet