Alex Brooke

As part of my goal to get more of my music on this site, I will be doing some guitar tutorials with audio. I’ll start off easily with some scales and chord exercises. I’ll then progress onto some more advanced guitar techniques. I’d also like to put some original guitar compositions on this site including full tabs and musical scores.

For my first offering here is what I call possibly the happiest chord on the guitar. It’s pretty close to an E Maj 13th with a C# and F#. It’s a bar chord played on 11th fret. So try it out and feel all happy inside.

Guitar School and Music Online

I’m planning to make a selection of guitar tutorial videos. As I want to make a guitar school I thought it might be a good idea to make some videos to attract students.

Since music is a major passion, I can see this being a long term project. Since I also love composing music I want to put up some of my compositions on the web.

I was reading recently that Moby has put up some of his music which can by downloaded and used for free by independent and non-profit movie makers. I believe their is a clause on his site which allows him to get some royalties if the movie makes cash. That seems like a very good idea which I would like to try to.

Now all I need is another 24 hours in the day to do it. If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas please leave a comment here or email me. Yoroshiku very much.

こ れからギターを勉強するためにヴィデオを作りたい。これからギター学校を作りたいので普通のone to oneレッスンとオンラインレッスンもするつもり。何よりも音楽が一番すきなのでこれからこのプロジェックトを長く続きたいと思う。そして作曲が好きなの でウェブサイトにオリジナルな曲を載せて、無料と有料のLoopも作ろうと思ってる。最近Mobyがnon profitやindependent映画の監督のために無料にダウンロードできる音楽を作った。すごくおもしろい話なので同じようなこともしたいなと 思った。音楽を作るための時間を作らなきゃという問題があるけど。がんばるぞ〜！何かいいアイデアやアドバイスがあると是非コメントを書いて下さい。よろしく！

Here is a video of my band doing a gig at Game in Shibuya Tokyo.

Live @ Game Shibuya Tokyo from Alex Brooke on Vimeo.

iPhone Review Feature

Ouch, we got a really crappy review on Learn Japanese Pod which is good because I’m sure the controversy will drive up site hits. But on a more serious note, it’s good to know that the iPhone has that feature. So you can not only review apps but also podcasts too. I’m hoping more people will send us iPhone reviews. If you have an iPhone and could help out teaching other people who to write one, please contact me by leaving a comment on this post or emailing me at mail(at)alexbrooke(dot)com.

I actually bought a book on how to program the iPhone with the misguided idea I would ever get around to using it. Luckily it is now in the trusty hands of Karamoon, a mover and shaker in the Tokyo tech world. I’m sure he can do something more contructive with it.

Flash Tutorials for Beginners

Which links rather badly into the next topic which is Flash tutorials. I am slowly writing Flash tutorials for beginners in an effort to teach myself and consolidate my knowledge. My angle is that although there are a lot of excellent resources out there for learning Flash/Actionscript, a lot of them tend to assume prior knowledge or miss things out. So I want to keep making these tutorials for beginners and that’s where I need your help. What tutorials would you like me to post? Please leave a comment or mail me. Ta!

Guitar Tutorials

As I am a guitarist and musician at heart, I want to do some guitar tutorials aimed at first for beginners. I may put some more advanced lessons up in the future.  So I need your help. What would you like to learn? What kind of format would you like the lessons? Video? Tab? Text? Audio? I would greatly appreciate your comments and ideas on this so I can make some awesome guitar tutorials for you. Again, please leave a comment at the end of this post or email me. Keep rocking!

I read a great one today on twitface (oh you kow what I mean). “The king of pop is not dead, Mark King of Level 42 is alive and well”. But that hasn’t got much to do with todays post.

Recently I have been wondering about what direction to take my Learn Japanese podcast. At least I know crappy, semi pornographic anime isn’t my thing.I started my Learn Japanese podcast to be a resource for those wanting to study the language and learn about Japan and it’s culture. However, I get the feeling that most people are more into the podcast for the entertainment value. And that’s fine with me because it means I can turn up the goofing around and turn down the overly serious gramar lessons. Plus, I never really learned to speak Japanese from text books, more from falling off bar stools in izakayas across Tokyo. So one way we depart from the normal language podcast is the Fun Friday episodes we (try to) put out every week. They feature, news, views, Japanese bands and general banter related to life in Japan. We just put up the latest episode which features music from Natccu and Yugo Sato two awesome acts from Japan. Incidentally I was introduced to Yugo by a good friend and general music know-it-all who runs the Tokyo Werewolf website which covers the underground music scene in Japan. Ethan is a talented guy, someone, give him a job, please!

In the future I’d like to concentrate more on the music scene here and interview artists and play their music on Fun Fridays. You never know, we might even learn some Japanese accidentally during the process.

Another project I am working on is a new website called Blow Your Speakers. I am doing this with a good friend, DJ, master brewer and all round talented fellow called Stone. We dig around dusty records, make mix tapes and stick them on the site. This site is dedicated to Stone’s talent for finding awesome music and me pretending to be a DJ when really I am an HDJ, hard disk jockey.

So check out Blow Your Speakers and our latest mix tape.

The picture above is of my trusty iPod digital recorder and a Ramune flavored Kit Kat. If you want to find out more you’ll just have to listen to the latest Fun Friday.

While crusing BackLinkWatch to find out who is linking to my sites, I found a link to my site Learn Japanese Pod at News From South under the title “Other geeks” which made me chuckle.

Not only that, the guy who runs the site is a pro Flash developer. He says “My body lives in Brazil, my mind lives in Japan, and the guitar is my instrument”. That’s very interesting because my body is in Japan, my mind is in Brazil and I play the guitar too.

News From South is a cool site, check it out.

This is a video of me playing with “Le Jardin de Luxembourg”, an all female accordion ensemble with musical saw from Japan. You can usually find them bringing smiles to the inhabitants of Osaka where they are based and I can’t wait to jam with them again. Yoroshiku.

This video has got everything that makes me put my hat of pure music joy on:

1) Very clever layered video performances that look like they were recorded live to me

2) Great chord changes, harmonies and a funky modulation at the end

3) A little touch of angst and lyrics written by someone who knows about what they are writing about. Beautiful voice too. 

4) …and of course there’s a hammond organ too so they can’t go wrong

Damn!

As I mentioned Dan Deacon in my last blog entry I thought I should write a little something about him. I could tell you that he has been described as an absurdist electronic music composer and performer. I could also tell you he uses some very basic synths, and effects units to make some of the most high energy, driving, psychedelic, electronica you have ever heard. I could also tell you his lyrics don’t make sense, at least sober. However, that’s all been talked about and really you have to discover him or yourself. Instead I have a few observations on why I think he rocketh

1) He doesn’t care that he’s a nerd

2) He probably doesn’t care that an asshole like me would call him a nerd

3) The music is full on, fun, raw and it rocks. 

4) He demands audience participation through his regular dance off competitions where he asks people to dance “sassy as fuck”.  

Quite a bit different from a U2 concert. Anyway, enjoy the interview and you can check out his music on youtube. 

All I want to know now is when is he coming to Japan? Well come on Dan tell us?

My Ramirez guitar

I remember my guitar teacher standing over me and asking “Do you know what cojones are?”. I thought it wise to take that as a rhetorical question. Thankfully it was. “You gotta play with your balls” he went on and for a few seconds images too horrible to recount here flashed through my 15 year old brain. “What I’m saying is you have to play with some spirit”. Things became a hell of a lot clearer then and I remembered an angry Bill Hicks screaming “Play from your fucking heart”…

I inherited my teacher’s guitar and we went our separate ways. It’s a Ramirez classical concert guitar and is one year older than me which makes it…anyway… Let’s just say it’s a great guitar.