The Constants Aren't So Constant Anymore

Today was the day it finally hit me. It finally hit me at where I'm at. I'm at a music conservatory. I'll get to why in a little bit. I went to register the other day. David fucking Tannenbaum is my advisor. How sick is that? I'm taking 18 1/2 credits of straight up MUSIC. I love it. I've got Introduction to the History of Western Civilization, Sight Singing, Music Theory, The Alexander Technique (The Alexander technique is an alternative medicine educational discipline with therapeutic effects that studies bodily coordination, including psychological principles of awareness. It is applied for purposes of recovering freedom of movement, in the mastery of performing arts, and for general self-improvement affecting poise, impulse control and attention.-Wiki), Guitar Ensemble, Guitar Literature(classical and romantic), guitar lessons with Lawrence Ferrara and Guitar Performance which is essentially guitar lab. I'm going to be at school from 8-3:30 on Mondays, 8-9am on Tuesdays, 8-12pm and 3-630 on Wednesdays, 8-9 and 12-1 on Thursdays, and 10-11 on Fridays. So many classes! But I'm so excited for it. I just don't know how I'm going to manage my classes, practicing 5 hours a day, hopefully a job and the relationship I will unfortunately end up in. BRING IT.

While getting registered, David told me to go by his office and check out guitars for rent on Friday which is today. So I figured, well, I don't have the money, but playing some sweet guitars would be awesome. So I forced myself to get up early and headed over there. No words can describe. I played on at least 5 or 6 guitars that blow mine out of the water. Playing on guitars that are worth 15-20k. It felt great. I would play a g minor chord and every time I would outloud just go "ohhhhh!" cause it felt so warm. So beautiful. I was playing on Smallman guitars. While playing and talking about the guitar I was playing, David says to me, "Yeah John Williams was playing that recently and just saying how much he loved it." My jaw dropped. JOHN WILLIAMS?! I'm playing on the same guitar John Williams touched?! and enjoyed?! For those who don't know, John Williams is hands down one of the greatest guitar players to ever live. He was considered the hands down BEST for quite some time and I always listen to his records for certain pieces. Anyway, so I explain how I don't have a job and can't afford it and leave and then a fellow student says "Hey! It's free! You don't have to have a job!" My mouth dropped yet again. SMALLMAN GUITARS AVAILABLE TO RENT FOR FREE?! How?! No way! But since you can only rent them out a week at a time, I decided to wait until I have a performance to do so. Incredible offer though.

So earlier today we had a guitar department meeting. Finally. Introduced ourselves. Larry, David and Mark all introduced themselves to us as well as the Guitar Lit. teacher who's name I have forgotten. They gave us a list of all the activities around the city and went on to further explain how San Francisco is hands down the best city in the country for classical guitar. I had always heard it was one of the best, but they went ahead and cleared it up for me. There are just so many things to do around here for guitar. It's an incredible feeling. Then we had a special guest guitar maker who brought in two 19th century guitars and explained them to us. Unbelievable. I got to try them out and the sound and feeling was just amazing. After everything I finally met my teacher Lawrence(Larry) Ferrara. Super nice guy. I can tell he's not going to put me down and tell me I'll never be more than a mediocre musician like one teacher did. We talked for a while and the difference between this meeting and my meeting with Mr. Hii is great. When I met Mr. Hii, I was like a scared child and didn't have any sort of confidence in myself. When I met Larry it started with a nice handshake, a smile, and a "How's it going?" I'm going to get to be myself around him and I'm excited for that. He asked me what I was working on and seemed very impressed. I look forward to his teaching so much.

It was around when David was talking about the program and I was looking around the room at all the guitar players who could whoop my ass at guitar that it hit me. I'm at a music conservatory. This is one of the best guitar schools and one of the best music schools in the world and I am having an unbelievable opportunity to attend such a school. Everything was such an inspiration. There was a free BBQ at some park for all new students and not for a second did I think about going because I wanted to practice so bad. I got back to my room and practiced for 4 hours straight. Practice has been consistent. I'm back to a good 3-5 hours a day and it feels great. I think this is the first non stoked on punk music post I've made ever. How bout that? Well, I'll break that somewhat. I've been listening to the Get Up Kids a lot lately. Get Up Kids? Smoking Popes? I'm a good 13 or so years late on this 90's emo thing. But I love it. Alright. Time to hit the town!

The Get Up Kids-Holiday

Say goodnight means goodbye.
I know you think my life would stop with you away
Maybe I can see you on the holidays,
But you're worlds away

But California...Not California...How Could You?

I'm getting to know my area quite well. Market street is one of the main streets in the entire city and you can pretty much get anything you want or need on this street. This past week was placement exams week. The theory one went about as expected. I was never outstanding in theory so the exam went so-so. They used a little bit of different terminology that really threw me off. I will most likely be put in Theory 2 which while yeah, it sucks I have to re-take theory, it's really a good thing. Re-learning that stuff is good. Next was my sight singing and dictation. My strong point. When I was at Del Mar, it seemed like the harder the classes got, the better I got at sight singing. I made an A on just about every skills exam and dictation exam back in those days. So the sight singing was ok. I'm definitely rusty with sight reading. All I could think of before was how Josh used to make fun of me for singing like a backstreet boy. "DO MI SO MI DO!" haha. So it went pretty good. Next up was dictation. First part was written and I could have done it blindfolded. Super easy. Then the actual dictation came up and good ol Prime Time Raziel didn't disappoint. I nailed everything with certainty. After the first part was complete, the teacher told everyone who doesn't think they can pass the advanced part needs to leave. About 30% of the room stayed. So the first melodic dictation comes up and after 1 playing, more than half the room got up and left. The melody was played fast and it was at least 8 measures in 3/4 timing. WITH ONLY 3 PLAYINGS. What?! But I managed to get about 60% of it. The rest was pretty simple. Harmonic dictation was a bit rough. Rhythm was easy. I don't think I passed out of it but I definitely got in the advanced class. Oh and keyboard? Piano? Tested out! And to be honest, I don't think I could ever take a piano class that could possibly top my classes at Del Mar. Especially that last semester. Miss those guys and Sutanto. I just had my guitar ensemble audition where I played Etude #2 by Villa Lobos. It went well but I accidentally played the run in free strokes rather than rest strokes. Oh well. After that was some really sight reading in a minor.

It was a few posts ago where I talked about all the great punk shows in San Francisco. As if my mind wasn't already blown away with that, I found out the guitarist playing in San Francisco this year. Ready? AH! Kazuhito Yamashita, Manuel Barrueco, Scott Tennent, Pepe Romero, Xuefei Yang, Roland Dyens, David Russell. What. The. Fuck. Kazuhito Yamashita is the most dramatic guitarist EVER. Barrueco in his prime is the best guitar play to ever live. Scott Tennent is one of the absolute most technical guitarist out there. Pepe Romero has the best right hand EVER and is the best spanish guitar player EVER. And I've gotten a once in a lifetime opportunity to get a lesson with him and seen him in concert. Xuefei Yang falls into the reputation(robots) of all asian guitarist, but she is fantastic and plays what is in my opinion, the most beautiful piece ever written for the guitar in Spring Breeze by Gerald Garcia. Roland Dyens is one of my favorite living composers right now and is in my opinion one of the best classical guitarist around. David Russell has perfect tone and is one of the top 5-10 guitar players around. I just was in shock. Jaw 100% dropped when I saw this line up. I may get the chance to have master classes with Barrueco, Dyens and Russell. What. The. Fuck. I don't deserve this!

I know I say this every update, but living in the city is great. I've walked so much over the past week. The walking does kind of suck because of the hills though. But it's a nice workout. I'm trying to get a job not at the school so I can meet non-conservatory people. I want to have a life outside of the school. So I figure being at punk shows and getting a job is good for that. I'm going to try and work at Cold Stone again! haha. The people that know me best know my order there. Love it, mint with oreos and EXTRA gummi bears. Delish. While walking is fun, it does have it's bad parts. I've walked through some super sketchy streets and encountered a big group of guys I would have rather not. Encounter may not be the word but I walked right through them and it really sucked. Walking at night is a little rough too. All the homeless mock me when I'm on the phone. I can't stress to you how many homeless people there are here. Short story? There was one night where me and 5 or 6 other people were walking to a party that was a good 20 minute walk away. Well we know we're in the somewhat ghetto and we see a group of guys standing outside an apartment building. So we're walking and as we're passing them up, one guy jumps out the front door with a knife and a doo-rag over his mouth and screams. But immediately after says "nahhh jk!" What?! You don't just do that! I nearly pissed myself. If you had told me a year ago today that I would eventually be at a party on a balcony 20 stories high in downtown San Francisco, I would have never believed you.

I'm not sure why, but you can't find any Pedro The Lion videos on Youtube. You can find David Bazan, but none of those videos where it's just the song playing. I highly recommend everyone to re-live the early days of my senior year of high school by listening to Pedro The Lion's Achilles Heel. Very easy to listen to. Interesting voice, interesting melodies, story telling lyrics. Just very soothing and mellow. It's one of the few bands that I like that any girl would love. I love it and am trying to listen to more of their stuff these days.

Pedro The Lion-Transcontinental

The luxury of having been spared the hard part
You'd think would be enough for me to pull this off
But i'm left to bleed to death
Now all the man i've ever been
North am transcontinental

Tear Us Up and Stuff Us Down The Drain

Greetings from San Francisco, California! Not much music to talk about. The weather is perfect. It's like a perfect Spring afternoon during the day and a perfect October night during the night. Always around 50 or 60 degrees. I love it. I live on the street shown above. A little bit upwards to the left. It's really sweet living the city life so far. Always people walking. Always bums on the street screaming random things. There is a McDonalds right across the street from my dorm so it looks like I will be playing that stupid Monopoly game even though I wanted to avoid it this year. A Burger King down the street. A Subway down the street. A Walgreens literally 30 seconds away. Walking is great. It hurts after a while but it's great. I was originally in a shared room but got to move out to a single so I'm staying by myself now. So that means a lot of good things haha. I visited the Conservatory today. The school is beautiful. Got all my financial things situated. I don't know if it's because I turned 20 today, but I got so inspired to practice. I practiced for 3 hours straight for the first time since March. I loved it. Grocery shopping and shopping for my dorm was awful. Hate shopping. Everyone I've met has been really awesome too. A few girls greeted me with a happy birthday in song with harmonies and everything. It was awesome. I just got back from hanging out with a fellow guitarist and we were just playing for each other and teaching each other new things. I love everything about this experience so far. You can learn something from everyone here. More updating when actual music events happen. But for now I'll leave you a song off of The Greatest Story Ever Told. I've been listening to the album non-stop lately.



Of paper and tobacco and the bad breath smoke singin'
"Hey man, lemme tell you a joke."
"Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?"
"The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself."

There's No Telling What I'll Do If I Don't Return To You.

This is the last post from Corpus Christi for a while.

Goodbye, Corpus Christi. San Antonio may have brought me into this world but I'll always say I'm from here. You have given me potentially the happiest and best year of my life in 2009 so far. But like they say, all good things come to an end, right? I am happily going to let San Francisco, California, the 3rd best city to live in according to this one website, finish off this outstanding year. No more Whataburger. No more HEB. No more driving. No more not having anything to do. No more Gulf Of Mexico. No more parents. No more of my past around every corner. No more disgusting weather. But don't worry, I'll be back December 22nd where I will hang out with my family, eat non stop bobs, make new and rekindle old girls of interest, party, run into all the people I don't want to and enjoy the holidays with the friends I love so much.

New Chapter in life: San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Alkaline Trio-San Francisco

I was drinking you goodbye
My heart floats in the bay
From sour home Chicago
I hear it beating far away
There's no telling what I'll do
If I don't return to you

Tonight I Will Redefine Everything and Tomorrow I Will Start In On My Better Days

Usually I wait for there to be a good number of things to talk about before updating this blog, but after last night, it was imperative that I do make this entry. I went to go see Funny People with a good friend Oneida last night. I have so many thoughts on that movie and in the end, I'm not sure I liked or disliked it. So we cruise around downtown in her car just hanging out because it's most likely the last time we'll hang out before I leave. She doesn't have the worst taste in music. I heard some bad stuff, some 90's rap, 90's r&b, and some other crap. But she does have Thrice, some Saves The Day, and some Set Your Goals so it's somewhat tolerable to see her dance and sing along with all the crap music. Well it was on shuffle and a band came up. A band that I had heard about back in that huge huge huge scenester/metalcore/"emo"core era in late 2003 and early 2004. Emery. When the music started playing my jaw literally dropped. I felt my masculinity slipping away. It felt like body parts were deteriorating. It was one of those points to where you evaluate yourself and appreciate that you have not become a slave to such music. The thought that people like this music is unbelievable. The thought that people would go see them live and nod their head or tap their foot makes me cringe. Weren't they just screaming about walls a couple years ago? "Oh it's maturing." Nah man. This is just a bunch of d-bags that tried to go for the whole Panic! At The Disco/Fall Out Boy pop-rock sound so they could bank. You kidding? Seriously, if you like this band, please tell me. It will unfortunately be the end of any sort of friendship we had. I'm gunna stamp them. Emery is one of the worst bands around. Top 10 at least.



I just want to be with you tonight
The mood is set and we're here by candlelight
I paid my dues so don't be rude
Stop putting up a fight
I just want to get with you tonight

WHAT?!!!!?? How could 6 guys approve of these lyrics?! It's like they all sat around and said "Alright guys! What words end in ight?! Kite? Night? Candelight? Eat to bite(the catchy Terminal phrase)? Slight? Fight? Tonight? Might? Light? Dike? Knight? Right? Tight? Quite? Alright? AIGHT? Polite? Invite? Site? Alright! Well grab 3 or 4 of those words and use them back to back to back and make sure we sound like super big vaginas in the process! Sweet! 1-2-3-EMERY!." I can't possibly make a post with out good music on it somewhere. I did mention a few good bands earlier. One of them was Thrice and since Vheissu was pretty much mine and Oneida's relationship anthem, I will post a song from that album.

Thrice-Atlantic

But things can't be as,
They seem.
I'm so far from home.
This must be another dream,
But my eyes are,
Open.

Above The City

Alarm is set for 10:59. Because NPR no longer wakes me up, I set the alarm to nothing but static so that I'm so alarmed that I have to wake up. Well I didn't have to work today so I snoozed it. Then 10minutes later I turned it off completely and ended up sleeping till 12:20. It's funny with me because during school, I'd always wonder how I ever woke up at such a late time and in summer I wonder how I ever woke up at such an early time for school. Anyway, I had to go to Kohls and return some shirts and on the way, I got the idea that I should go to all the music stores in Corpus and check out their classical guitars. I'm very content with my guitar. It's better than 98% of guitars available in Corpus. But it's always interesting to go check out other guitars. Sadly, I don't remember the names of the guitars I tried.

Music Mart: I didn't expect much from this store. First off, it's run by a bunch of assholes who don't like people to touch their instruments. Second, they don't really carry a wide selection of guitars. Picked up a guitar and messed around on it. Gross. The treble tone felt so weak. Just the over-all feel for the wood felt gross. I always feel like I have a time limit there. Like after 10 minutes of playing they'll demand you to buy it.

Guitar Center: Ohhhh Guitar Center. While it is the music store I go to most, I can't stand it. There is always that 40year old mexican with his guitar turned up real loud playing real bluesy solos. Always the little douche bag kid with his hair in his face playing in drop D. Another kid doing non stop shredding. The people that work there are always pretty friendly though. I ran into my old friend Justin because he works there which is pretty awesome. I get in there and there is only one other guy in there. That one guy happened to be an old friend from high school named Chris Agulair. I think I picked up a Rodriguez of some sort to play. It felt ok. Guitar Center has always had OK guitars. Some older guy walked in there and I knew he was trouble instantly. Chris was praising me and he got in the conversation and eventually he was saying he could teach me a couple things. He was very nice about everything. He said I was amazing and all that stuff but said that he wanted to teach me something so I could play it better than his ablities could. Really? Can I just practice and check out these guitars? So he goes on to do a chord progression. I think it was like a i ii V vii i in c# minor. Then he and another guy got talking about music. Talking about what careers there are with music and how if I learn 1 Bach piece, people from all over the world will want to hear me. What? Then it somehow got into Obama and Bush. It was pretty much a disaster. I bought some strings and took off.

Sound Vibrations: I've had mixed experiences with this place. Only been there a handful of times. When I was younger I went in and started playing and I sware one of the workers tried picking a fight with me. Then another time my freshman year of college I was playing and a worker stood and watched me play. But then again, my girlfriend at the time was wearing a dress so he might have just been looking for an excuse to be around. Sound Vibes usually has the best guitars. I remember playing a super sweet Paco that one time my freshman year of college. I've heard that they have an acoustic room with a super nice classical guitar. I walked in today for the first time in a year or so and asked if I could go in. They kind of gave me a weird look. Someone has to be in there with you at all times so it was super awkward. I knew he wasn't going to let me play the nice guitar right away so I got a decent one first to show that I actually know what I'm doing. After about 5-10 minutes I casually went "Oh wow...can I try that one?" and by this point he was super super super nice to me. Forgot the name but it was supposidley this rare brazillian wood. I was pretty excited. It was worth $5000. My guitar is worth $3100. This guys guitar I've played on in the past was worth $5000 and it was from Argentina. To this day, I have never played on a guitar as good as that one. So I was expecting to be blown away. Results? Eh. Great. Great feel and everything but it didn't live up to it. The worker there was asking me how much different it was than the others and trying to convince me to buy it. I wouldn't pay more than $2500 for it. The whole time I was just thinking, wow, this would be at least 3 g's cheaper in a country outside of the US. He was a super nice guy. Asking me lots of questions just about where I started, how I got into classical, what I'm doing now and for the future. But then he asked a question that immediately made me want to leave. He asked if I knew how to play Flight Of The Bumble Bee. Then went on to tell me how there is this guy on youtube that can play it at 380bpm. I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck. Does that make him good? Does shredding make him a guitar god? No. I'm not even going to get into that whole deal because I have before in a myspace blog(November 14, 2008). After I got out, they guy gave me his card and introduced me to all the employees there. They were all really nice people.

Took a couple wrong turns on my way back home but it was a nice drive. I have 12 days left. 12 days left of living in Texas. Maybe for good. It's a really wild thing to think about. This sounds cheesy but fuck, this is a huge turing point in my life. A new chapter. A whole new experience. In this month of August, my life is going to go through so many changes in every aspect. My life has already changed so much in 2009 and now it's going to go in a whole other direction. As of late, I've been listening to a lot of Lawrence Arms and Smoke Or Fire lately. Also this one song by Smoking Popes called "Megan." It's currently my myspace song. But Bad Astronaut does an excellent cover of it as well.


Bad Astronaut-Megan(Smoking Popes Cover)

Somebody came and took my hand
I finally had to go
But Megan I just want you to know
That I waited as long as I could