Prog Album Must Hear & Download

Have you guys been bored listening to the same old stuffs, I know some hardcore genre fans will denied the fact of being bored at the favorite genre but HEY, come on. Will you? be bored? sometimes? Hearing that same riff with some alteration in the next song? Same stuff with different ways?

I do, for me Music is VERY BIG, Why Limit it? Yes i have my favorites, but it don't stop me from listening to others and understanding them. It sometimes make you love your favorite genre more.
I start listening to Oldies then to Boybands, to Pop songs in the radio until i end up in Grunge. After that I turn to hardcore in Metal genres. But i turn to Blues and then Jazz, from there i got to Bossa Nova and new age, the classic fingerpicking blues to environment music. I even have cds of sitar and Tabla recordings, the middle east folk songs. Man i can go all day all night. My ears have been very good taken care of.

SO what i'm going to share with you guys today is a bunch of old cds i took off my old rack. Oh yes. The prog years.... I have been so crazy for them...Prog is the ultimate time where musician taken composition to the highest limit, shows you where no man can go, or thought possible. My vocab for Prog maybe ain't that big but i can share with you some to start off with.

Opeth - Watershed

Man i love this album, It's sophisticated, mature and dark. Mikael's dissonant chords in a major is dark and gruesome. Don't even mentioned his vocals in this. The songs are well arranged and i really love the classical guitars in this. The whole album is a killer.

Pink Floyd - Dark side of the moon

70's great album, what can  say about pink floyd? Legendary, starting off with the clocks ding aling... I can't forget it all. It's like a journey when you listen to this album, David's bending makes me goosebumps... 

Dream Theater - Trains of thought

Students from Berkeley Music school, form the best band of all time. Portnoy's drums and Petrucci's shredding, change my world completely. John Myung's bass is amazingly awesome. If you listen to this with earphones you might not want to take them off until you have reached the end of this album, superb sounding with time changes and super shreds!!

 
YES - Fragile

STEVE HOWE ! I really love classical guitar arrangements here, it makes me smile everytime i listen to this album, "we are heaven " Is one of my favorite tracks here. If you're lost in life This album will bring you back in track and go along, really i tried it!

Tool - 10000days

Yes! poly rhythmic guitars and wonderful vocals, everytime you listen to it, it'll be different. it just blow my mind away. 

Well that a little to start off listening to strange music, easy to understand then to straight off listening to bands like, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf and all...

Listen and blow your mind!  

The Journey Begins

Since I have decided to take the 
New Grade 8 Guitar exams from Rockschool,
(which is a difficult decision before of my tight scheduled of running MSA, teaching my students and being a superdad & husband.)
Why not share my journey here, so you guys can see my results and preparation. The journey will be fun and we will learn along the way. SO if you guys are up to the challenge ,

  Go GET A Grade 8 book and LET's ROCK 'N ROLL!!!!!

SO first, as my style of completing this exam i'll go by my WAR PLAN..lol (gangnam style!)

So here's the plan, 
1) Set the goal .
 2)Set the time range & plan the strategy to achieve the goal . 
3) Prepare for war according to strategy set. 
4) WAR!

Simple? haha Sun Tzu Art of War!!! Now it's all about achieving the goal, nothing personal needed.

OK! let's see what is our goal.

I can choose to have Graded Exam or Performance Exam, Graded is more overall and performance is just "performance i guess" as graded exam you need to have technical exams , Quick study pieces and ear test which for me it's more challenging than to just play 5 songs and call it done. It's better to kill the bigger boss if we want to proof something right?

SO my decision: Graded EXAM.

Graded Exam:
3 songs
Technical Exercises
QSP
Ear Tests
GMQ

So the goal is to have distinction!!
In order to have distinction- i need to have 90+ for marks.

Which is 18 marks for each song
13 marks in Technical 
9+ in QSP
9+ in Ear test
5 in GMQ.

THAT"S The Goal.

SO what's after this?

SOng selection!!!

You can do it, If you believe YOU CAN!

-Dennis