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

MUSIC STAR ACADEMY - 1 YEAR 8 MONTHS

If Music Star Academy is a baby, she can now walk and run. Jump and scream, swipe ipads and dance around to nursery songs. She can eat rice and take solid meat. She will enjoy nature and point at birds.
So many achievements did Music Star Academy done, I'm like a proud father looking at it. Even the road is still far and more to come, the confidence to sprout like a giant tree.
If you guys still remember in November 2010, Melaka flagged a new music school. Now It's all grown up, now let me update you with what we have done, (ps: we're not lazy guys sitting in the shop waiting for customer to come...lol...)

1) We opened another branch in Bukit Beruang, now we have centres in Malim Jaya and Bukit Beruang.
2) We grew from 5 students in November 2010 to 145 students in July 2012. yay!
3) We  grew from 3 music Teachers to a total of 15 teachers. (feel the power)
4) We now holding Tanglewood , Spear & Woodies guitar Hanger in Stores.Pairing with Music Master Studio.
5) We are providing our own syllabus for Guitar, Bass , Ukulele & Drums.
6) We have our in house examination.
7) We hold Rockschool exams in Melaka.
8) We held School tours all over Melaka.
9) We give talks on Guitars and musicianship topics to schools.
10) We make you believe in us and grow together.
11) We provide corporate's music clubs lessons and certification.
12) We provide group & intense lessons to Universities.
13) We did a contest and giving free guitars.


These are what i can think of what we did so far.... I guess we did more than this.
What will we do in future?

Not promising anything right now, but it's all a secret. LOL....

But it all come down to you guys, ever supporting, ever believing in us. This is what makes us going and make us standing strong to provide you guys and future musician the true and unique guidance from all of us here in MUSIC STAR ACADEMY.

We will 

We WILL

WE WILL ROCK YOU!!

Thanks a million.
-Dennis Y

Being a Music Teacher

People thought being a music teacher is the same as being a academic teacher in school, but yes for the teacher who teaches music theory in school where everything is in the textbooks and corrected via an answer book. What I mean is a Music Teacher, the ones that teaches Piano and guitars,instruments…etc.

Music teachers need to be different, because music is very sensitive; it’s very hard to put to words when you want to teach something to the students that relate to emotion. 

How can you tell your student what emotion they should be feeling when they are playing Ode to Joy?

 The feeling of Joy? How will you describe the feeling of joy that you intended for them to feel? The joy of love? The joy of victory? The joys of having your enemy destroy? Do they even know how to feel when they play a tune like “Now & Forever”? as for a 12 years old kid, do they even felt a heartbreak with a girlfriend/boyfriend when they are playing some sad love song?

Everything needs to be very personal; a music teacher needs to get personal with their students. They need to know how they feel things if not 100% but at least 56% on their point of view in things. Because what the teacher teaches or educate will affect the student’s whole journey in learning the subject. If the teacher starts on a bad foot, the student will even hate the guitar.

For me, the most challenging part to teach is the groove, in playing music in any instrument. If you don’t get the groove, you don’t get anything even if you can play Beethoven’s moonlight Sonata perfectly that you don’t miss a note. If you don’t have the groove you missed it all. Getting someone to have groove is the upmost important thing that a music teacher needs. But unfortunately, most of the teachers that I find here, neglects that. They teach what is in the books and make the student pass exams without even telling them who is Bob Marley and the history of Reggae when they are playing a reggae tune for an exam. The student may have passed the exam, but they pass with an empty heart. Only on the outside you may see them playing music but in the inside… There’s nothing. This will always lead to giving up on music and do not care at all for the students when they reach a certain point. But for a student that contains the meaning of music, they will have music in their life until they breathe the last air in this world. 

Hand Craft Guitars

Looks like i'm getting hot on the weird guitars...LOL...well i guess it's just me..I Love weird things.
Hence weird guitars!!..
When i was 4 i favorite cartoon hero is Skeletor or Mumm Ra

Skeletor from He Man

It's not the hero i am interest in but the villain...why? coz there rocks! How cool is a skull face man? haha
WEIRD right?
ok today i am about to show you hand crafted one of a kind guitars. The one that few factory will mass produce coz it's weird to be commercial.
They have to be hand crafted to put in more soul...creepy?

Mumm Ra from Thundercats

SO
you
GUYS
Ready?








In Malaysia it's hard to get people to craft the guitars if you know any hardcore crafted that got passion about crafting guitars and it's good.. Drop me a line.. ok?

Chlutu?

Alien on your guitar?

I think i would take months to craft this if he is doing it for part time. LOL..

This is the famous George Lynch skeleton guitar. He mentioned that this guitar is not playable. HAHAHA

Some Fantasy stuffs can be put on.

Ok, Enough?

SO here's the last thing..

Can anyone tell me how to PLay this thing?

CHEERS!! 

Must Hear & Download May 2012

Ok, I always wanted to do this but it doesn't come to mind.
Yesterday my student ask me to recommend for hearing and it just "POPS OUT"
Well here you go, the top 5 ..
You guys may leave a comment or send an email to include your recommend track which i'll post in the next
"MUST HEAR N DOWNLOAD"!!!

Number 1)

Al di Meola - Race with Devil on Spanish Highway

Number 2) 

Jason Becker - Perpetual Burn

Number 3)

Animals as Leaders - Cafo

Number 4)

Freak kitchen - Nobody´s laughing

Number 5)

Peter Green w/ John mayall's bluesbreakers - The Peter Green - The Stumble

Well Hope you guys enjoy the Guitar Stuffs!!

More next time!!

TA TA!!

How Many Necks do you Need?

Guitarist Are somewhat weird peoples, They like more than they need. They eat more than they can chew. 
And the greatest thing is, They Want more guitars then they can play... But to get more weird ...even
back to the Renaissance... They made multi neck lutes.. SO today we have 12 neck guitars?

I mean can you imagine playing this thing? How are you going to hang it around your neck?

CARZY? MAD? AMAZING? WEIRD? RIPLEY?

Believe it or not ? Guitarist is crazy to this level... Like Pantera said, "A WHOLE NEW LEVEL"

Ok, reality is guitarist want more than 1. so we have 2 necks guitar, 3 neck and the it goes...

Some may have 12strings for 1 neck and a 6 on  the other, some may have a mandolin on the upper part and a bass on the lower.

Imagination may go wild with this stuffs, you may just need a RM10k Credit Card to customize. LOL....

Heavy? Well this guy from CHeap Trick don't mind playing it for years on stage.

Just more photos that i found on the net to keep your mind go wild just for this once... Pamper yourself...ok?

this is Vai's thing...WOW WOW WOW T_T

This is FAMOUS, Michael Angelo Batio!!

Now the question is, will you have once for once in your life?

Will I Have one??? gotta ask my wife...lol....