Monday, January 12, 2009

Drown in my own tears - Jeff Beck Cover

First heard the song from the soundtrack of the movie about Ray Charles and thanks to youtube I discovered a stunning version by Jeff Beck. (love both of them very much so after many hour of listening and tryin to work out the song..

Ta da!




And here is the backing track I made if you want to have a jam too

http://www.esnips.com/web/drowninmyowntears

Cheers for listening. Enjoy :)

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Andy Timmons - September ( Cover )

Andy Timmons is one of my fav guitarist. He's got great tone, techniques, and so much control in his playing not to mention great songwriter too.

I remember once showing his song "Gone" to another guitarist and he was like " cool when is he gonna bust into some great chops?" Hm I think he's kind of missing the point :) Surely He has scary techniques but he uses them For the music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Timmons


back to the topic..

This is a clip of me playing along to his song " september "( can't really find the backing track of this one if someone knows where i can get one it would be much appreciated :)
Strat in GT6 Line in to my computer.

Hope you enjoy it!


Jamming time!


I love jamming with other people and sometimes it inspires me to play stuff I wouldn't/couldn't play otherwise which is really cool to me :-)

Recently I got a chance to have a jam with a few ppl

Ryan marshall (Bass)

Marcel Bellve (guitar)

Tyler burke (enginner)

Me on Guitar

Really a fun time!

you can hear the live recording of one of the jams here

http://www.myspace.com/ryanwilsondrums

i am the clean guitar and later turned it up for more overdrive sound.

The whole thing is all improvised on the spot so there are few wrong notes and WTF moments but overall got some cool ideas in there I think.

Thanks for reading/listening

Friday, January 9, 2009

Online lesson #1 - Slips Away by Andy Timmons solo Analysis


Hi Welcome to my first online guitar lesson. I’d like to share a few things with you guys about constructing/improvising solo lines and I’ll to use the song “Slip Away" by Andy Timmons as an example. We will focus on the first solo in the song starting at 2:04s

Let’s have a listen to the original solo

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA



Sounds pretty nice right? It’s also played with a slide. Now it doesn’t really matter too much if you don’t have one. Instead you can work on your techniques and phrasing to make it sounds like the original solo as much as you can and that’s actually a very good discipline too but that’s another story which we will talk about some other time..

The chord progression of the solo section of the song is / D / G / Gm / D / Bm / F# / C add9 / G /

Now you can pretty much “get away” with playing just the D major / Ionian scale however upon closer examination the some of the notes in the chords Gm F# and C add9 are not in the D major/ Ionian scale.

The D major / Ionian scale has the notes

D E F# G A B C# D

As you can see the notes in Gm are

G Bb D

In F#

F# A# C#

In C add 9

C E G D

Comparing those notes with the D major scale we can see that at Gm chord the note Bb is probably a better choice to played rather then the note B and for F# chord we can play A# instead of A and for C chord avoid C#. Now if you listen to Andy’s solo again this is exactly what he did in a very melodic and organic way. The solo isn’t particularly hard to play but it’s the little harmony treatment he did inspire me to write this lesson to share with you guys.

Here is the backing track I make for you to jam with.

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA


1.Work out the notes of D major scale on a single string say B strings and jam with the backing track using slide or just the fingers and see if your ears can pick up the clash we talked about ( play note B at Gm chord and note A at F# )

2.Now maps out the notes G Bb D for Gm chord, F# A# C# for F# chord and C E G D for C add9 Chord and memorize where they are.

3.Try jam again but this time pay more attention to the harmony.

Have fun jamming and come up with your own ideas  If you have any feedback questions or thoughts you can drop me an email at cereal_killer_jeng@hotmail.com

Cheers

Robin

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Legend Strat




Hi guys this is another strat of mine, the legend strat!

This is sort of a copy of a squire strat that was given to me ages ago. There was a period of time that i was big into SRV ( still am :) and I just love the way his "No 1" Strat looks.

So this is my own attemp to try out the relic look on this cheap legend strat. Took me ages to sandpaper away the paint and the color is from shoewax! Well guess it's far from being close but after I put a set of texas special pickups thanks to My engineer friend Andy and the red pick guard it kind of grows on me. Now I really like the sound and the feel of this guitar. Even this is guitar cost me the least but it's my favoriate guitar to play :)

will post some sound and video clips soon. Stay tuned!

Feedback from my students

Some of the feedback I got from my students. Cheers guys!


Robin is the best guitar teacher I ever had! When I first started playing the guitar, I thought I don't need a teacher and I can just learn off the books, this had resulted slow improvements as I don't have any goals or plans in my practice. I just learnt a bit of this and a bit of that, and never learnt a technique or song fully.

Robin, who is a very talented and skillful guitarist with a wide range of music influences had taught me not only good playing techniques and different style of playing, but more importantly the essences of how to be a good musician. This includes good dynamics, groove, music phrasing.It is not how fast you can play in you solos, what fancy technique you had, but what sounds good to the audience and making a connection to the crowd.

Robin's teaching is well-planned and fun. It Starts with learning a basic technique, using different practice methods, a bit of music theory in the middle, and ends with learning a song of your (or his!) choice. You can ask him for a jam at any time and any style, he would be more than happy to do it and you get to enjoy his awsome playing! - Andy ( man you making my face red. lol )

Awesome I love the lessons! you made my day! -Hugo Grant ( who's starting his cover band good luck dude! )

Totally inspiring lessons. Dedicated and passionate instruction from someone who is living the dream. Gave me the confidence and courage to pursue a life long ambition to play the songs of those whom I admire. Discover your inner groove and get the direction you need to develop it. -Tipu Aamir

Robin has a vast understanding on guitar and I really benefit from the thorough lessons that he tailors for me and I really enjoy them too! Highly recommended! One of his student Richard

Give it a try you won't be disappointed!

Cus we ended as lovers - Jeff Beck cover

Recorded this as a test for a recording session of my band about a year ago
I think it was my sunburst strat into the vox ad30 and Willis slap some mic in front of the amp at room next door. One take and only take. Not very faithful to the original but I think it turned out kind of cool
Hope you enjoy it :-)

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

My first Strat


A bit of Introduction

Robin is my name. Guitar is my game. what's your name? let's be friends. ok that's a bit lame but hey welcome!


I have been playing guitar for the good part of last 10 years. Started playing on a little classical guitar as a innocent gift from my cousin. who would have thought :) I teach a wide range of styles of blues, pop, rock,funk, and many more for both acoustic and electric.


My lessons are tailored to my students needs covering techniques theory and song learning. (Ever wonder how music theory works on guitar and got lost on the fretboard? I have been there as well and I am confident to show my student the best way to look at the music theory and how to apply them in real situation.). Beginners are welcome too!

Right now I am also teaching in Auckland school of Rock. If you want to learn how to play in a band I can also help. I am also the guitarist of Infinite Flying Kick which performed regularly and had several releases.

http://www.myspace.com/infiniteflyingkick

Lots of teaching material and audio examples are provided I can even record the examples in the class down for you. All you have to bring is just a USB memory stick to take it home to listen to. Your ear is your best teacher! I have a special music room for teaching in Mt Roskill area with all the gears provided but you can bring your own guitar if you prefer.


If you are interested you can reach me on 021 102 7974 or my email:cereal_killer_jeng@hotmail.co.nz
My studio is based in Mt Roskill Area Auckland New Zealan
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