Aspiring fingers of fury.

So the interest started with percussive guitar and it has now developed to wishing for both a darbuka and a Hang!

Due to lack of funding I’ll just have to start with some hand drumming as the percussive guitar has been put on hold for finger styling at the moment. There’s a Korean dude that has done a few good introductory videos on YouTube (though not in English!) – I’m starting with this one. He makes it look so easy but you need some mad coordination which I’m seriously lacking! Would also be nice if he slowed the pace a tad to get the hi-hat integration.

Once the desk drumming is down I’ll consider investing in a pretty darbuka. There’s a guy that has set up a website – Fingers of Fury (awesome name!) – with over a hundred video tutorials up, however you must pay membership to access them – £49/year. Judging by what he’s got up on YouTube, they’re really good and certainly worth the investment if serious about learning to play, but it’s probably a good idea to get the basic techniques down first and maybe even some of the more complicated riffs.

The Hang is really an incredible instrument – had never seen one before today. It was recently developed in Switzerland and is a piece of genius! I hardly know enough to explain it, so you can read about it on Wikipedia or just see it in action. Davide Swarup who has collaborated with Shpongle also does an awesome bit of improv on a second generation Hang. Apparently you need to submit a written request for an appointment to acquire one so probably best to wait til at least the basic skills are down…gimme a few years!

Dale Chapman rocks!

Picked up my guitar again the other day and both my fingers and voice let me down – vocals were weak and fingertips sore! I am proud to say that my calluses are well on their way back however my voice is still sounding pathetic. It’s not because I was that good to start off with – I’m still a beginner really. I’ve got all the basic chords down and I play around a bit with the strumming and some finger styling. My playlist gets old quick however, especially as I’m only really happy about 3 songs – all the rest sound really basic. So I decided to learn some new songs.

The first is Fast Car by Tracy Chapman – who by the way had a thing with Alice Walker back in the 90’s!! Proof here. Anyway, I found a really good set of tabs and an all right video tutorial – together with the recording the song’s pretty easy to learn, just takes a wee bit of practice and I haven’t quite figured out how to sing and play it simultaneously!

The second is Drive by Incubus. There are a few video tutorials out there – this was the best one. Found some really good sheet music as well.

Then I discovered Dale Campbell, percussive guitarist. I’ve been absolutely amazed by Justin King and although I joked about wanting to play like that I never actually thought it a possibility. Then I came across Dale’s lessons on how to play percussive guitar. He’s an excellent teacher and he’s put a good amount of effort into his videos – with a bit of work I might actually be able to rock it! This guy is just awesome – his cover of Billie Jean says it all. Might have to check out his albums on iTunes.

I see ridiculous amounts of time being spent playing guitar rather than writing thesis…

Beef in ale stew.

This must be the easiest thing in the world to make, totally fool proof and incredibly yummy:

1. Get a good casserole pot – one that can go both on the hob and in the oven.
2. Warm it up on the stove with a bit of oil, throw a whole load of onion in and let them cook down.
3. Add a half kilo or so of cubed beef, not too small cause it shrinks in the oven. Let it brown for a bit.
4. Add your veg/fungus of choice, if you want any – I went for mushrooms, could do carrots and peas. Give a good stir and leave to warm up for a couple minutes.
5. Pour in your ale of choice, 500ml – I went for Boddingtons cause it was the only decent ale they had in the shop round the corner that would sell me it without ID even though I’m 25. Would have preferred Guinness, hey ho.
6. Add a couple of bay leaves, chuck it in the oven at 180C or so and leave to simmer for a good 4 hours. You’ll need to add a healthy splash of water and give it a stir every couple of hours so it doesn’t dry up, could alternatively stick a bit of foil between pot and lid.
   I didn’t do this cause I was so eager to shove food in my face after 4 hours of num scents throughout the house, but a wee Danish twist to the English classic:
7. Add a healthy amount of water to the stew, say 1.5 cups?
8. Stir a tablespoon or so of (corn-) flour into 200ml cold water, mix really well so it’s not clumpy and pour a trickle at a time into the stew, stirring continuously over a low heat on the hob until it begins to thicken up.
9. Add a couple drops of kulør – unflavoured gravy browning.
10. Let it condense down to the gravy consistency you like, maybe add a pinch of salt and pepper – Mega munch with some mash and swede!

Ok that looked a hell of a lot more complicated than it actually is. Anyway, first time I ever made it tonight, piece of pie.

A few videos.

I came across a video called How to be open-minded. It’s a very nicely illustrated, succinct and logical explanation into open-  vs close-minded thinking and behaviour, just a shame the focus is mainly on creationist theories from an atheist’s standpoint however its message can be interpreted in a broader sense.

That lead me onto Instruction Manual for Life which is another nice animation, this time about tolerance of difference using a nice little metaphor of cupboards. It’s quite cleverly done actually, reflecting idealism rather than theism and I like how he realises that there is space in the cupboard for all but fuck me that’s one ugly cupboard!

A couple of other really cool videos my housemate recommended me:

• DEADLINE – a stop-motion video of post-it animation
• This Too Shall Pass – music video by OK Go featuring an immense Rude Goldberg Machine. Turns out they’ve done a couple of videos – just saw Here It Goes Again which is a genius bit of choreography! I don’t think much of their music and they clearly have lots of money to spend on making cool videos but definitely worth a watch.

iPhone app: Promega

Just found this recently and really wishing I came across it earlier – would have been useful at the start of my placement when it first came out! It’s like a wee molecular methods textbook on my phone! There are 14 chapters on various tools such as bioluminescent reporters, amplification and purification techniques, RNA interference, transfection, etc. It explains the science behind it, provides example protocols and troubleshooting guides, discusses various applications and even has a nice collection of educational videos in the multimedia section.

4/5