"Breaking Out of the Box" #2 - Alan Robinson

The Power of "Power Chords": Part 2

Alan Robinson

Hey everyone! Back to yield the power of power chords. In the last segment we looked at power chords in the traditional fingering of root/fifth. In this segment we are going to invert the chord and place the fifth on the lower string (Example 1). We now have the interval of a fourth but the chord is still a G5 in tonality. By inverting the chord we can generate a whole new set of voicing's to expand our chord and fretboard knowledge.

Just as we did in the previous segment, let’s look at the G major scale played in power chords on string set 3&4. (Example 2) Not again that the seventh chord in the sequence is the only fingering change in comparison to the rest. Again, we will come back to this chord in a future segment.

Tonya Kay: "The Things that Make Us Human"

You can read our interview (in 2 parts) with Tonya Kay here.

And this is from her blog:

This ritual is dedicated to the things that make us human. Postcards, rocking chairs, rain storms, eye contact. Kissing.

This ritual is dedicated to staying in bed sick. Mending socks. Crows at sunset. Senior citizens.

My humanness is under attack daily. Devices, commercials, aspiration, plastic containers. Coffins.Tooth whitening, auto-tuning, retouching, CGI.....(read the rest HERE)

Ray Kurzweil receives 2015 Technical Grammy Award

Ray Kurzweil received the 2015 Technical Grammy Award on February 7, 2015 for his outstanding achievements in the field of music technology.

One of his primary inventions paved the way for re-creating acoustic instruments with electronic equivalents.

The Technical Grammy Award is a Special Merit Award presented by vote of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences Trustees, for contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field.....

Read it all HERE.

Poem Series: Wildflowers and Splinters

Wildflowers and Splinters

Liz Fink-Davenport

Some things are too hard to write about. Some things stay trapped behind a heavy tongue and the dark of your eyes. Too heartbreakingly glass to risk outside the body soft. Some things are 2am thieves.

Tell me. When it's too hard. You can tell me. I want your words. Like moths gathered and pulled close by a glow in my ribs. I don't want to keep quiet. I want to cry to the cracks in the mountains. I want to whisper to the creek bed rocks. I want my words on the air that carries the leaves and geese.

Your lips will be the last I kiss. Your breath will be the last I share mouth to mouth. Your hands tangled in my hair and your fingers under my chin tilting my face towards yours...will be the last fingers. Last hand.

The boy who climbs fences to pick wild flowers will be the last boy. But it's too hard to say. Not my words. Yours. Coaxed out like a splinter. Flowers left on my pillow. Fingers tracing my jaw as they leave. 2am stealing my last kiss. My Wildflower Boy. Outside the body. Too soft.

"Breaking Out of the Box" #1 - Alan Robinson

The Power of “Power Chords”: Part 1

Alan Robinson

Hey everyone! I am very excited to introduce this lesson series with Skinny Devil Magazine.  I hope that I can share some information that will allow you to enhance your playing and fretboard knowledge to a whole new level. So without any delay...let’s jump in!

How would you like to expand your chord vocabulary without spending hours upon hours looking at chord books and diagrams that look like your fingers are playing Twister? Where you can achieve all of those sophisticated sounds to include 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, and more but not study calculus and trigonometry in order to understand! Okay, those may be exaggerations to an extent but what if you could accomplish these goals by using 2 notes? Well, you can!

The “Power chord” or chords based on Root/Fifth (i.e. E5, A5, G5, etc…) have been best friends with rock guitarist since the beginning of time. The great news is that they can become an even better friend in creating these awesome advanced sounds. With some simple adjustments and application, power chords placed in the proper locations yield a multitude of harmonic possibilities.

Poem Series: IN JAZZ

In Jazz
Liz Fink-Davenport

I found my love in three quarter time 

I found my love in the back room at the bookstore where no one goes because it smells how I like it best

I found my love tucked under a damp pillow

I found my love in the change falling from a hole in a pocket; like a waterfall 

I found my love in the backseat of a taxi; unnoticed 

I found my love in dust motes dancing in afternoon sunlight right above his eyelashes

I found my love in tears on another's cheek

I found my love in the last sips of coffee in the cold cup

I found my love forgotten 

I found my love in proud pearls on a Sunday 

I found my love in that smile

In those eyes

In that warm hand; in a soft fist with calluses 

In that curled lip

In that hip

In that scar

And along this dark path. 

Never. Never did I find my love in spite. In heartache. In MY tears. In pain. In my ribs being wrenched like a door I gave no access to...the key forced...the hinges pulled with a screech. No. I found no love there. In the tangled brambles of a road too long traversed. 

I found my love in a sunrise over a misted pond with eggs being cooked and jazz being played and a hand so easy on my low back to guide me to a lap waiting for my weight. I found my love 

In three quarter time

No, I lied, I found it in 

Nina Simone and How Do You Like Your Eggs. Yes. And a bookstore. The forgotten back room.

Poem Series: BOY CHILD

Boy Child

Liz Fink-Davenport

You took your playthings and went home. Like a child. Frightened boy.

They say Anger is Sad's bodyguard. That what a woman scorned puts forth is just heart wrenchingly dropped pennies. Only that they rolled and went lost. No. Hell no. Sorrow rakes your ribs across gravel. It begs you to take your own heart and scrape a shallow grave in the wet cold dirt and then place it there. Cover it up. Walk. Away. And then look for it again in every set of eyes. But it beats back in a field under moonlight. And Anger...at love being awakened and then discarded like wet tissue? That is this. Hell HATH no fury. Gather your torches. Walk with me.

You dared whisper your long deeply sunk ocean secrets. Only to me. You traced fingers on my jaw and tilted my head to dawn's gold glow to call me beloved. You swore souls and lifetimes and rolls through eternities. And then you cringed. And regretted. And scurried. And fled. You small boy child.

I had playthings. Once. I had my one heart. My joy. But now watch me be carved out fury and fire lit sky. Breathing cinders and ravaging the earth with my steps. I have an army all with empty cages of rattling ribs. Coming. All with dirt crusted hands from their own burials. A staccato march of hollow. We will set the world ablaze and eat other hearts like air. Be frightened, boy. Anger killed our Sad.

Poem Series: CATS CRADLE

~CATS CRADLE~

Liz Fink-Davenport

I watch women. Of a type. How they flirt and play and giggle....it all sounds like wind chimes on a light breeze. Curling hair around a finger tip and then pull it through like Cat's Cradle. They have matching outfits....with scarfs. Scarfs. I don't have a scarf except my Scooby Doo one that I use to wipe snot when I shove driveways in the snow. I see how they gently trace well manicured fingertips across a man's arm. I see the way they walk with a roll in their hips that seems to be connected to some unheard rhythm. I glance at warm painted smiles and upturned eyes. A slow look up and then quick glance down. How do they do that? They say "baby" and don't mean an infant. Do they teach this in school? Was it a lesson I missed? I was absent. I was ill. I wasn't there. I don't know how to be this animal. Who decided that to be desired we needed...to be...needy?

The woman I am. That you may be too. Is too prideful to ask for help. Is too independent not to put a cup over a spider and hope it dies. Is big and loud and not scared to live her whole world in a pair of boots and jeans. We aren't afraid of dirty nails and calluses. We relish a task done by us alone. I freaking fixed the clogged shower. We own our sexuality and our bills. I make my own money and change my own oil. I did both lunches for my baby girl and buisness deals at the same time. What kind of woman are you?

I'm going to be me. My own kind of woman. I want to show the world my gumption...my drive. Show them I'm going to be an army, marching forward, of women that don't do needy. That do needed. We will be your world. We may not have a scarf, but we have badass fortitude. We wrap that around us with solidarity. You won't miss us if you scan a crowd. We meet eyes. We walk with determination in our hips. A saunter in our boots. We have pride across our shoulders. We drape self esteem around our necks. We wear our hard earned lives like jewels. We are beautifully rough. Gorgeously tough. A walking, talking, breath stealing epitome of your best dream. You are lucky if we chose to meet your gaze. Cat's Cradle be damned.

Poem Series: My Best

MY BEST

Liz Fink-Davenport

My heart will write what my mouth cannot speak. My mind will ache and hold tight when my fingers can't grasp. My soul will stretch to the edges of the world you created and then spill the rim like an over confident pour. You say that's the worst of me. You think the drumming in the dark can and should be muffled. That light is not going to leak out of your tight clenched fist; between fingers and glow behind a palm. You want to walk my depths and tread delicate gardens with a headlamp and torch and clumsy boots and a machete. You are picking locks and breaking glass and putting your shoulder into it and thieving. The best of me is kept from you.

I am not a rusting bolted latch.
I am not a hidden path.
Or hidden treasure.

I am not uncontained fire.
I am not a half sunken ship.
I am not a puzzle piece long lost.
I am not a dark cave.

I am not a car with bad breaks.
I am not a fearful rabid beast.
I am not tea in the saucer.
I am finger tips.
And knuckles.
And veins.

And salt. And the crease of my neck and the warmth of my belly and the arch of my foot. I am riddles and constellations. I am the roll of a road and the horizon unseen. Open hallways and calm pools. A secret and a labyrinth. I am thunder and the heart pounding wait for lightening. I am phenomenal woman. And feral. I need no leash. My stride is sparks from bare heels that light the world in fireworks. I am both the dust and dirt in the cracks in your skin and the light of sunrise that warms the frost from the leaves and starts the day. I am a start. And I am a finish. And that is worst and the best of me.


So don't think that my drumming needs your hand to stay it. And stop your robbery. It's useless. Unclench your fist around the fear of light escaping your possession. I scare the hell out of you. That is the worst of me. So come here and take off your fear. I'll help you undress. You have possibly never seen a creature like me so I will speak softly. Put down your trembling and let me slip you gently into me. Come. Quiet now. Let me show you that some wildfire is not meant to be contained. This fire is mine. And it will burn the edges of the universe. And your whole world. And you will think that is the best of me.

RIP David Bowie

I woke to the news. I'm going to stop reading all texts from Paul Felice. First Lemmy and now Bowie.

I won't even start to say what a profound impact he had on me or what a profound impact he had on modern music. I'll say all that later. For now, just watch...and listen....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0