new guitar

Being a guitarist for the last 40 years and also being a "serious music" vocalist and director can be an interesting challenge. But every once in awhile I can find the bridges between the genres, and play around in the common ground of music for its own sake.

I've been on a "quest" to expand the capabilities of my outreach to orchestration, etc. with guitar. In fact, this process actually got me in the computer business for 17 years.

But now I may be on the brink of something with this new guitar, currently being custom built by Steve Benford in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This guitar is being developed as a semi-hollow body electric with acoustic and MIDI capabilities. In early 2010, I will attempt to put it through its paces on some new music, and would love your feedback!

This is the latest pic as it's being built.

What is contemporary

I got a kick out of a priest friend's comment the other day: "Oh, someone told me that you have a blog on Contemporary Music?" This priest is very traditional and had assumed that I had gone to the "dark side" :-)

I explained to him my take on contemporary music, that it is music of the day. That it does not need to be a certain style or format, just "now". And if we don't like what we hear now, it is incumbent upon us to help bring about change by writing and delivering new, "contemporary" genres that we want to help define the future of music.

Sometimes that is with new styles, sometimes it's fresh approaches such as Owl City's Fireflies, which though it may not have tremendous lasting ability, has an interesting new variation on old styles and is entertaining. It is also uplifting and innocent, something you don't find much of in radio-play these days (Do you still listen to terrestrial radio anyway?)

I've been quiet musically for awhile now as I try to decide exactly how I can contribute to a meaningful music dialogue about where we are going and how in the world we plan to get there.

In the next little while, I should have some interesting things to share with you, I hope.