The Way of the Johnny

I was talking with one of the owners of the guitar shop I teach at and we got onto the subject of photography because I gave him one of my business cards ( acephtgrphy.shutterfly.com ). He was still using his Nikon D60 in automatic mode and I was telling him he should read the manual and learn to use P mode. DSLR's are meant to be used in the more manual settings rather than the automatic settings. Here's a great website for all you DSLR owners who still use it in automatic mode: http://www.photoaficionado.com/situationroom/manual.html This started me thinking. With the prices of DSLR's constantly dropping and with more and more consumers able to buy them, the sheer photographic possibilities available to everyone have exponentially increased. Heck, I wouldn't have been able to afford a DSLR even 5 years ago, but now the cameras, lenses, and equipment are at a very reasonable price. So this makes me ask the question: why are there still so many people who aren...

I've started taking piano lessons from my mother-in-law and I'm looking forward to improving my piano-tickling skills. But she told me something interesting, and that is to NOT use a metronome. Being a bass player and a part of the rhythm section in numerous bands over the past 8 years, I found it strange that I should practice without some kind of beat. I enjoy music without a rhythm section and without a beat, don't get me wrong. I just found it interesting that she made it a point not to use the metronome. And I also found it interesting that there is so much controversy over using a metronome. I won't bore you with what I've found, just Google "metronome" for yourself. There seems to be a lot of people out there, both past and present, that really hate the metronome. Why? What's the big deal with something that gives you a beat? I think a musician's view of the metronome must be colored by the type of music they play. Classical music d...

I've been teaching guitar lessons at a guitar shop for about a month now and it's been a great experience. Teaching students really tries your patience, but it's also very rewarding to see them learn and figure things out. But this post isn't about teaching, it's about the guitar. I play a Yamaha FG -332-1 acoustic guitar in the lessons I'm currently teaching. It's a wonderful sounding guitar and it was my dad's before. It has a nice full, round sound and the action is a bit high, but I play bass normally, so the action isn't really that high to me. The shop where I teach guitar sells Chinese made guitars and I won't tell you how much they are, but let's just say that they're less than big name brand guitars. A LOT less. And the sound quality of the guitars? Let's just say that they're worth the price that the shop owner pays for them, NOT the cost that he sells them (which is almost 10 times what he pays for them). What r...

My mother-in-law gave me the article Ten Traits of Modern Technology I Hate by Michael J. Rayes and I read it mostly out of curiosity. Here's a link to the article . While I agree with some points in Mr. Rayes's article, I disagree with many of them. I'm probably about 10 years younger than Mr. Rayes (judging from his website and short biography) and I grew up at the tail end of Generation X. Although Mr. Rayes is well versed in technology, I believe I have a different, more positive view of technology because I grew up with it as an integral part of my life in the consumer sense. So, without further ado, here are my 10 responses to Mr. Rayes's Ten Traits: 10. Technology has always created an "artificial" generation gap Every generation in the 20th century has had some kind of technology that separates generations. When the car was invented, I'm sure the grandparents and parents who were used to horse-and-buggies had no clue how to drive them. Were ...