I am a musician, though I don’t read music. I have good pitch, but play by ear; I started with guitar by learning how to play based on basic guitar chord charts and transferred my skills to piano by seeing what notes made up the guitar chords and playing them on piano.A pianist friend told me I played inverted chords on the piano and it’s because of this hearing the notes in the order of the guitar strings. Interesting.

I don’t play bar chords on the guitar as they were always too demanding of my wrist and I lacked the strength in my fingers to do them well. I know just enough to realize the higher the notes are on the little lines, the higher they are to the ear, and I know that certain notes mean certain time intervals, like a whole note is four beats, a quarter note is one, etc.

Don’t ask me to play from sheet music unless I already know the song and there are guitar chords printed above the music so I can sound it all out and memorize it. I don’t even know how to read guitar tabs, but from the looks of it, it shouldn’t be hard for me to learn if I just take the time to learn it.

The time. That’s just it. If I want to get back into music, I need to discipline myself to take the time to learn it, and I don’t know if I want it that badly. Crazy, isn’t it? People who’ve known me for less than thirteen or so often don’t know that I play or that I used to write a lot of songs. I have not picked up my 12-string guitar or played my keyboard in many, many years. How sad is that?

I did take the step of having my hubby bring my keyboard up out of the basement and set it up on its stand in the office, at least. It’s there, waiting. So is my guitar. Unless the strings stay in good shape for over a decade of disuse, they need to be replaced.

That said, there are millions out there who can not only read guitar chords and tabs, but sheet music. They can pick up an unfamiliar piece and bring it to life the first time they read the music and play through it. What must that be like? I can only imagine!

I have some great links for any musician looking for music. And the drumroll please…

8Notes.com
A great site which offers free sheet music for piano, guitar, brass and more. This looks like a great resource with an active forum. It looks like they offer a lot for free and extras for those who subscribe to a paid service.

Ricci Adams’ Musictheory.net
This site offers free lessons, training games, and music utilities online. Further, it offers the complete course in downloadable version!

There are some highly-rated music theory DVD’s, software titles, and books available at Amazon, too:

My grandma wanted to pay for me to get piano lessons when I was a kid. Now I wish I’d taken her up on the offer. As an adult, I don’t know if I have the interest. Also, having played by ear, slowing down to plink out quarter notes would be torture. What do you think?

Do you have favorite music theory or tutorial websites? Please, share them in the comments!

The majority of the footage the filmmakers used was original full color film. They told the story through the eyes of a dozen people who were there, so the viewer saw the unfolding events from the individuals’ points of view.

In addition to soldiers, they featured a journalist and an Army nurse. Using narratives from the peoples’ journals, letters, and other writing, the stories unfold. Some surviving participants were filmed as they recollected their experiences; the old footage was narrated by actors playing the young versions of the people. As a result, it was very easy to be drawn into the stories.

There is graphic footage of wounded and dead soldiers and civilians, so exercise caution if you’re squeamish. As sobering as it is to view such footage, it is an unvarnished, un-Hollywood opportunity to learn about World War II. It also made me incredibly thankful that we have not had war on home soil since. I can’t imagine living through that and my heart goes out to people who live in countries where war and terrorism is an everyday occurrence.

I ran across the following photo gallery from Life Magazine’s  website, their sole means of publishing since they ceased print publication. These photos of the American homefront during the war are fascinating to me.

You can view the gallery at Life’s website, too, along with hundreds of other photos from the era. I would like to hear from others who watched the WWII in HD documentary, especially those who lived through those war years. What was your everyday life like? What got you through?

As my search engine, you shone
But you brought it on, never ceased to amaze
When Gmail took the throne
I was with you in the invitation-only days

And now my favorite app creatah
Has hatched another chick to grow
Let me help test drive this beta
And start Waving from Ohio!

Seriously, I migrated our websites’ e-mail to your apps and my husband and I are two early adopters who are LOVING the G1 phone and excited to see Android grow. Let us Wave, will ya?

This video of keynote presentation regarding Wave is almost 90 minutes long. If you’re into this kind of thing, enjoy!

I tell ya, sometimes I wish I had stayed in computer programming in college, way back in the late 1980′s. I would have a solid foundation and could even be developing for Android at this time. If I were an Android developer, I would certainly have attended the Google I/O Developer Conference. Had I attended the conference, I would now be playing with my free, unlocked, special-edition developer phone, the HTC Magic.

*Sigh*

I am a musician, though I don’t read music. I have excellent pitch, but play by ear; I started with guitar by learning how to play based on basic guitar chord charts and transferred my skills to piano by seeing what notes made up the guitar chords and playing them on piano.A pianist friend told me I played inverted chords on the piano and it’s because of this hearing the notes in the order of the guitar strings. Interesting.

I don’t play bar chords on the guitar as they were always too demanding of my wrist and I lacked the strength in my fingers to do them well. I know just enough to realize the higher the notes are on the little lines, the higher they are to the ear, and I know that certain notes mean certain time intervals, like a whole note is four beats, a quarter note is one, etc.

Don’t ask me to play from sheet music unless I already know the song and there are guitar chords printed above the music so I can sound it all out and memorize it. I don’t even know how to read guitar tabs, but from the looks of it, it shouldn’t be hard for me to learn if I just take the time to learn it.

The time. That’s just it. If I want to get back into music, I need to discipline myself to take the time to learn it, and I don’t know if I want it that badly. Crazy, isn’t it? People who’ve known me for less than thirteen or so often don’t know that I play or that I used to write a lot of songs. I have not picked up my 12-string guitar or played my keyboard in years. How sad is that?

I did take the step of having Howie bring my keyboard up out of the basement and set it up on its stand in the office, at least. It’s there, waiting. So is my guitar. Unless the strings stay in good shape for over a decade of disuse, they need to be replaced.

That said, there are millions out there who can not only read guitar chords and tabs, but sheet music. They can pick up an unfamiliar piece and bring it to life the first time they play through it. What must that be like? Wow.

I have some great links for any musician looking for music. And the drumroll please…

8Notes.com
A great site which offers free sheet music for piano, guitar, brass and more. This looks like a great resource with an active forum. It looks like they offer a lot for free and extras for those who subscribe to a paid service.

Musictheory.net
This site by Ricci Adams offers free lessons, training games, and music utilities online. Further, it offers the complete course in downloadable version!

If you have any favorite free music-related sites, please let me know. I’d love to expand on the links in this entry.

Olive’s way of speaking kills me. As the Depends-like package appears in the jumble of worldly goods falling from the nun’s closet, she says, “Ohhh, top shelf fem products!”.

Best yet, the Mother Superior’s assertion after calling the Vatican to check on Chuck, who is dressed as a nun and says her name is Sister Christian…

“‘Sister Christian’ is nothing but a heavy petting power ballad”.

Priceless. Especially coming from the mouths of those characters.

I must say, it killed me for Olive to spend two episodes in a mountain convent. And. Not. Sing. I got it, okay? It’s all “Hey guys! Let’s have Kristin look like she’s in the freakin’ Sound of Music, but not have her even hum a little tune or anything!” She even twirled around like Maria, for Pete’s sake!

Oh, you miserable teases.

Yes, it’s about a guy who can bring people back from the dead, but it’s not dark. Oddly, it’s an incredibly happy show, romantic and warm.

Additionally, it’s a show you can watch with kids. The death and violence portrayed on Pushing Daisies is Wile E. Coyote type death, cartoonish. I know there are those who think the Roadrunner cartoons are horrible. I’m not one of them.

The cast of this show is terrific. I don’t know what the casting process was like, but they did an excellent job of getting the right people in the right parts. This holds true from main characters all the way down to the briefest of cameo appearances.

Spoiler Alert: The following external links to pushingdaisies.wikia.com contain spoilers if you’re not current at least through Circus, Circus — Season 2, episode 3, aired on October 8, 2008!

The narrator, voiced by Jim Dale, ties everything together with perfect irony. Remember the Walgreen’s “Perfect” commercials? Dale’s narratives intone facts regarding the show’s most macabre elements, but with a melodious, grandfatherly voice; the result is what I think of as an aural oxymoron. You just don’t expect it.

I can’t possibly go into all the characters or plot details, but I’ll at least describe a few for you. You can see links to much more information at the bottom of this entry. Again, beware…Thar be spoilers within ‘em!

Ned the Pie Maker is played by Field Cate (young Ned) and Lee Pace (adult Ned). Young Ned rarely, if ever talks; this makes sense since his appearances have voiceovers by the narrator, who describes what happened. Lee Pace plays Ned straight and his facial expressions are wonderfully emotive. Ned is the object of two characters’ affections, Chuck and Olive.

Charlotte “Chuck” Charles, played by Sammi Hanratty (young Chuck) Anna Friel (adult Chuck), is Ned’s formerly-dead love interest, who Ned brought to life, but couldn’t stand to lose again and let live. As a consequence, the funeral director in charge of Chuck’s arrangements died. Now Ned can’t ever touch Chuck or she’ll die again, for good. Chuck is both pretty and intelligent, good at coaxing information out of people – a trait handy for solving murders.

Kristin Chenoweth’s pint-sized character is Olive Snook. (I blogged about Kristin last February, before I even knew about her involvement in this series.) It’s such a treat when Olive’s character has a musical number. I could just eat her up, she’s so good! She has wonderful timing and makes us laugh aloud.

Vivian and Lily Charles are Chuck’s spinster aunts. These oddball sisters, played by Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene respectively,  are cheese aficionados who used to have a popular synchronized swimming act, the Darling Mermaid Darlings. As far as they know, their niece Chuck is dead and buried. This plot element provides fodder for many good scenes and subplots.

Private Investigator Emerson Cod, played with gruff, deadpan genius by Chi McBride, learns of Ned’s unique gift and partners with him in crime-solving endeavors. What could be easier? Ned revives the victim with a touch and asks who killed him, then touches him again to re-dead him. Emerson then takes credit for solving the mystery and collects the reward money, which he splits with Ned and Chuck.

Remember that 1-minute time limit? Yeah. Emerson is adamant about that, especially seeing how it could be him who kicks the bucket if the corpse talks a blue streak and Ned loses track of time.

That brings me to some of the most delightfully disgusting characters on the show, the corpses. I’m trying to find some good stills of these characters, but am not having much luck. This show couldn’t be what it is without the makeup artists who bring these crime victims to life — or should I say death? The makeup artists are some of this show’s biggest contributors. This video clip from the official site provides some behind-the-scenes footage and an explanation of how and why these characters are depicted as they are.

The wardrobes are fanciful, truly amazing. They’re so popular, fans post on pages like Chuck Chic for finding lookalikes of popular togs on the show. Here’s another behinds-the-scenes video, this one about the wardrobe department:

Curious? Want to read more? Here are some more Pushing Daisies links. Again, beware the spoilers! Also, have your favorite pop-up blocker enabled, because some (*cough*insider*cough*) are brutal when it comes to ads.

• Official Pushing Daisies website
• Official character and actor bios
• Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
• The Piemaker — GREAT site, one of my favorites
• Pushing Daisies Wikia
• Pushing-Daisies
• Discussion forum at Television without Pity (TWoP)
• Pushing Daisies Insider

It’s just a wonderful show. I encourage you to buy or rent the Pushing Daisies Season 1 DVD and catch up. ABC aires episodes for free online, and it’s not too late to catch up.

If you love the show, let ABC know. You can let them know by participating in their official Pushing Daisies message boards and by writing ABC right from the website. You can also join me in contacting the show’s commercial sponsors and let them know how much you enjoy this series.

John and lovely Connie

We’re huge fans of John Tesh and are going to see his Alive! Music & Dance concert in Cleveland on October 23. We’re so excited!

We’ve been fans since before he was cool. He is cool, right? Oh well, we’re in our 40′s, so coolness is not so much a criteria for us. Actually, it never was. We like what we like, critics be hanged!

But I digress.

So, my head’s been in the Teshosphere today. In honor of our favorite musician, I decided to do a whole fan page for John Tesh: Teshy Goodness.

On it, I talk about our first exposure to his music, the first (and, until now, only) time we saw him in concert, and some things I admire about him. I’ve also included some links, thrown in my Teshilicious YouTube playlists and put in a nifty Amazon widget where you can listen to his music.

Enjoy!

What’s a good remedy for the blues? How about all kinds of baby animals and a song about vacation? I just saw this Weezer video and it made me smile. It’s directed by Spike Jonze and is pure fun.

Be sure to check out :36 when you watch it. The lyrics to Island Under the Sun are below the video. Enjoy!

Island in the Sun
By Weezer

hip hip
hip hip
hip hip
hip hip

When you’re on a holiday
You can’t find the words to say
All the things that come to you
And I wanna feel it too

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

hip hip
hip hip

When you’re on a golden sea
You don’t need no memory
Just a place to call your own
As we drift into the zone

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

We’ll run away together
We’ll spend some time forever
We’ll never feel bad anymore

hip hip
hip hip
hip hip

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

We’ll run away together
We’ll spend some time forever
We’ll never feel bad any more

Hip Hip

We’ll never feel bad anymore
(hip hip)
(hip hip)
No no
(hip hip)
(hip hip)
We’ll never feel bad anymore
(hip hip)

on an island in the sun

The credits on YouTube said with Spike Jonze, Vincent Landay. The upload there was poor quality, though, so I found it elsewhere. The first video they put out for this is also known as the Mexican Wedding version. You can see it here.

I first heard Weezer’s music when their Buddy Holly video came pre-loaded on Windows 95 as a sample video. Remember that classic, which magically put them in Arnold’s on Happy Days? Yep, that was a long time ago, especially when you think of what technology was popular back then.

Anyway, I didn’t keep up with Weezer for many years, but my interest in them is renewed.

Poor little fella. They scared the candy right outta him.