The CANJAC Blues

I recently recorded a demo version of a song I’m entitleing “The CANJAC Blues” using my portable Zoom H2 recorder. It’s a tune designed to go with a song we sang when I was at CANJAC (Canadian Junior Achievement Conference). The demo sports me on acoustic guitar, both rythm and some improvised blues soloing. Since I’m not much of a singer the demo lacks vocals. I’m sure most people who ever went to CANJAC will recognize the melody, but I’ll throw in some sample lyrics below.

• “The CANJAC Blues” demo

The recording is also available via the Music page in the sidebar.

I’m planning to record this song with vocals, electric guitar, bass and drums sometime in the future. Needless it will be extended with more verses, and maybe even a bridge.

Sample lyrics (sung between the two guitar solo parts)

From kitchen to kitchen
CANJAC is really bitchin’

From kitchen to kitchen
CANJAC is really bitchin’

Frome east to west
CANJAC is the best

Alternatively one can change “From kitchen to kitchen, CANJAC is really bitchin’” with “From coast to coast, CANJAC is the most” and so on.
It is entirely possible that it was my team leader who came up with the kitchen stuff actually…

New acoustic arriving soon!

I have just ordered a new acoustic guitar at the local instruments dealer. It’s from a brand called “Norman” which comes from the lovely country of Canada, more specifically Quebec. It’s my first “solid top” acoustic, and due to this and an overall quality improvement over my previous acoustics it costs quite a bit more. The “solid top” is made from canadian cedar which has already fallen, and as such it is a very dry wood which makes it excellent for guitar production. Seing as Canada also has a very similar climate to Norway a Canadian made guitar is perfectly suited for the norwegian climate. Before ordereing the guitar I tried a similar one in the shop by Norman’s sister brand “Art Lutherie”, which is basically the same guitar without a built-in pickup for recording/amplifying the guitar. In my experience the guitar sounded exceptionally well, and it was also quite easy to play (at least by comparing it to my current acoustic where the strings are too high). I don’t know for sure what kind of guitar finish I am getting, although I believe the one they showed me in the catalog is quite similar to the one I tried (showed below).

Pink Floyd – The Wall – Is there anybody out there?

I have been listening to Pink Floyd extensively for the last couple of days. Being a long time fan of the classic songs of Pink Floyd, such as “Money”, “Another Brick in the Wall part 2″ and later also much of “The Division Bell”, “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Wish You Were Here” albums I recently started acquiring even more of their albums (now only lacking one studio album, which has been ordered online). I just listened to a song from “The Wall” album (disc 2) entitled “Is there anybody out there?” and I was immediately puzzled at the “classical guitar” part. It sounds amazingly like some part of the original James Bond theme, albeit the James Bond theme was never (at least to my knowledge) played like that on guitar. The weirdest part, however, is that I have extracted three of the same chords like in the Pink Floyd song only by listening to the original James Bond theme (this is probably something “Teddy” can verify). I must sound like I’m completely insane by now but I really found this puzzling, scary even.