Blimey, been a while!

It's been ages since I've written and I apologise for that. I blame an equal mix of being busy and being lazy. Terrible excuses. The things we don't get round to doing define us as much as the things we do...

So what have I been up to?! Well, a whole load of this and that! I've been re-recording songs properly for my new solo album. It's a little laborious when you work on these things just by yourself. The ears get tired, the will gets lazy. Instead of finding that sweet spot for the guitar sound through the proper setup, you fudge one out using the built in amps, but let's face it, that will never sound as good as the real thing.

For now my beautiful girls are with me so there's no time for recording, it takes a back seat till later in September, but it's very nearly ready.

Of course the next question will be which songs make it on there. There are four of which only two are needed and depending on the day I choose a different two. I'll get there eventually. In reality I obviously don't sell many so it's almost a vanity project but I'd like it to be as good a vanity project as possible.

Having someone else to work with makes the process faster, but my solo stuff I've nearly always done by myself so it's always a little odd when someone else is there.

I'll come into my little guitar tip in a minute, but I thought I would share something else first.

I enjoy writing and am currently working on two books. I have been working on these for a long time but out of all the projects I do they're bottom of the pile.

I was asked to forward part of one to a publisher in the US (I'll keep their name out of it) so I did. They replied asking who my literary inspirations were. Now, whereas there are many great writers I read, the stuff which really influenced and formed my writing style was the stuff I read at an early-ish formative age. These days I might admire and enjoy a writer (and obviously steal some style) they don't have the impact on my method of writing as the earlier books did. I sent back a list of these, mostly from early 90s and before (I had a passion for post modernist books). I gave them four authors, not worth giving a huge list I thought. The reply which came back was:

"We notice all the writers you have listed are male. As 40% of our readers are female you should consider putting female writers in there as well".

I thought this was odd because firstly a fact is a fact. I can't put in a writer just for the sake of it, either they influenced me or they didn't. Secondly this means that 60% of their readers are male, and thirdly who buys a book based solely on which authors influenced the writer?! It was very bizarre. I wrote back stating that I thought their response bordered on a load of bollocks, and, as you can probably guess, the relationship did not flourish.

I personally would have thought that the most important thing for a novel is, well, the actual novel. It was interesting to see that outside the world of music the world of literature is also full of stupid notions and concepts which make no sense. In a way the death of the literary agent and record label are both long overdue as they are run by obscure concepts and strange people!!

By the way, reading H(A)PPY for the moment, by a female author and it's brilliant. It won't change my style of writing though, and I have absolutely no idea what her influences were, I couldn't care less!

So, you want some guitar stuff?!

Thought I'd give you a very simple trick. In each key you have three major chords, three minor chords, and a diminished chord. It goes like this:

Major minor minor major major(dominant) minor diminished

What does this actually mean and how can you easily work it out?

So, this is the basic rules of what chords will work on the key of A Major. So, if you're doing session work for example you might be told "It's in A major, I, III, IV, II" Instead of the actual chords. This also means if you need to change key you don't need to be told the new chords because it's always the first (root), third chord in the scale, fourth, second and so on. You play the scale and you know which chords they are. Please note these are not the only chords you can use but in 99% of commercial music they don't break the form.

So which are major and minor?! Well, in A on a guitar if you play the bar chord A on 5th fret (EMaj shape) you do the old blues 3 chord shapes, and those are your major chords (A,D,E - I, IV, V). Then move your finger down three frets and repeat the shape, those are your minor chords (F#, B, C# - VI, II, III). Go back to your root (A) down one fret and that's your diminished chord. This pattern works everywhere on the fretboard and suddenly it all gets easier!!

I might do a video blog to show this sort of stuff but not sure what kit I need. Should be able to do it with phone and mic I guess so I'll give it a go.

Wonder if any of what I write makes sense...