DADGAD Tuning - 12-String Guitar - Grunge

"DADGAD Tuning" is a very cool way to play something new on the 12-String Guitar. It sounds so full and compelling. I got out the guitar and decided to play with the tuning the other night before bed.

I truly enjoyed my self. I am listening to a recording of a DADGAD tuning theme I mixed. I used a phaser on it and it is phasing between speakers right as I type. It is pleasant has a good tempo and some lead along with the rhythm of my made up chord progression.

What a great way to experiment with your guitar. Trying out different fingerings and making up chords and repetitions. Its a bear tuning it all back to the regular tuning but it is worth every minute of playing and improvising.

More Grunge in today's image. I just like it a lot, the grunge factor I mean. It has captured my imagination for some time now. Textures, lines, fonts, adapted pieces of art and guitars. So much fun putting it all together.

I used PhotoPaint for the basic image, resampling the texture to fit my size requirements. I used CorelDRAW for some vectoring and fitting text on a path. I have placed flowers in the image too, see if you can find them in the enlarged size (F11 to increase viewing on your browser.) I even added some paint splatters. Great fun!

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - DADGAD Theme
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Milestone 200th Post - Grunge Guitar

Hard to believe I have reached my 200th post on my blog. Time has passed by and I have tried to keep it entertaining and imaginative, personal and yet technical at times.

My blog is about Digital Visual Art and Music and I think I've done a fair job keeping it real and on track.

Today's image is another Grunge based one. I added some nonsense text, some chords and part of a lyric chorus for the piece. I used a background of rock and an Alvarez guitar doctored up with Thredgeholder filter and KPT's Collection Pyramid Paint filter on it. I stretched the image of the basket and pulley for interest, which was made into a Pencil Sketch in Paint.NET and overlaid with object property of Color Burn with transparency. All done in PhotoPaint.

I like the new grunge fonts I recently got off the net. One is called Ugly Face! Another is called Yukon Gold. Love free fonts from FontSpace and Chank and others.

Search "Free Fonts" and discover what is out there.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Spending the Afternoon - Original
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As The Garden Grows - A Chord Progression

"Fictional Portraits" is now finished, for the time being. It is my hope you enjoyed the images posted, both the simple ones and the Grunge pieces.

Today I am switching to a view of our garden with the stony path that leads to the front of the house. We have planted many perennials that come up year after year. Some years they are fuller than this year for some reason. But it is still a wonderful garden to view and have.

The image is from a photograph, taken with my Canon Rebel XTi. I used Paint.NET to give it an ink print appearance, boosting the coloring to it's full. Then opening it in PhotoPaint I adjusted the saturation and the Tone Curve to highlight the color and deepen the image. This stone path is uneven to walk on but is an attractive addition to the perennials.

I am listening to one of my favorite instrumentals I have created. It has a good back beat from Jim Dooley's free drum loops, and a cruising tempo and rhythm, with a simple lead.

It is titled by the chords used for the basic song structure. I have the chords typed up for myself as my memory isn't what is used to be. I am aging myself again.

Instrumental

A

A Bm C#m D
A Bm C#m
A Bm C#m D
A Bm C#m

E F#m
E F#m
E F#m
E

A

A Bm C#m D
A Bm C#m
A Bm C#m D
A Bm C#m

E F#m
E F#m
E F#m
E

A

A Bm C#m D
A Bm C#m
A Bm C#m D
A Bm C#m

E F#m
E F#m
E F#m
E

A

A Bm C#m D
A Bm C#m
A

You can give it a try it sounds very nice. Jazz up the tempo or smooth it out depending on your mood. Have fun with it.

Many thanks to Kara for her comment on my previous blog posting. Here is a link to her blog DISH.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - A Bm C#m D Run
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Fictional Portraits VIII - Simple Grunge - Social Media

Social Media seems to be so popular now. But I remember when Compuserve had forums for sharing art and comments, at 300 baud. That may have been the beginning of social contact through the computer and the internet.

I also remember the old Bulletin Boards where most of what was shared was in text form, at 300 baud. So these two examples may have been the forerunners of Social Media networking.

Now with Web 2.0 and easy to format blogging and other forms of Social Media anyone (including me) can become a publisher of content of both text and images.

A Simple Grunge piece today, again from my sketchbook scanned into the computer. "Samuel" is the title of this fictional face. I used Painter 8 for the watercolor and Corel's PhotoPaint for the rest of the image manipulation. A texture stretched to fit added some flavor to the piece.

Yesterday I got out my songbook of my own tunes and practiced playing and singing. I find I have tempo problems if I start with a specific tempo I tend to gravitate to it with the next song. So I need to be careful of the tempo I use for each practice session and each tune. I do have a electronic metronome on the computer but I don't always practice in front of it. So it is an exercise in memory and patience. But I so enjoy the time I spend playing the 12-string and singing.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - The River
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Fictional Portraits VII - Vector Grunge

Still looking for comments as to whether "Grunge" design is continuing to be popular, it is a favorite of mine.

I especially like the distressed fonts and the grungy backgrounds for some reason. Today I am sharing "Malcom," for your examination. I used a fictional face from my sketchbook scanned into the computer as a basis for the composition.

Painter 8 provided the watercolor brushes for "Malcom". CorelDRAW was used to make the vectored graphics, the freehand drawing tool. I also used PhotoPaint to create the transparent guitars and flowers.

"Malcom" looks to be rather sad, it must have been a sad tune I was drawing to when I sketched him. I captured the sadness fairly well, in my humble opinion.

I had a surprise today. I have Google Alerts set for blogs about "Digital Art" and my previous blog posting showed up in my Alerts. I was very pleased to see it among the others. It helps me keep up on the Visual Arts in the Digital realm of blogging.

Listening to music as I work on this post, some "Collective Soul" tunes. Nice. I haven't done much musically my self recently. I have been pretty busy, and that makes me miss my guitar. but I always return to it when I have the time and the desire to create a new song.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Collective Soul - Perfect Day
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