Eddie Vedder Ukulele Album

  Eddie Vedder is absolutely one of my favorite musical composers. He is not only the singer of Pearl Jam, but a very talented man as an individual artist.  He has done the soundtrack for "Into the Wild", and his Ukulele album is an extraordinary work of music.

  Every song on the album has nothing but his soothing voice and the tranquility that is brought with the sound of a Ukulele. The album consists of softer covers of songs like "Can't Keep", (from Pearl Jam's album "Riot Act"), and "Sleeping by Myself", (from the album "Lightning Bolt"). The album also has some originals such as "You're True", "Tonight You Belong to Me", and so many others. I love how not only the sound is so silent and peaceful, but Eddie even incorporated sounds of the ocean. The album not only emphasizes love, but a rest of mind, and whenever I am discouraged I let go of the world around, and go to this happy place through his music.
  My favorite songs on this album are "You're true", and "Longing to Belong". The reasons I feel such admiration towards these songs is because they focus of the positive aspects of the lover, as opposed to anger brought out in the hard rock band. The first song shows a commitment, and the second a desire for such commitment.
 In conclusion, I highly recommend this album to turn to when life has you feeling sad, it allows you to establish peace and enforces tranquility and positivity.

The Animals

   At this time I am currently into the artist "The Animals"'. This band was a rock band that started in the 1960s. They are very popular for their song, "House of The Rising Sun". The song can have many interpretations, but personally I believe the song is about ideas of a house of negativity or desperation for hope, as a representation of rarity and problems that are unsolved. The house is a representation of the impatience we all need to disregard, in order to overcome the challenges brought upon our shoulders throughout life. The need to be forgiven, and to be able to move on from the house of the rising hope to seek that hope. Other songs I admire by this group include "When I Was Young", "Spill the Wine", and my favorite "It's my Life", which was the first song I heard by this group."It's my Life'', can strongly connect to the social world,  because there are times people want to be so involved in impacting who you are, and society is constantly altering the "normal'' or ''cool''. Sometimes people would prefer questioning everything, and using positive influence to make them become who they want to be as a person, and accepting that being different is something that should be embraced. Regardless of society and it's impacts, we all live our own lives.

Guitar Techniques

  Today in my guitar lesson I used a technique that was often used by Jimi Hendrix. Instead of using your index finger to hold a fret, or section divided by the metal rods of a guitar, by using your thumb you have more control and power over the sound of a chord. If you use your index finger, it can be difficult to have a full sound, in the circumstance the top frets of a sixth string are being used. You can also mute and increase sound. In songs like "Purple Haze", "Little Wing", and "Castles Made of Sand". By using this style of guitar playing, the songs he played would have more power and a more announcing presence. 

 The reason I learned this was for an extension of the song, "Californication", and it's guitar solo. Because of this technique, the song became so smooth and simplistic to play when it came to times where a note on the sixth string was a challenge to overcome. 

The other technique I used was bending notes. Every time you hear a guitar play a note that sounds like it is falling or going up and down, the note is being bent. In order to make this noise, you go to the fret and string, and push the string and fret as upward as you can to allow a specific note to emerge. Bending notes is extremely common in rock music. Even in one of the most popular classic rock songs, "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zepplin, there is note bending in the solo. 

In "Californication", by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, both techniques can be applied in the solo, are easy to apply, and very important as far as the sounds of rock go, especially Classic, and Alternative.

Suggested Covers

 Many times there are covers of songs, that were originally popularized by a different artist. A cover is a term used to describe a song portrayed by another band than the original, indidualizes it, or tries to recreate its deep meaning. My personal favorite covers are Beatles covers.

  The first cover I love is "Happiness is a Warm Gun". Originally done by The Beatles, and taken over by The Breeders. As opposed to having happiness be a warm hug or something less empty and cold, a warm gun was set out to symbolize the way society is. Many times there are more pessimistic ways to view the world, which the song was trying to emphasize. In the original song, ideas of cannibalism, death, breaking, and falling apart were illustrated. The rhythm included tambourine, and half way through the song it sounded all cheery despite what it was truly saying. Similar to many nursery rhymes that sound happy but really have a more broad and realistic messages, this song was trying to warn you about how trust isn't something you should have with another person, unless of course you are okay with falling apart and realizing the fact that things are not what they appear as. The reason I love this cover is because the instruments tell an entirely different story and make the song and it's meaning more powerful, in addition to the sound of a gun locking in the beginning.

"Pod" the Breeders Album that consists of this cover. Some covers are done live, but this one was recorded. It was on a song off of the Beatles "White Album".

Another cover I really love is one by Eddie Vedder. I love his music so much because his voice is so clean and powerful, and the fact he covered this song is incredible to me. Eddie Vedder covered "Imagine", by John Lennon. Imagine is a very peaceful and happy song in great contrast to "Happiness is a Warm Gun", depending on how you interpret it. "Imagine", is a song for very open minded people to give them a second to have an image of a world different than the one they surround themselves with. Political humor was embedded as he said "Imagine there's no country.. it isn't hard to do", in reference to the conflicts destroying peace at that time, along with opening eyes to the values of the listener. "Imagine no possession.. I wonder if you can". Both Eddie and John remaining entirely powerful artists, delivered the meaning of the song at an equal level of importance.  The song is a source to advertise tranquility amongst us, as we question,  or imagine what the normal is, and I still am amazed how well of a cover it was. 

There are so many wonderful covers done of songs by my favorite band The Beatles, but the last one I was in awe of was "Oh!Darling" by Florence and The Machine. "Oh!Darling", was a very sweet promise to a lover not to hurt them, and how empty their life would be without them. The original version had the emphasis of dedication to this lover in terms of instruments as the drums and guitar sounds heightened, however, Florence had used her voice to deliver the strong meaning towards the end as opposed to instrumentals. The second I heard that cover I fell in love with it.

 In conclusion, these are songs by The Beatles, that had extraordinary covers portrayed by other artists I love as well, allowing the meaning and beauty not to fade over the course of time.